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So, owned by a collaborator and a shitty user experience.
Also, who names their app after a downer post-apocalyptic film where everyone dies?
As someone not using Threads this is a big surprise. I mean I’m surprised it didn’t already have ads.
As another someone who doesn’t use Threads, it is a big surprise to find out there’s a website or something called Threads that looks like it’s related to email and apparently is popular.
It’s Facebook brand Twitter, and is or was planned to be compatible with Mastodon (Fediverse Twitter)
“is popular”
Im pretty sure they auto setup an account on threads for anyone on Instagram to artificially make it popular.
As someone who uses thread how do you guys sew stuff?
we glue or melt things together. sometimes a stapler comes in handy as well
I use duct tape.
That was my first thought. I was surprised to find this out.
Enshitification step 3
I remember the heady days when I thought this was the final step of enshittification. Such simple and innocent times.
Happened even faster than I thought lol.
Mastodon isn’t.
Lemmy isn’t.
Pixelfed isn’t.
🤞🏻
Thank fuck.
Btw, I have this referral code for PAID: Shadow Workers. If you use my sign up code you’ll receive 10,000 SlutCoin and a free MegaSlurpJob, so sign up today with the code: LemonParty69
I am in.
I want to know how sloppy the MegaSlurpJob is first. Free is free, but I want to know how much value I’m getting first before committing.
What do you mean, it’s brand new??!
When threads first saw its posts on Lemmy[when Lemmy first started posting about threads], I was reading one and a coworker looked over my shoulder and gasped. I looked up at her, and she said, “what is that?? And why is the logo a pubic hair?!” Good times.Edit. Clarification.
To serve you relevant ads, Meta will use your activity on Threads and Instagram, the posts you interact with, your email address, and “your activity from off Meta technologies,” according to a support page.
Do I read it right in that they’ll try to follow you around Fediverse, aside from monitoring you on every site they already have a nose on?
De-fe-de-rate.
Probably more about their general user tracking than that tbh. Meta has always had profiles for everyone because of Facebook/meta integrations on every website
True
You not only misinterpreted the description, but then you proposed a measure completely useless to either the real situation or your imagined one.
You did lemmy proud.
Eh, my only complaint is that they lumped the “r” in with the “ate.” The “r” is part of the previous syllable.
That said, I highly doubt defederating would actually solve anything. If they want to scrape, they’ll scrape.
Exactly, all info on lemmy is public, defederation would help neither with 3rd party cookie tracking (the real situation) nor with tracking on other instances (what the user imagined they are doing).
They wouldn’t need ads if they took a cut from all the porn and crypto ad bots littering the comment sections
Remember to send financial support to your server
Wish I could, but I haven’t found a way to do that. I guess the admin is working on it?
For yours, there is a heart outline up at the top of the page which leads to:
That’s not donating to my instance though, it’s just donating to the devs. Not quite the same thing.
Yes, I noticed that. It was the only donation link I spotted though. You could ask the admins that are listed in the right-side panel (TheDude, etc).
Yeah, many people have asked, but nothing yet. Not sure why it hasn’t happened yet.
Check the About section for your server like this, not every server has donations set up tho https://thebrainbin.org/about
I don’t see one for my instance.
I think they don’t care as much, because the server runs on 100% renewable energy: pure Canadian maple syrup.
Is this some fancy way of saying “Please tip your waitress”
Please tip your federatress
Is Threads even a good enough product for users to be willing to endure ads?
It allows no external browser and if you leave the app and return the page automatically refreshes so you lose your place.
How long before they introduce some sweet new fascism features?
“Our new GestureSupport(“Gestapo”) means you can now upvote by striking your arm up and to the right…”
That is probably already implemented in the algorithm, currently disabled, but the control knob will start turning up as needed
Maybe a slider so we can adjust how much “masculine energy” shows up in our feeds?
Threads is still around?
Yes this is so confusing to me. There was a blast of attention about it when it was launched that lasted like a week max and then everyone completely forgot about it. I thought it was a short-run experiment that got shut down. What reason is there to use threads? Are there any actual humans who still use it? I’ve never visited it but something tells me that it’s just like reddit with at most 100 real users and the rest is just bots replying to bots.
and then everyone completely forgot about
You need to expand your sources of information. Threads is shit, I agree, but it is actually getting solid usage. You’re going off vibes on places like Lemmy.
Yup. If you only follow Lemmy, you’ll be completely confused at:
- why Tesla/X/other Musk stuff still exists
- how Trump won if nobody supported him
- how Meta is still in business if the only thing people use is their cheap VR headsets
There’s a lot of stuff we don’t see here.
Facebook is actually a bit of a mystery at this point. They stopped reporting DAU’s their numbers are so lackluster and they have burned a small nation’s budget on “The Metaverse” with nothing to show. Then they cut jobs, applaud, and stock goes up. A lot of folks are scratching their heads over but Wall Street loves it regardless.
