I love the idea of paid social media.
Theres so few people who’d pay for it that all the social media companies would, hopefully, collapse and cure us of one of the worst technoplagues of the 21st century.
Welcome to the Age of Paid Social Media
Submitted 1 year ago by psychothumbs@lemmy.world to technology@lemmy.world
https://gizmodo.com/welcome-to-the-age-of-paid-social-media-1850899396
Comments
A_Random_Idiot@lemmy.world 1 year ago
realitista@lemm.ee 1 year ago
I’d pay some reasonable subscription, say $1 a month to the maintainer of lemm.ee for the promise to keep my data safe. To Zuck and Elon absolutely not.
h3mlocke@lemm.ee 1 year ago
I pay like $2 or $3 a month to lemm.ee dev, its worth it to me.
joel_feila@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Yeah web site cost money and developers need food. So its adds, subs or donations
gian@lemmy.grys.it 1 year ago
Theres so few people who’d pay for it that all the social media companies would, hopefully, collapse and cure us of one of the worst technoplagues of the 21st century.
I would not be that sure. As long as they will offer the choice between paying with cash or with data, social media companies will survive.
ilinamorato@lemmy.world 1 year ago
It would just be corporations paying for it, and paying for ever more direct access to individuals.
Sgt_choke_n_stroke@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Imagine paying a company, who sells your data, to see memes
tacosplease@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Fine. But imagining it is as far as I will go.
cyberpunk007@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Mandatory blood sample to register.
SCB@lemmy.world 1 year ago
If you read the article, you’ll note that paid subscriptions are for ad-free services, which means your data is worthless, which means it won’t be sold.
The entire point of these models is to comply with EU rules on data harvesting.
dustyData@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Lol, it will still be sold. They are still tracking your attention span and clicks. I can already think of two or three correlation tests to sell to advertisers based on that information alone.
rikudou@lemmings.world 1 year ago
Well, Fediverse it is. When thousand people pay for thousand servers, it’s better for everyone - no ads and no fees and the ones hosting the content don’t need the money to survive. Some people will voluntarily donate to you, most will not, but in the end everyone is happy.
GenderNeutralBro@lemmy.sdf.org 1 year ago
It works for Wikipedia, which is probably the single most important site on the Internet.
It also works for podcasts, well enough to produce an enormous amount of high-quality content, both from independent productions and networks.
Bizarroland@kbin.social 1 year ago
I just wish that Wikipedia didn't donate the money that people donated to it to other charities.
They recently donated a million dollars of their donations to other charitable causes and in theory I'm fine with that but in practice I feel like sort of tricked or betrayed and I just don't like it.
I refuse to ever donate to them again until they swear to never ever do that again.
BraveSirZaphod@kbin.social 1 year ago
Wikipedia also has to regularly beg for donations and is probably something of an outlier.
Pretty much every podcast I've ever heard has sponsors and built-in ads, or at least shout-outs.
I do think Patreon-style funding is a really good model, but ultimately, most people will not pay for a thing if they can get it for free and tell themselves that other people will pay for it instead. Exceptions to that exist, but they're rare.
small44@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Wikipedia get big donations from big cooporations and wealthy people unlike most other donation based app
Sterile_Technique@lemmy.world 1 year ago
*looks around at Lemmy*
I love y’all.
huginn@feddit.it 1 year ago
… but also pay to support your instance. Don’t be a leech.
Arthur_Leywin@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Yo can you spot me for a few months?
darkmogool@feddit.de 1 year ago
To be fair, you always paid it… just not with money…
Player2@sopuli.xyz 1 year ago
Yet another reason not to use that stuff, as if we needed more
RememberTheApollo_@lemmy.world 1 year ago
I refuse to be both.
You want me to dodge ads and try to scrape my data from your service in order to use it? Fine.
Want me to pay for the service? Maybe…
I will not support double dipping while pushing ads in my face. Fuck right off.
SocialMediaRefugee@lemmy.world 1 year ago
I remember when cable tv first started the big promise was that since you were paying for it the cable channels would be ad free. Well that lasted about a week.
Dark_Arc@social.packetloss.gg 1 year ago
If that was the case I might actually pay for cable TV.
ShustOne@lemmy.one 1 year ago
This would be for an ad free version.
