Comment by pj_mukh
1 day ago
I would pay $49.99/mo for an unlimited plan that brings me only my friends' status updates (not their hyper-political likes and comments), just their life updates. Daily stories are great too. But JUST that, no influencers, no ads.
I realize Meta's data shows that our user revealed preferences tells them that we like all the dopamine hijacking garbage but that's like saying "Well users like drugs, so we gave them more". Let me pay you to give me just the vitamins, and none of the sugar.
I don't believe for a second you'd pay $50 per month!
Yeah you'd do it to prove a point. 6 months later, no way in hell.
Virtue signaling is free. Paying up for my virtues? Never.
Meta "average revenue per person" around $50 per year. Absolutely reasonable to replace with a subscription.
https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1326801/000132680125...
per year, not per month
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I think I would pay it. The peace of mind knowing that my every move isn't tracked and being used to sell me stuff or engagement bait me is invaluable tbh
At best they will honor the contract of not tracking your moves through that app. They will use part of your money to buy the information about your moves from other sources, or track you with another app.
I paid for youtube premium for a few months under the reasoning that I hate those auto playing make money ads so much. Certainly paying for peace is worthwhile.
Youtube legitimately has some quality content. But I ended my subscription because fundamentally, streamlining the path to more Youtube usage is self-enabling devil’s work.
Point being: Im not convinced paying money to these companies is ultimately going to result in a healthier, more safe more private experience, no matter what they claim.
> The peace of mind knowing that my every move isn't tracked and being used to sell me stuff or engagement bait
Why would you trust Meta to keep its promises?
Even Apple is not to be trusted with that, see, e.g., https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34299433
I mean, I'm paying about that for Google to hold onto all my personal memories via Photos, and all that I could actually use self-hosting for.
Meanwhile, FB has all my network that I can't recreate or self-host so yes, I would pay that.
You'd do it once and figure out that none of your friends have regular status updates any more.
You can ditch all that and talk to your friends (text them or call them or visit them) for almost free, actually. You can keep up with people without a middleman.
Pay each of your friends $50 one per month, to switch to signal. Problem solved
Signal is designed with the assumption that data is sensitive and you should err on the side of destroying it.
Facebook is designed more as a shared scrapbook, with the assumption that data is precious and you want to share it with your community, and you should err on the side of oversharing so you don't lose any precious moments. Signal is in no way a replacement for Facebook.
> Signal is designed with the assumption that data is sensitive and you should err on the side of destroying it.
That's... Just not true
> Facebook is designed more as a shared scrapbook
Have you used Facebook in the last 5 years? Its nothing like this at all.
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It is if Facebook was never a good fit for you in the first place.
$50 per month for unlimited, not $50 per friend, so your solution only works if you only have 1 friend, so it would work for me (self-deprecating joke) but may not for GP.
> Pay each of your friends $50 one per month
It an outlay of $50 a moth. Probably better to pay 50/number of friends though.
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Or, better, Mastodon or Matrix, which don't rely on a single, easy-to-target server.
Mastodon and Matrix do rely on a single easy to target server.
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This works for friends and family members who are computer geeks. Signal for everybody else.
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I believe you can get close to that with various Instagram mods for Android. They have advanced features like only show posts from followers and stuff like that. I switched to one of them after realizing the 5 second ad breaks I got were only there because I disabled personalized advertising.
> we like all the dopamine hijacking garbage
I basically don't use Facebook any more because of this. Opening the app shows me the most sensationalist, fearmongering and outrage bait content they can find. It's worse than news channels (I haven't watched TV for 20 years). I have auto play turned off, and every few months the setting gets turned back on.
The first few posts I see scrolling through:
- US adds mandatory tips ahead of world cup.
- Woman dies after being hit by Audi in city center.
- There was a huge queue for women's toilets at a tech conference.
- 50% off mattresses.
- Some influencer I don't follow bought 20 rolls of 3M tape from Lidl.
Do I still have friends, do they still post stuff? I only see them in the reels/stories section at the top.
The only reason why I still have Facebook is because of groups. It's the main 'groups' tool people use in my country, so there are various local groups I am part of.
That was the premise of halloapp. I think it was $5 a month and encrypted like WhatsApp, and you had a feed only from your contacts. It was founded by a guy who worked for WhatsApp for a long time. Apparently it went under in 2024. I think messaging is just a commoditized service. People will not pay for it
What you need is the Stories feature in Signal, then donate that $49.99/month (or however much you want) to their foundation.
Why? You are still giving up privacy. There is 0 reason to be using Meta products, let alone pay for them.
Did you check this out? https://isactiv.com/ - Private social network - exactly what you describe
I've seen too many of those privacy-respecting alternative social networks. Problem is that you'll post things only for yourself, which may be cool if you don't care about actually having friends there.
I pay $50/mo for internet, this is some nice ragebait.
You can change the feeds with extensions or modded apps for free and ads are blocked by default in any good browser.
There is not a single subscription in the world I would pay more than $20/month for personal purposes, unlimited (and I do mean unlimited) LLM tokens very much included.
Meta offers it in EU: https://about.fb.com/news/2024/11/facebook-and-instagram-to-...
I’ve been considering it but I am not sure if it drops just ads or suggested posts as well.
> only my friends' status updates
I think that is the Feed's tab, though I have not used the blue app in a long time
I am surprised someone hasn't made a really nice equivalent to Obsidian for Mastadon and just released it for free on the app stores. I am sure one could host a very cheap mastadon instance on a low cost VPS
You can turn off political content in IG settings and additionally add hashtags/keywords to specifically filter out content that displeases you.
Nah once they know you can be fleeced for $50 per month, they also know there is much more money to extract from you. Their advertisers would be mad if they remove this juicy cohort of moneybags from their audience.
This is absurd. You're just asking for reasonable control over data that ostensibly belongs to you. Moreover, this minimum functionality was resolved years ago with RSS. That you'd be willing to pay so much reflects how well every tech company is doing at using tech against its own users.
Ehhh, what I'm paying for is FB/Insta's ability to bring everyone onto one platform and encourage them to post regularly. RSS, AOL Messenger etc, never were able to do that with any decent success.
That they went past that to just kill their own golden goose is what is now reversible via a payment plan. That might be their only saving grace on this now managed decline.
But FB/Insta haven't been able to get everyone onto one platform. Generations are balkanized across FB, Instagram, and WhatsApp (all of which Meta bought precisely because it can’t manage with its original social network), and TikTok.