A wish-list of alternative social-media features
Posted by BezzleBedeviled@reddit | RedditAlternatives | View on Reddit | 30 comments
My wish-list for social-media alternatives, in no particular order:
1) Open-source code. (This is the only way to prevent eventual corporate acquisition, monetization, and enshitification. Any such attempt results in immediate forking of the code.)
2) No ads. (Extricate yourself from the Google Adsense Cthulu, and you are immediately much faster than any similar site. Realizing that the project is not a get-rich-quick effort eventually shopping for a buyout frees up a lot of mental concentration presently being devoted to contemplating giveaways and other forms of early new-user-enticement. The best way to entice users to switch is by promising to not annoy them with ads, *and deliver on that promise*. Without monetization, the appeal to AI slop-mongersvdisappears.
3) No "blue checkmarks", or similar pay-for-promotion favoritsm.
4) No form of voting, likes, hearts, or other overtly visible form of participationess, zero-calorie peer-pressure opinion-skewing. (Under the hood, there will likewise be no code mechanism to promote "liked" material or ghost the disliked, or generate "best" priority-view recommendations.) --If the last decade has proven anything beyond the pale, it's that such are prone to massive corruption once a platform or group becomes infinitesimally influential. Removing such eliminates effortless sock-puppetry, and hence attractiveness to political propaganda.
5) Groups, profile pages, and individual posts have html markers to facilitate sharing and Wayback archival.
6) If an early-Facebook "wall" or "feed"-style mechanic is offered, it will incorporate uBlockOrigin and FB Purity-style features.
7) Broad goody-list of moderation parameters. For example, a group-owner could require that users have a non-generic avatar and non-generic name before posting privileges are granted. Or that a levied ban can can optionally remove all of that poster's material in the group. Bans have time-limits, and so forth.
8) Low-graphics/dense-info mode is default. Animation (including GIFs and emojis) is disabled by default. Audio is disabled by default. Vertical extent of masthead graphics is restricted. Post headers and footers are disabled by default.
9) Immune to net-censorship in the form of domain revocation, etc. (This will naturally be an evolving process.)
immersive-matthew@reddit
Decentralized as anything Centralized of value will likely end up in the same place.
NikEy@reddit
Mirage is checking most of these. Including open source.
BezzleBedeviled@reddit (OP)
Will check out. Thanks.
p4r4d0x@reddit
Some of this I agree with, however no voting means better quality content isn't sorted from the lower quality content. There's no wheat from the chaff mechanism that makes these platforms so compelling in the first place. Voting is vulnerable to bad actors abusing it, but I disagree with getting rid of it all together.
BezzleBedeviled@reddit (OP)
That's correct. You have to think for yourself instead of waiting for herd sentiment.
Bad actors abusing it is ubiquitous to voting.
Skavau@reddit
You'd also have to wade through slop without it.
BezzleBedeviled@reddit (OP)
Slop follows monetization.
Skavau@reddit
Slop is everywhere regardless of the platform
BezzleBedeviled@reddit (OP)
"Everywhere" currently is ad-driven.
Skavau@reddit
The Threadiverse isn't
BezzleBedeviled@reddit (OP)
I'll look that up. Thanks.
Skavau@reddit
Lemmy and Piefed specifically
Treepump@reddit
The upvote system was one of the original hooks that popularized reddit in the first place.
BezzleBedeviled@reddit (OP)
So we're told.
And it'll still be here.
habarnam@reddit
I think anything that doesn't involve voting in one way or another is not really a "reddit" alternative, but you make good points in general. :)
p4r4d0x@reddit
True, there's platforms that have this model like image boards (4Chan, etc) and it means every post has to be evaluated on its merits instead of allowing the user the mental shortcut of dismissing posts and comments that are downvoted.
The major downside of this is that genuinely low quality posts get equal prominence with high quality posts. And every reading the thread has to wade through enormous amounts of garbage to get to the valuable stuff.
I think most users aren't a fan of this, based on the relative popularity of image boards versus Reddit. You can browse sites like Reddit without considering votes by using chronological sorts ('new', 'latest'). I think it's strictly worse, but that's just my preference.
BezzleBedeviled@reddit (OP)
I freely admit that what fascinates the herd holds little interest for me. (Regards 4chan, it has own problems that I won't get into here.)
That is exactly what I wish for: removal of merit-delegation to corruptible mechanisms. --Because I'd like at least one social-media that wasn't predictive-programming that planet in Orville: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=1nqS3BGL0tE
RaddiNet@reddit
This is pretty much what I was building with /r/raddi, but then life happened to me and I had to make living, and nobody would chime in any way, so...
BezzleBedeviled@reddit (OP)
Interesting; I'll check that out.
throwawayyyyygay@reddit
you can do this on the voyager frontend for lemmy and piefed. Hide all votes. Thats what i do.
BezzleBedeviled@reddit (OP)
The "compromise" is that the people who like voting can stay in the corporate slopfactories we have right now. Sturgeon's Law guarantees they'll be well-served.
prankster999@reddit
If it's no ads... Does that imply that the website will follow the subscription paywall fee model? I don't have a problem with that, but it's worth clarifying this as how else is development and server space going to be paid for?
AvianPoliceForce@reddit
Reddit used to be open source. That didn't help anything, because the users are centralized.
Die4Ever@reddit
yea open source is important, but the most important part is actually the federation and self hosting
otherwise we'll just be setting up a new network effect and end up stuck in the same situation over and over again
BezzleBedeviled@reddit (OP)
The corporate buyout worked way back then* because there weren't a half-dozen software forks already idling. --Put yourself in a Louis Rossmann or Linux frame of mind, and imagine Microsoft or Google buying Ubuntu: Everyone would laugh, and immediately move their /Home folders to another distro.
(*Circa 2026, the internet, storage media, and computational hardware are a whole lot faster/cheaper than they were fifteen years ago.)
esperind@reddit
I dont know what you mean, could you elaborate?
BezzleBedeviled@reddit (OP)
uBlockOrigin and FB Purity are web-browser extensions that filter ads based on publicly-maintained lists (uBlock; works everywhere) and allow considerable tinkering with view options and user creation of text filters (Purity, Facebook specific).
esperind@reddit
ok, and what does that have anything to do with what a platform would incorporate? what features would you want an alt-facebook to incorporate? These are completely different things.
Tam1@reddit
While I understand some of the intent, what is the social aspect of this platform? Its basically just text, and little to no interaction between users and content. This seems basically like an RSS feed of content
BezzleBedeviled@reddit (OP)
You'd actually have to write a reply in order to react. The way it used to be 10-15 years ago before the long, slow slide into slop idiocracy and censorship. It would be glorious. Millions of the world's laziest trolls cry out in terror as they are suddenly silenced, because lifting physical fingers to type is something that the simplest sock-bots cannot do.
There will still be wumao armies gravitating to topics, of course, but at least they couldn't any longer upvote each other into "Best" repeatedly.