But they’d still farm our data so no thanks.
ArcaneSlime@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 year ago
As in “they pay me to use their garbage?”
If else: “No.”
2deck@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Agreed! Join me in the real world, it’s free.
militaryintelligence@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Not exactly. It’s the age of stockholders, and doing what’s best for them is the law. They expect unlimited growth
oakey66@lemmy.world 1 year ago
If they didn’t farm data and charged for it maybe it would have lasted longer before turning to shit. But demanding payment while farming data is just insane.
SocialMediaRefugee@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Airline seats could be fixed if the gov had any backbone but social media isn’t some essential service so good luck with it.
Pxtl@lemmy.ca 1 year ago
Social media has a natural moat because what matters it what users are there. As long as social media sites don’t federate with each other, there will be an evolutionary pressure to start amazing and get progressively worse as your users are locked-in and you can exploit them for the profit of your shareholders.
Paying improves the situation because the users are customers and not eyeballs to sell, but still – they’re there for their friends and follows. If they can’t get those same friends and follows on another site, you can screw them as hard as you like.
derpgon@programming.dev 1 year ago
Maybe this will finally get people to fuck off social media. It’s toxic and good for nothing. I wish we had forums back and people would start using them again.
SocialMediaRefugee@lemmy.world 1 year ago
That lack of organization on the user side is really the killer. The best you can hope for is some organic movement like the abandonment of myspace.
autotldr@lemmings.world [bot] 1 year ago
This is the best summary I could come up with:
On Tuesday, the Wall Street Journal reported that Meta plans to charge European users $17 a month for an ad-free version of Instagram and Facebook.
Meta joins TikTok, which confirmed it’s testing its own ad-free subscription plan Monday after Android Authority found a prompt for a $4.99 service buried in the app’s code.
X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, has its famous $8-a-month blue check mark (which also comes with fewer ads and other dubious features), and anyone who isn’t already paying YouTube is familiar with its promotions for the $13.99 ad-free experience.
There’s no word from TikTok about its fledgling subscription tests, but the comments sections on videos about the app’s premium plan are full of users who say they’d love to sign up.
This is a radical departure from the business model that ran social media for the past few decades, where you offer your eyeballs to the advertising gods in exchange for free connections to friends and content creators.
Over the last twenty years, airlines have found ways to charge customers for options that used to be free, including checked bags, seat selection, and priority boarding.
The original article contains 815 words, the summary contains 190 words. Saved 77%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
RobotToaster@mander.xyz 1 year ago
Facebook has been slowly becoming worse, I don’t know if it’s the algorithm just not showing me stuff I’m interested in, or all the people that posted interesting stuff left, but I’m using it less and less.
Reddit’s quality has gone downhill, lemmy is okay but still small.
small44@lemmy.world 1 year ago
The algorithm is really trash. I interact with a posts once then the algorithm think i want to see more for days or even weeks. One of my passion is to listen to unpopular hip hop artists yet the algorithm only shows mainstream artists and not even posts about their music but about their personal life instead. I’m glad they added a chronological feed. There’s a couple of facebook groups that are interesting like a group about my neighbourhood group or the running group of my city ,it’s also great to find local events
Granixo@feddit.cl 1 year ago
Did you just said… underrated? 🧢😎🎤🎵
youtu.be/HsU7Yi6qxe4?si=6MfoAnF_4G9hX0mB
Give a listen to this my man 🎧🎶
uis@lemmy.world 1 year ago
PipedLinkBot@feddit.rocks [bot] 1 year ago
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I’m open-source; check me out at GitHub.
SocialMediaRefugee@lemmy.world 1 year ago
I look at FB less and less. I mostly use the messenger to talk to people directly. Most of the feed is ads and the rest is pet photos, kids, pics of drinks/meals, memes, etc. Youtube has become an endless stream of auto insurance and grammarly ads.
FigMcLargeHuge@sh.itjust.works 1 year ago
Last line of the article: “Just like choosing not to ride on airplanes isn’t really an option, for many, using social media isn’t much of a choice either.”
Holy crap. We have reached that point. As someone with no social media, it just amazes me how people have let these apps become ingrained in their lives. Sad in my opinion.
Blizzard@lemmy.zip 1 year ago
Doesn’t Lemmy qualify? Well, it’s definitely not paid.
