That is true. Why people think enormous content servers should be run for free boggles my mind…

I should have stated it the other way round. Free and ad driven by default (like normal and like what people are used to) but an optional premium tier that removes ads and gives more control of your feed.

Israel cares more about their people than Hamas does theirs

I think capitalist ghoulishness dominates innovation at the moment. Because massive resources will always be ahead doing new things. But at some point - I hope - a fairly agreeable social network becomes a sort of ‘solved problem’. Perhaps some FOSS version becomes available that’s not cutting edge but gets the job done. It would lack the sophisticated needed to coerce people and milk their attention, but that’s not needed for our purposes.

I’m wondering how long it’ll be till social media is basically a ‘solved problem’. As in, there becomes available a foss clone of Facebook (or whatever) that’s close enough to be useable and enjoyable. If such a thing were set up with ads design need to cover costs not maximise profit (and therefore there aren’t as many) or with a reasonable priced ad free tier that covers costs and only a modest profit then would people possibly be attracted to such an “ethical” offering?

How about it starts free + ad based like any other network but offers a premium tier that removes ads and gives full control of feed that current networks don’t offer. They don’t offer this because manipulating people is apparently far more lucrative than any reasonably priced premium tier. But this is only because they’re a ‘profit at any cost’ company. If an alternative ethical social network advertised the fact that it only makes a modest profit so that it’s free tier is ad based but not unhealthy and the premium tier is reasonably priced. I wonder if such a thing is possible.

Obviously no current network does this because they’re investor funded and committed to max profits.

Yes. I perhaps should have stated the other way round.

What about “ethical” social network. That’s free and ad based if you want that. And the ads are present but less manipulative because the goal is to cover costs not maximise profit.

And then that’s a premium option if you want to have no ads and full control of your content feed.

The reason Facebook and co don’t offer this is because they apparently make massive amounts from each user ($68). And that only because they engage in whatever ghoulish behaviour get people locked in enough to deliver that

An ethical social network wouldn’t have to drive as much per user, because it would publicly limit itself to modest profit. Covering free use with ads presumably possible. Cost of premium being running cost + modest profit seems like it wouldn’t be that high surely?

People hate subscription based models because the company is maximising profit and engaging in every kind of bait and switch it can get away with

That’s why I’m wondering if there would be an appetite for an ethical social network, where the DNA of the company is based upon covering running costs and only a moderate profit.

The fact that it wouldn’t unreasonable hike prices once you’re hooked in or reintroduce ads to paid tiers would be the very appeal on the platform.

Obviously, no-one is immune to being offered millions in ad deals to try and reverse that ethical stuff. Which is why I suppose it would either have to be a very public commitment to ethical behaviour from the outset which protects backtracking and sellouts somewhat. Or else it has to get founded as an actual not-for-profit to make a future change almost impossible. Developers still get paid of course, even very well. Just no-one has the incentive to maximise share value by shitty crooked behaviour.

That’s the idea - it’s a choice. If people want free or don’t care about ads - then that’s how their use gets funded. For people who want no ads and no curation of their feed to favour advertisers , then theres the premium option.

I guess the difference would be the premium cost is self limited to running costs + modest profit and for this reason the whole site is promoted as ethical…

Really? Jeez. Last I heard, evidently incorrectly, was a few dollars at best. That explains their ghoulishness somewhat.

Even so, Facebook brings in enormous profit. Evidently a result of maximizing whatever they can get away with

I’m wondering what the costs are to cover just hosting / content delivery.

Ie, is it feasible at some point that a not-for-profit social platform comes about. Or a for profit one that promotes itself as ethical and subsequently charges premium users based on running costs + moderate profit rather than pushing every kind of manipulative behaviour it can get away with just to maximise ad value.

People pay to remove ads from YouTube, Netflix, Amazon etc.

The point wouldn’t be to put people off, you can still push the platform to the masses as “free”. It’s just that once you’re there if you find the ads annoying or you don’t want your feed algo’d to death, then it has a “remove ads” paid option that currently platforms all lack…

Disable ads for $2 a month?

Just anything this doesn’t then try to bleed people in every conceivable way…

All the algo manipulation comes from an over reliance on ad income. If a social network put its costs + a modest profit onto premium users what would that look like?

Surely at some point a network that can honestly say “we aren’t reliant on sponsors” is going to be appealing to enough people. (Even if there is then a free ad supported tier for those who don’t have an option - it would hardly be worse than what they’ve currently got)

How hard is it to run a platform charging a couple dollars a month so that you don’t need to turn into a ghoulish capitalist nightmare? Like, really. If even one of them went the “no ads, ever, just a tiny monthly fee” wouldn’t that be better? Wouldn’t everyone flock there? Is everyone so dumb that they think these huge sites will run for free?? No… wait I think I’ve answered my own question…

“Our new GestureSupport(“Gestapo”) means you can now upvote by striking your arm up and to the right…”

Invoking determinism is fine, just be aware it rarely solves the problem you think it does.

