I'm building an alternative to the current social media dumpster fire, I'm here to ask real users what they need first
Posted by seismicgear@reddit | RedditAlternatives | View on Reddit | 53 comments
I'm building a new social media platform.
A real one. What we have right now is so painfully broken, and I'm tired of pretending it isn't an absolute dumpster fire.
The feed isn't your friends anymore. It's whatever the algorithm thinks will keep you scrolling for another 30 seconds. You went looking for your sister's baby photos and got served three rage-bait political posts, two influencers selling illegal supplements, and an AI-generated picture of Jesus made of shrimp with a top-hat. Your actual friends and the things we ALL CARE ABOUT are buried four screens down between 500 ads and a video about Trump or fucking Israel.
Search is broken. Try finding a post you wrote three years ago without scrolling for half an hour. Try finding the friend you met at that conference 4 years ago. Try finding anything specific. Anything at all. The platforms that became the archives of our lives have lost the ability to retrieve our lives, and they don't even care because it means you have to scroll more fucking ads.
Notifications are designed to drag you back in to look at rage bait, not inform you. "You appeared in 17 searches this week." Cool. Didn't ask. Don't care. Never did.
Stop emailing me about my own birthday! I know when my fucking birthday is!
Job platforms are a wasteland. LinkedIn and other platforms job postings are FAKE AF. Real businesses can't get verified. Indeed flagged my LLC as fraud and made me video-call someone who could barely speak English. Meanwhile every recruiter spam DM and AI-generated thought-leadership post slides through untouched.
Harassment reports go nowhere. I filed a clean, documented harassment report on LinkedIn last month. Got the same templated reply for 30 days. The libel is still up. The platform's escalation system is a script wearing a person's initials which we all know is an AI bot.
The AI slop. God, the AI slop. Please make it stop. Even I am guilty of this shit.
The entire internet is now half AI-generated humble-brag posts written by people who don't know what their own company does or what their post even is trying to say. Facebook's feed is bot-farmed engagement bait. Twitter is reply-guys that are clearly LLMs running on someone's stolen API keys. Dating apps are catfish photos generated in 30 seconds. Job applications are AI cover letters being read by AI screeners with humans nowhere in sight.
We didn't sign up for this. We signed up to talk to each other.
The dead internet isn't a theory anymore. It's the product. Every fucking platform is racing to put MORE of it in front of you, because engagement metrics don't distinguish between a real person being moved and a AI SLOP bot farm clicking through to a Temu ad made from slave labor!
I'm done...
What would it take for you to actually switch? Not "what features sound cool" What is the daily pain that, if a new platform fixed it, would make you delete the apps you have and never look back?
Tell me what you hate. Tell me what you miss. Tell me the moment you realized the platform you were on was no longer for you. Tell me what the platforms got right before they ruined it.
I'm reading every single reply. I want to fix this. Please god.
deport_racists_next@reddit
Yawn....
... another code jockey gonna save us all.
Show us your business plan with first and five year projections, revenue sources and opportunities, with estimated user engagement metrics, and of course your current assets and liabilities including employee obligations for taxes, retirement plans, etc...
Got any of that?
There is a big difference between a great recipe and a restaurant.
vmnvv@reddit
Damn. People can’t have dreams & attempt to pursue them? He’s asking for other’s input & thoughts so he can use it to build whatever he wants. You don’t even know him & you’re already assuming things and shitting on him. Rude.
Kgvdj860m@reddit
While I can understand your comment, not all social media needs a business model. There are ways of running a social media site that don't require piles of money. Small social media sites cost almost nothing to run. So, if you go into it from the beginning with the idea of limiting the size of the site to something you can pay for out of your own pocket, you will be fine. The vast majority of new sites stay small anyway. You can also enormously reduce the cost with a text-only site. My costs for my site are about $2.34/month (US), and I expect them to stay there as long a the site remains below 50,000 users (which we are not in any danger of exceeding any time soon).
seismicgear@reddit (OP)
Lmao. Someone got an MBA and crowned themselves the king of Sand Hill road.
deport_racists_next@reddit
Nope.
