Comment by compounding_it
12 hours ago
A new paid social media network with high privacy settings would defeat meta products quite easily. From what I understand, it costs around 27$ a year per user for Meta to run the business. At 5$ per month with limitations on size of your profile (like number of pictures), it would be quite easy to run a social media of this sort. This kinda of social media is what eventually everyone will move towards (and currently want). Small social circles, extremely private, and connections and discovery in very limited ways that allow you to maintain privacy and your 'inner' circle.
Social media is here to stay, unfortunately. Meta, LinkedIn, X, I wouldn't invest in the long term.
Do you really believe that, given all the failed social media competitors? The network effects seem too strong.
> it costs around 27$ a year per user for Meta to run the business
And a lot of this is probably spent maintaining the ad machine
What exactly are privacy expectations of a social media app/network? Has that been quantified?
No data collection for any other reason than security practices, and for reasons that pertain to public security (not necessarily legal). A 30 day retention policy would be more than enough. Without discovery, public profiles, advertising and usages targeted towards you engaging more with the platform, the data collection and telemetry becomes quite unnecessary.
If you are paying for the usage (mostly server and development costs), your data need not be used for anything other than actually improving the product and security.
Currently the data is purely to extract profits and keep you hooked. This is what they have made you believe social media is about. Its not. You aren't hooked on iMessage and FaceTime scrolling reels and wasting hours. It's actually used to connect with people.