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Lord_Derp_The_2nd t1_j11vodf wrote

Reply to comment by wtjones in Mozilla to Explore Healthy Social Media Alternative by geoxol

So, not necessarily.

The problem is "perverse incentives" (aka the Cobra effect)

Social Media is free. This means it needs to be paid by ads. This means that the algorithm, the service, and all the content is designed ground-up to further that objective. Keep people doomscrolling, sell ads, make money.

If there were a subscription based model, the algorithm could be engineered to... respect your time, deliver you content quickly, and fact check the content.

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accountabillibudy t1_j1257ol wrote

I would argue that the problem is not that it is free but that it is run for profit. Our data has value, services could pay for themselves if they were co-owned by the users. If we didn't have the incentive to maximize profit at the expense of the user but instead to provide user data for a fee with reasonable privacy controls we could all be better off.

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Stanley--Nickels t1_j1337no wrote

The only reason your data has value is because it can be used to affect your behavior for someone else’s benefit. It’s not free to pay with your data.

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accountabillibudy t1_j13d9tw wrote

I understand what you are saying but I would argue that there is a huge difference between selling your data to advertisers to try to target you with ads, the traditional approach, vs try to feed you extremist posts to drive your engagement with the platform by making you a more upset person.

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wtjones t1_j12b6da wrote

You’re not going to get enough people subscribing without the juice. It’s gonna be the A&E model of social media. You’ll start out with An Evening at The Improv and Pulaski and end with Swamp People and Duck Dynasty because that’s what people want.

Social media gives people what they want. It’s peoples’ desires that are the problem.

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SuperBeetle76 t1_j13a92m wrote

I’m not buying that human nature is the problem. People have vulnerabilities that can be exploited by profit incentives, which is where you get algorithms that are engineered to pray on addictiveness and encourage unhappiness. Before social media got so profit driven social media was a lot nicer experience.

I wouldn’t mind a subscription model if it just connected me in ways that I wanted and didn’t try to engineer my experience to squeeze every cent out of me.

My skepticism says tho that you can’t put the toothpaste back in the tube.

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a_can_of_solo t1_j13pchz wrote

Meta social media doesn't give me what I want, the signal to noise is so high on Facebook and insta they're unusable.

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urza_insane t1_j136186 wrote

A really good real world example of this is NPR’s website. If you check that daily and compare it to any other news website you’ll notice a massive difference. No clickbait, no junk articles, just information that’s useful.

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SIGMA920 t1_j12n9td wrote

> If there were a subscription based model, the algorithm could be engineered to... respect your time, deliver you content quickly, and fact check the content.

If only you hadn't just added a paywall to using it. Social media works as it does because you're free to sign up and use it as you will. Make someone pay and now you've just added a monthly cost that they will have to consider.

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Lord_Derp_The_2nd t1_j13jhbc wrote

I suppose it's not that it would require a subscription necessarily, just that you would need to find a way to make the income stream align with positive end user outcomes.

At the end of the day, money runs companies, and keeps employees well, employed. If their month-to-month goals and KPIs internally revolve around "how do we make the most money via ads and selling user data"... that's what got us here. It's a very "road to hell is paved with good intentions" situation. The individual contributors, the actual coders, didn't sit down to architect this exploitative mental health mess that social media became. It got built slowly commit by commit, due to the profit focus being what it is.

Change to goals, change to outcome. Make the money come from delivering a superior customer experience, and the app will trend in that direction.

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siliconevalley69 t1_j12n9se wrote

>Social Media is free. This means it needs to be paid by ads. This means that the algorithm, the service, and all the content is designed ground-up to further that objective. Keep people doomscrolling, sell ads, make money.

Interestingly that seems to a short term way to succeed in the space. Facebook is finding out the very hard way that the old adage "if you're not paying for the service you're the product" was a really dumb take and a horrible way to run their business for long term success.

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[deleted] t1_j120h6g wrote

[removed]

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Lord_Derp_The_2nd t1_j121bio wrote

:shrug: I don't know how to fix it then. If the company lifeblood comes from adverts, then eventually the system will optimize in this direction.

Make it tax-funded?

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hamsterpotpies t1_j126a0v wrote

It wasn't this way before. Something something telecommutication act ..

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BrainKatana t1_j12wygu wrote

The answer is to make it donation- and grant-based, like Wikipedia.

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Lord_Derp_The_2nd t1_j13huw0 wrote

This may be on to something, though Wikipedia has its own issues with some of the page curators behavior and power.

I think this could work in theory though.

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