I am jacks colon, I get cancer I kill jack!
deleted by creator
Surprisedpikachu
BlueSky is next
BlueSky has some novel monetization concepts but yes, I think they will eventually find that those are not sustainable and will introduce ads eventually.
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…
It would be better, yes, but you’d be sacrificing 90% of your userbase going that route. The vast majority aren’t going to pay a monthly fee for a social media account. One or the other is inevitable, though. Server infra ain’t free, after all.
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.
Yeah that’s the scary thing. Ads work so well you can’t even buy your way out in many cases. I wish micropayments caught on instead of subscriptions. I’m ok to pay a reasonable cost per use, but I hate blood suckling subscriptions for things I rarely touch. I’d STFU and post much fewer and more meaningful comments on Lemmy for example if it was 0.1 cents per comment or something.
A social app? Impossible. Everyone will just say “But I get Facebook for free!”
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…
Facebook makes ~$68/user/month. No one is going to pay anything close to that to remove ads.
Really? Jeez. Last I heard, evidently incorrectly, was a few dollars at best. That explains their ghoulishness somewhat.
Even so, Facebook brings in enormous profit. Evidently a result of maximizing whatever they can get away with
I’m wondering what the costs are to cover just hosting / content delivery.
Ie, is it feasible at some point that a not-for-profit social platform comes about. Or a for profit one that promotes itself as ethical and subsequently charges premium users based on running costs + moderate profit rather than pushing every kind of manipulative behaviour it can get away with just to maximise ad value.
It’s certainly possible. If we the people cared enough about the impact of social media on society we would demand funding from our government, if only in the form of a grant or similar.
I donate to the fediverse. My new server does a monthly state of the server thing and I use that as a reminder to donate. Considering server costs, I believe I cover more than my share, but most people probably don’t donate at all, and frankly the people running the server deserve compensation for their efforts and that is never included in costs.
I might feel differently if it was a sub, though. It’s a world of difference between me choosing to donate and someone reaching into my wallet on a monthly basis. Idk. But I’m definitely not having ads.
People act like server costs are hella per person here? Realistically one person donating 10$ covers like 100 ppl that month? Or am I way off? Vps are cheap.
it prob covers way more than 100
It’s pretty low. I think my instance costs under $1k annually, though it’s not one of the mega instances, neither do I think it’s small. I think I recall about half of that or more being covered just by the recurring donations by a small group of people.
That said, a labor of love is still labor and I’d love to see instances take in enough to give a little compensation for time and effort spent keeping the lights on.
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…
Sounds good to me but the ideal of social media is to network with as many people as possible. There are billions of people globally who would never want to pay or couldn’t even afford a few dollars. Which would leave it as some kind of niche premium service that can’t connect to a lot of people.
That’s also besides the fact that the purpose of social media now is to connect brands and political groups to you over any actual connection with other people.
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)
Have you met people?
Introducing even a 0.49 charge per month would flood the front page of reddit and lemmy with “enshittification” rants for days. And 9 in 10 people would leave the platform, if not more.
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.
You would think, but seeing how people react to YouTube premium (at least on social media) I still have doubts.
That is true. Why people think enormous content servers should be run for free boggles my mind…
I don’t think it should be run for free, but I think it’s wrong of them to erase compeition by offering a free service and than suddenly make it not free.
they could run off donations, its entirely possible, we got blender over here a nonprofit making great software, wikipedia exists, we can have donation based platforms
It’s not about being dumb and expecting stuff for free but a general anger towards subscription based models. Fair models exist and are possible, but are a collateral of the general hate.
Then, free alternatives exist, and believe it or not, some people do not have a tiny monthly fee they could spare or do not want to pay for something that a free alternative exists.
Threema tried exactly that, and failed comically.
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.
social media depends on having a critical mass of users, and that’s only going to happen with a free model.
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?
There is a completely free, add-less social network: Mastodon. But for some obscure reason, “nobody” wants to use it. Instead, everyone is moving to BlueSky.
I don’t think costs are the reason for people not using certain social networks. Simplicity and ease-of-use is. And federated networks suffer hard from this, because simply explaining the way they work is too much for people. They want to read and post stuff, and not think about which server to pick so that they can get the biggest audience.
theoretically, sure it’s possible. but in practice, capitalism will win out in the end. this is pretty much what happened to reddit. first unobtrusive non-targeted ads, then reddit gold… you know the rest.
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.
The appeal in popular social networks isn’t innovation, it’s the sheer quantity of other users. You don’t need resources just to do new things, you need resources to build and maintain the infrastructure to serve all those users. That’s why FOSS social media will always be niche like Lemmy and mastodon.
Isn’t the bluesky client open source? That would make it harder to force ads on everyone.
I don’t think so.But there is an API you can build clients for.
Looks like the client app is open source: https://github.com/bluesky-social/social-app
Wow! I stand corrected. I’m surprised!
Sure, but ultimately the ads would be fed by the service, not the client. And they can always do like Twitter and Reddit did and kill the API so no third-party clients are functional.
They can do that, but I believe the various laws about openness in advertising make it pretty hard to hide ads from the client.