Someone has 2 degrees in IT with two decades of experience. Worked in silicon valley for Y2K and had an extensive second career managing global transactional systems.
My previous career was in the restaurant industry including owning my own restaurant and teaching food service management in a culinary arts program for a local college.
You were saying?
seismicgear@reddit (OP)
“You were saying?”
That a long résumé does not magically turn a lazy comment into an argument.
Have fun with your vulture capitalists! lmfao
deport_racists_next@reddit
... and some code you whipped up on your pc, does not make a viable platform for a new social media enterprise.
Just as I would tell the idiots in our labs, that until you get it to work on a global platform with global data it ain't squat... just you playing on your laptop.
Vulture Capitalists? Child what fantasy you living in? Never mentioned that, never dealt with that.
I keep hoping someone will come thru here with a realistic plan but all it ever is are folks like you...
just another hacker with delusions of competence.
...pity.
Now go find a way to FUND your ideas... then we will know you are serious.
seismicgear@reddit (OP)
“Just you playing on your laptop” is hilarious. I have a desktop that is more expensive than most peoples first car.
I am sitting in a near-million-dollar home I own with no mortgage, next to live products, active companies, public and private repos across Rust, TypeScript, JavaScript, Python, ZK identity, AI infrastructure, federated comms, civic governance, benchmarking, and consumer SaaS.
I don’t need funding. I am the funding. I build what I want for ME because I have infinite runway that I created by building real value for real people that they pay me for, right now.
You wandered into a user-discovery thread, ignored the actual users, demanded VC paperwork, listed your résumé like it was a spell, then declared nothing counts unless it is already globally scaled.
You are just a retired gatekeeper confusing permission (which I do not give a fuck about) with competence.
You are clearly that upset someone is building without asking people like you for a hall pass. I do not need it. I do not care what you think. If you want to turn this into a dick measuring contest, you will lose. I am here to get user feedback for an idea I had 10 hours ago, you are here for a pissing contest. Do something useful, or go away. Thanks! What a coastal elite troll. See ya!
deport_racists_next@reddit
Right.
Whatever you need to sleep at night.
💋
seismicgear@reddit (OP)
Lmao this guy thinks I sleep! so funny
deport_racists_next@reddit
well that explains a lot.
next you will claim to be a rocket scientist, a special envoy to the WH, and a ketamin addict.
you already talk like it.
no matter, no one is believing your bullshit as evident in the trail of useless words you have left here.
i really wish you were legit - it would be nice to see someone actually produce a reddit alternative.
again pity.
you certainly have proven unworthy of further attention.
bye
StopElectingWealthy@reddit
I just want a reddit-like free from AI engagement-bait posts.
VosGezaus@reddit
Why aren't you on lemmy?
seismicgear@reddit (OP)
What's the pattern that's gotten worst for you specifically? The "what's a story you'll never forget" karma farming threads, the AI-image posts, the bot accounts reposting top-of-all-time posts, the AskReddit prompts that are obviously generated? I want to know what engagement bait is the actual worst for you.
Sufficient_Card_7302@reddit
I lost faith in Reddit when they deleted r/all
seismicgear@reddit (OP)
I lost faith when I realized they allowed Unidan to AstroTurf their own comments for years before catching them.
StopElectingWealthy@reddit
It’s fake posts emulating a human trying to get an emotional response and engagement. So you spend ten minutes crafting a well-thought out response to who you think is a human but isn’t. It’s literally meaningless. They get you to waste precious time on robots pretending to be human.
There is also the reddit financial incentive for people to generate engagement, their equivalent of instagram/ youtoube content creators. It’s all a lie. Fake posts, fake comments. All for advertiser revenue.
Maybe an identity verification system can solve this. One account per one valid ID. That makes bans more effective as well.
seismicgear@reddit (OP)
So the real problem isn't AI itself, it's not knowing whether there's an actual person on the other end? Right?
monobrowj@reddit
the birthday reminder feature was awesome on FB when it used to work.. now i dont wish people happy birthday anymore.. l like to have things separated.. an amazing feature would be : i use twitter for crypto/stock news, Facebook for older Fam.. insta to talk to some women.. reddit to inform and find things.. so like the ablility to have separate feeds to filter what type of content you want
Personpersonoerson@reddit
Hey OP, I kind of share your sentiment. I'm also really fed up with the alternatives we have. Let me address a few points brought up in other comments:
Maybe an identity verification system can solve this. One account per one valid ID. That makes bans more effective as well.