FigMcLargeHuge@sh.itjust.works 1 year ago
Depends. Everyone claims they are on social media platforms to stay in touch with family and friends. I know no one on here and am fine with the anonymity. So it’s up to you if you count this.
Alto@kbin.social 1 year ago
In tbe strict sense, probably. In what most people would call social media, probably not.
justhach@lemmy.world 1 year ago
That, and not only is not riding on an airplans an option for a lot of people, its their reality for a lot of people and out of reach financially. Way to be completely out of touch, Gizmodo. Couldn’t have used a worse example lol.
anlumo@lemmy.world 1 year ago
I think it’s referring to flights required (and paid) by your job. When a job of mine required me to be in Brussels in two days, I couldn’t tell them that I‘m hitchhiking there for the next month instead.
HidingCat@kbin.social 1 year ago
Depending on where you are and where you're going, an airplane ride isn't that expensive. Just a matter of why you need to do so, and if you're willing to put up with budget airline issues. Oh and I guess the carbon footprint.
TanakaAsuka@sh.itjust.works 1 year ago
I think you’re misreading it. In the same way as there are people that need to ride on planes (for example for their job, or to move to where they have a job, etc), there are people that need to use social media.
For example, if you own an online store you really need to have a social media presence. Same if you are an artist, and live off of commissions. I’m sure there are plenty more examples.
TurboDiesel@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Also, Facebook groups are now how most extracurriculars are handled in schools, so if you have kids and you want to be involved in their activities you don’t have much of an option.
HurlingDurling@lemm.ee 1 year ago
I think the author might be referring to businesses who use social media to reach and connect with customers, however if your customers don’t see a value in paying for social media they won’t use it and it won’t be that necessary for those small and medium businesses.
pete_the_cat@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Yeah that’s one of the stupidest comparisons that they could make. Transportation is a necessity, sharing what you’re doing to the entire world isn’t a necessity. I’m 37 and grew up with MySpace and I was part of Facebook back when it was still The Facebook and was only open to 4 years universities (I got in about 2 years after I was created).
I wouldn’t give two shits if every social media company was destroyed tomorrow, including Lemmy and Reddit. They’re just time killers to me.
slaacaa@lemmy.world 1 year ago
I never scroll my facebook wall, but in my country people use fb messenger instead of whatsapp to communicate with each other, so I’m stuck with it as a communication tool. Also, most of birthday/event invited come with a facebook event, so I would also miss those.
It’s just so integrated in to a lot of people’s lives, that it would be hard to remove individually.
FigMcLargeHuge@sh.itjust.works 1 year ago
I am going to say this, and it’s because this is such a cliche’ response to me at this point, but I call bullshit. People making these excuses are laughable to me now with this. You aren’t talking about scaling Mt. Everest levels of effort here. Everyone you are communicating with has a phone number, and you could take the time to call them if you wanted to communicate with them, use text messaging, or email. As for the birthdays and events, go to the dollar store, or an equivalent and buy a calendar. They sell them with cute pics, or funny quotes, or whatever. Then mark the dates down. It’s fucking comical to me now how people act about getting rid of facebook. If facebook was waking up every morning and driving you to work, then yeah, it might be hard, but come on people… I feel like I am watching a b movie where everyone has been put in a trance and is just walking around mindlessly all saying the same mantra. “It’s too hard. Can’t break free.” And none of this has even touched on privacy, of which there is none on facebook. People spouting this are just willing to give up any shred of privacy for some minor convenience and it’s frustrating to watch.
war@kbin.social 1 year ago
It's beyond sad. And what's even sadder is the junkie excuses people come up with to convince themselves that their use of corporate social media is justified and healthy. Just read a few of the replies to your post here. The one about asking for a woman's Instagram made me laugh out loud. It's so profoundly pathetic.
DoucheBagMcSwag@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 year ago
I mean they’re probably taking about Shitfluencers and the people who’s careers she strictly online outreach based (YouTube)
psychothumbs@lemmy.world 1 year ago
If that’s how you connect with a certain community it’s not a serious option to stop using that kind of social media without solving the collective action problem of getting that whole community to switch.
I’m over here on lemmy giving it a go, but it is a real challenge.