Saying ‘some bad thing happened - the universe made it happen, it’s not my fault’ - what are you really wanting to achieve with that? If it was beyond your ability to do otherwise, then you probably want to process this some other way (mindfulness / therapy / talking it out with someone) until your emotions align with the facts. Because you don’t have a “responsibility” problem you have a “thinking it was my responsibility when it wasn’t” problem. And appealing to determinism isn’t going to change your habit of doing that.

On the other hand, if you actually could have made a difference / prevented it but knowingly didn’t (or were sufficiently careless that your culpability is real) then appealing to fate might be a short term plaster but it’s a bad long term fix.

And this is because rather than dealing with a feeling of guilt or dealing with how you make choices you are masking these things by making yourself out to be a passive object that life happens to. Again, as a short term cope that can be fine, but do you see how making a habit of that just undermines your ability to believe you can grow and be better?

At its extreme appealing to determinism can remove your perception of everyone’s responsibility. “Everything’s inevitable”… “We’re all just biological machines”… “I couldn’t help it”… And while, from a certain point of view, physics can lend evidence to determinism. It doesn’t actually affect how life works because even if we are all biological machines, we still need to ascribe what we call ‘responsibility’ to the biological machine through which something undesirable came. People will still want to avoid people who hurt them. The law will still have to segregate the wrongdoer. Even if everything is now “deterministic”. (The Amazon warehouse sorting robots will isolate a misbehaving robot even if that robot has not one jot of control over its programming - if you see what I mean).

So all I’m saying is belief in “fate” has an illusory power. Where it makes us feel less bad about something. But taken to its extreme it makes us not feel responsible for anything, while life carries on as normal and inevitably penalises us for that.

So it’s better for you to expose yourself to the pain of “yes it was my fault” (if indeed it was). But then in that pain not to give way to hopelessness, but rather realise pain (if based on truth) is a fuel by which to change yourself. Get other’s help if necessary. But don’t give up the opportunity to grow. The pain is actually a sign you care, don’t deaden that. It’s the stuff of life.

I went to school with half of them

Serf lives matter

Shout out to Scooby Doo for teaching kids that weirdness always had a misbehaving adult behind it and that no-one is above the law

As with how Nazism worked in Germany, I think a large amount of power and influence is happy to go along with whichever way the winds blowing but are not as committed to certain ideologies as much as the demogogues and fanatics. Hitler hid the final solution from the German populace, even when treating Jewish people like shit was a fairly normalised thing to do. That’s because even amongst the population of German ‘nazis’, many believed in the superiority of WASPs, would turn a blind eye to a Jewish person being beaten and robbed, but would balk at women and children being systematically exterminated on just a human level. Many “nazi” civilians were horrified and ashamed when the extermination camps came to light, even if they accepted concentration (prison) camps via ‘out of sight out of mind’.

I think it’s far more likely Trump and co will get into a situation where “natural” or mob “justice” does as much as they care to do in that regard. That is, if predominantly black areas of a city have high crime and murders “screw them that’s their fault”. If that leads to inequality and shorter lives “screw them that’s their fault”. If illegal migrants get turned back at the border and die in the desert “screw them that’s their fault”. If trans people suffer trying to fit into society “screw them they’re the ones who want to act different”. And so on.

I think it’ll absolutely result in suffering and death. But run an actual extermination camp in the 21st century? Well a) it wouldn’t be a secret at all b) for all its blagging America still very much needs its trading partners in Europe who would be horrified and c) a good chunk of maga would be horrified (some wouldn’t but a whole load would). As much as it’s fashionable to cast them all as brainrot sycophants, this isn’t quite true in reality…

I think Trump fascism is about power and about WASP culture prestige and superiority, but I think money counts for far more than ethnic ideology. By all accounts Maga has never had an issue with the EB-5 visa program (aka “buying a green card”). For about a million dollars anyone in the world can become a US citizen as long as they create 10 or more American jobs with their investment. Most of these visas go to Chinese immigrants, but applications are also accepted from Mexico, Vietnam, India, Nigeria etc. Last time he was in office Trump extended the program.

It’s all about power (according to them). If you’ve got money and you tow the line you’re fine irrespective of ethnicity. If you’re the “right kind” (white kind) of poor you may get help. Everyone else will find any kind of help very hard to come by even as their neighborhood becomes more lawless and lethal.

I think it’s a hair worth splitting because I find it very unlikely that he actually subscribes to the goals that the Germany Nazi party had. And I think he relies on this in order to cultivate the ‘owning the libs’ narrative he keeps with his supporters and acolytes. He’s fascist (and dangerous) and mischaracterising him plays into his hands to be honest…