I use reddit since a long time, and I have't ever had this kind of issue. I agree there should be some kind of "random captcha" checks to make sure someone is actually a person. I strongly disagree with the "identity verification system". If I need to verify my identity to use a social media service, it will not work for me. As I said, it's easy to verify the user is a human (with captchas, etc), and not require an actual "government ID", which would be ridiculous.
I love the idea of federated social media, but i hate having to deal with the many servers part of it.
I tried Lemmy, which is probably the most known such community. While I root for its success, imo it's just... not the best user experience. The concept as a whole is too confusing. The UI/UX is like old Reddit. The various servers is counter-productive to gaining the critical mass of users needed for social networks not to be boring (since you're spreading the user-base). There are no videos (I suppose it is because the servers they use cannot support it). I don't see this ever being as popular as Reddit or other social media.
What could work is a social media that works well and the user experience is great.
The difficulty I am finding is proper enforcement without turning moderation into an arbitrary black box. Some cases are obvious. Others hide behind dogwhistles, irony, “just asking questions,” or coordinated bad-faith behavior that looks different in isolation than it does as a pattern.
About 'moderation': honestly I don't see what is the difficulty here. Just apply the exact same framework as the law that regulates free-speech in the US. It has worked perfectly well for more than 200 years, and I've found that anything that deviates from that (from countries to social media platforms) always end up with censorship of "what the moderators disagree with" (be it website moderators or real life judges/police/etc). The US is the only place on Earth that still respects free speech.
In fact, I am writing this here because I am completely fed up with Reddit's censorship. My last 3 comments/posts involved criticising China regime/dictatorship, and all of them were removed. It's ridiculous.
thrustitus@reddit
The problem with alternatives is that the user-base is tiny compared to reddit, and until one actually gains real traction; Nobody is going to migrate.
I love the idea of federated social media, but i hate having to deal with the many servers part of it.
I just want something kinda like reddit with enough users to make it work. I want the features to actually work well, and i want some options to avoid ads. I could just adblock, but you've gotta pay the server bills somehow....
Absolutely no AI. I do not care if it's useful. Just no.
I agree with all your points.
The issue i see is that if it's not big enough you can't get a team to maintain it, but you aren't getting a team to maintain it without being big enough. The buy-in is pretty steep.
IF you got shareholders or venture capital; also bad. Unless you can convince them to be 100% silent contributors, but that won't happen, and your dream gets crushed with AI integration and other enshitification.
It's a bad situation to be in.
I WANT it to work for you and others trying to fix this mess, but the longer it goes on the more it feels like the only viable solution is to let the whole thing burn itself down first.
Pamasich@reddit
Most people really don't need to deal with that. The importance of the fediverse's decentralized nature to the user is usually overstated by enthusiasts, in my experience.
You really only need to deal with it when:
Ultimately I think the only time when most people will have to engage with the decentralized nature of the fediverse is to choose their instance. After that you'll rarely be confronted with it.
Though that's still a huge hurdle of course if people don't drop a good recommendation in your lap.
thrustitus@reddit
Please dear user; My lap is empty.
Pamasich@reddit
I don't really know a good recommendation myself, sadly.
I am happy with the instance I'm using, kbin.earth, but I'm also not exactly included in the "most people" I mentioned there. So I don't really know how the instance, and Mbin as a software, is from the other perspective.
I think I usually see people recommend piefed.zip nowadays, but I don't know that instance myself. So I can't tell if it's a good recommendation.
All I can really contribute is to recommend against going with lemmy.world and feddit.org. Both of those look benign at first glance, but have their controversies. You would have to deal with defederations if you joined them.
BlazeAlt@reddit
piefed . zip has a very short list of defederated servers (basically only Threads from Meta), so you can access all the content
seismicgear@reddit (OP)
Cold starting, The vulture capital trap, server bills etc are real and I'm not going to pretend otherwise.
