My vision of future open platforms are ones that do not make as much money as Facebook because they do not profile people. You can still sell advertising, indeed you have to find a way to pay the bills (just as they do here on the Bitcoin Forum), but you won't be able to command the same price as highly targeted ads. You might be able to allow users to opt-in to some general demographic information so that, for example, men's products are shown to men and women's products to women. I don't know, but I believe all sharing should be opt-in, with the platform completely locked down by default. Corporate tendencies are precisely the opposite, but I believe user privacy must come first on social media services. You must be able to both (a) ensure user control over privacy and use of their content and (b) still make a viable business model.
One of the projects we have in our incubation program is going to be a fully open-source social media platform that will eventually have services analogous to Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Instagram, Periscope.
Ultimately, I think that social and other decentralized services will benefit from devices like the Bitseeds for Bitcoin nodes. I imagine an appliance device that is "set it and forget it", and you can opt-in to the services you want to participate in and the system will automatically operate nodes for those services. It has to be made as easy as a smartphone app to use, maybe have some advanced mode tweaking for people like us. I could see someone purchasing a device like that if they received a benefit they don't now have. Like a Kodi box but doing lots behind the scenes that the average user doesn't need to worry about. People could choose to build their own, but many will just choose to buy a plug and play solution.
Social media, and other services, have abused the trust of their users for a long time. New services are needed that purposely build in barriers to prevent that and are transparent and open-source.
Best regards,
Ben
Thanks, Ben, for this beautiful insight. It's clear to me how those platforms are making huge profiles from the people's data and the market behind. That's why I don't use facebook (I had a facebook profile once but I erased it in a month or so, for I truly despise the whole idea of being in there).
I believe, as you, that the future of social media should be decentralized. Even I have had some dreams about developing a system where anybody can interact with many other people by a decentralized platform and in where identity, ubication, phone number and this kind of stuff will never be required.
The problem I see here is the people, to be honest. For they are willing to share whatever information and they don't even care about if this information is related to someone else. The most important point for the people seems to be to receive some attention for their network "friends", to get some "likes" and to feel important for a second. This is truly sad, for Facebook is showing how people are desperate about feeling important for a while, doesn't matter the price (privacy), but the immediate result: "likes".
I think the Zuck trial is not going anywhere. There are those who claim to be in their right of using Facebook as they will. Many friends of me, even, said: "I don't care about privacy, for I have nothing to hide".
This is the most common though.
I followed the entire comparison on the internet stream and I was truly surprised about the questions. They don't even seem to have a real interest in the most concerning part of the Facebook mere existence:
- Shadow accounts. They were barely mentioned, even when it is clearly non-legal to collect data from non-users. They asked Zuck about it, but all the answers where vague an imprecise, and they didn't push out as they should.
- How to erase your data. Zuck claims again and again you can erase whatever you want whenever you desire, but it isn't true. If you want to completely delete your Facebook account is going to take almost a month, and if, by mistake, you push the like button in any other website (where facebook has many buttons like this) you will be push to wait longer and longer. So deleting your account doesn't happends when you whant, but when they want.
There are too many other points of concern. But the most concerning one, under my perspective, is the lack of interest in the common people. They just want their "Likes", they just want to feel important for a while, even when their friends and family privacy is compromised.
Ok, I don' t have a Facebook Account, I really believe in what you said about a decentralized blockchain-based social media, but if anybody takes a picture of me and uploads it to facebook I can do nothing, for I don't have an account and I can't ask for it to be removed.
This is serious. Really serious. We all are under vigilance by our own relatives who are willing to share even our information without our permission.
I can't be as optimistic as you. I truly believe only a few are going to use decentralized new platforms, for the people just want to have their likes, I repeat. Their soma, their drug. I don't want any picture of me on facebook, I don't want my face to be public but, nevertheless, there it is, for many relatives think I am exaggerating the question.
Terrible.