I will say AI isn't going away from the broader internet regardless of any platforms rules. Bots, scrapers, AI replies, AI search engines indexing what you write. That's all already out of pandoras box.
Given that's the reality, what does no AI mean to you practically? No bots in feeds? No AI-generated content allowed? No AI tools for users? No AI-assisted moderation? Each is different and some are achievable and some are not. Just being practical here.
Techgirl1232@reddit
the requirement for money + making accessibility something the company hasn't heard of or is something they don't care about
Strong_Letterhead638@reddit
No likes. Please, at least give the option to hide likes.
seismicgear@reddit (OP)
Because it encourages shallow groupthink or something else?
Strong_Letterhead638@reddit
Yes. Not only does it reward performative behavior, but it discourages sincere discussion
minehubriss@reddit
Who's read Ring who's reading this Saturday, May 2nd at 11:00 p.m. Pacific?
immersive-matthew@reddit
Decentralization
seismicgear@reddit (OP)
Decentralization is difficult because of regulators. Zero Knowledge Proofs, Self Sovereign Identity are trivial tech for me to build. I've done it already. What is hard it making a platform exposed to US/EU regulations that don't allow this tech. That is unfortunately, probably by design by the institutions in question
immersive-matthew@reddit
I do not understand. If you are making a decentralized app with these technologies in them, who will stop you? EU and the US regulate centralized apps as they can but decentralized they cannot. Right now you can use a least a dozen cryptos that I am aware of that use Zero Knowledge Proofs. How would anyone stop you as there is not centralized company or server to take down or influence either. What is preventing you from implementing? Or are you making a centralized for profit app?
seismicgear@reddit (OP)
I’m not saying ZKPs or SSI are illegal. They obviously exist.
What I'm saying is trying to find a balance between a decentralized protocol and a user-facing platform operated by a real company with domains, apps, relays, payments, moderation, support, job postings, and US/EU users is not as easy as it sounds.
If I publish an immutable protocol with no operator, no hosted surface, no payments, no support, and no company behind the user experience, then yes, it becomes much harder to “stop” in the simple server-takedown sense.
It also creates a whole new class of problems. How do you then moderate abuse, "account" recovery, moderation, compliance, app distribution, onboarding, illegal-content handling, and still build user trust when it has to serve everyone from the tech savvy white hat to your boomer grandma?
What prevents implementation is not the cryptography, I just don't want the final product to become an abuse haven or regulatory suicide note for myself.
immersive-matthew@reddit
That does sound like a very difficult place to navigate and there really is no easy solutions.
Strict-Evening8613@reddit
I've only been using reddit for the past few years, so i dont rememeber how it was when it first released.
But i'm sick and so fucking tired of people attacking you for your opinions. when they aren't even that bizarre. You're always getting downvotes if people don't agree with you, not because you're being disrespectful. I shouldn't be getting downvotes if my reply / post was ' I dont like ( this character ) for ( this reason ) '. If i outright said ' ( this character deserves to die, they're so stupid and dumb ) ' i deserve downvotes for that. But I never did that, did I? People are always so immature here on reddit, mainly, and other social media platforms.
You're right, we didn't sign up for disrespectful engagement, we signed up for casual banter and trying to look at other's POVs, getting to know people and socialising. But we've been let down.
Thanks for this.
seismicgear@reddit (OP)
I agree. Downvotes/upvotes, reaction buttons, all of that is useless for real discussion. It's for the silent audience to not have to read or engage with the actual words. Accidental enshittification basically
Weakera@reddit
OP I appreciate your list of everything that has turned to shit. You are right about all of it.
I'm into forums--not things like FB, Twitter/x, Instagram, so I will speak to that. Reddit is frustrating for a long list of problems, and there seems to be no alternative.
So:
The algorithm is crap, I never see subs related to my interests, for some reason
The moderation is arbitrary and insane. Nuff said.
Is there any way to keep out hordes of idiots? That's challenging, I know.
seismicgear@reddit (OP)
This is exactly the kind of feedback I’m looking for, thank you.
Forums are probably the closest thing to the version of the internet I actually miss too, RIP iplaycod.com
The hordes of idiots is real, as demonstrated by deport_racists_next in this exact thread. Lmao
problem, I don’t think you solve that with one giant ban hammer. I think you solve it with layers:
I am circling the solution that we should make it easy for serious people to find each other, make bad behavior expensive, and make moderation explainable and transparent, not a black box with no appeal. I think unpaid moderation is also a mistake at scale. It makes sense for niche communities, but the incentives flip after about 100k users. I think most reddit mods would agree.
Weakera@reddit
I love what you write in the last paragraph and it gives me hope someone is even trying to make something like this happen.
I hope you get it up and running and please post a link in this sub if it happens.
RuckFeddit980@reddit
Don’t let it get overrun with antisemitism!
seismicgear@reddit (OP)
I agree. Antisemitism, racism, misogyny, and other forms of targeted hate cannot be allowed to become “just another viewpoint” on whatever platform becomes the finished product.
The difficulty I am finding is proper enforcement without turning moderation into an arbitrary black box. Some cases are obvious. Others hide behind dogwhistles, irony, “just asking questions,” or coordinated bad-faith behavior that looks different in isolation than it does as a pattern.
That’s where I think platforms have mostly failed. They moderate individual comments, but they do not expose enough context: reputation, repeated behavior, community history, prior warnings, appeal outcomes, and whether a user is consistently participating in good faith.
I’m interested in community-led reputation and transparent moderation layers, where users can see why someone is trusted, restricted, quarantined, or removed instead of everything happening behind the curtain.
I want to protect real discourse, make bad-faith abuse expensive, and stop hate movements from laundering themselves through ambiguity. If you have any insight, I would love to hear it. Especially based on personal experience
RuckFeddit980@reddit
I like the way you’re thinking.
Have you taken a look at r/antisemitisminreddit ?
seismicgear@reddit (OP)
No, but I understand why you are pointing me there. I will take a look during my market research.
AlexChapmanG4p@reddit
One thing I like to see from alternatives is open source and Federation.
seismicgear@reddit (OP)
+1 on federation. I think the real problem with federation is that it isn't always user friendly for non-technical people. Tackling that on another project right now, so hopefully I figure it out enough to transfer it over to this idea.
Do you think on open source, explainability is actually what most people want, or do you think it's the actual option to look at the code and algorithms?
Oddlyme@reddit
From someone who has dealt with large businesses and how they use it. Build apis up front for social media management systems like hootsuite and sprinklr so businesses will be able to interact on your platform. But be very very smart on how you manage security and SPI.
IF you want that. But their interaction draws views as well.
seismicgear@reddit (OP)
What's been the worst integration pain on the current platforms you've seen? Twitter API death, LinkedIn rate limits, Sprinklr-Meta auth flaking, Reddit API meltdown? Something else I am not considering?
Oddlyme@reddit
Well, for one, must of the alternatives have not done well building for businesses and news aggregates to point traffic towards them.
This is good from a content standpoint (much more curated, more individualistic feel) but also limits those who would otherwise be incentivized to pay their content because it has no way to propogate outside of direct linking and sharing. (I.e. no news sites pick it up, no social trending setups).
For most social media, it lives and dies by people wanting to use it. The more content, the better content the more people will come. So it's a balance of making yourself user friendly, business friendly and also unique enough and anti spam, anti bot etc. To keep people's feeds relevant, fresh and useful as well as interesting.
seismicgear@reddit (OP)
Which propagation channel have you seen alternatives miss the worst? Embeddable post URLs, trending APIs for newsrooms, syndication to aggregators, search-engine indexing? That's a separate lever from on-platform engagement and I want to know which one matters most.
worldsayshi@reddit
I think there are two problems here. We want one thing and we need another. We want the gratification of scrolling through something that or impulses somehow tell us is important. We need control of our (collective) digital lives.
I think the solution is to go back to a smaller scale social media, that can grow over time and is in each users full control.
seismicgear@reddit (OP)
When you say full control and smaller scale, what does that look like in your daily use? Picking your own algorithm, running your own server, smaller default networks, control over who sees what you post, something else?
Also, happy cakeday!