Ello was founded as a social network devoted to never selling or sharing your data. Diaspora was founded as a social network devoted to decentralization so no one could “own” your data. Google Plus offered a better experience than Facebook in dozens of ways. There have been heaps of Facebook alternatives over the years, and they’re all virtual ghost towns. Why can’t any of them succeed? Because Facebook has one feature no one else can replicate: ALL OF YOUR FRIENDS ARE HERE. Now, with many of us fed up and looking for alternatives, I’m asking: How can we break FB’s monopoly on ALL YOUR FRIENDS ARE HERE? Until we do, the number of people who truly leave the platform will be close to zero.
Tilting at windmills for a better tomorrow.
If there was only a way to siphon off all of your friend’s data for you in the background and put it on another server.
;-)
Well, I had an old FB account which I hadn’t used in 10 years, which I completely deleted. So Elon Musk plus myself equals 2.
But you’re right, people are used to and want something. I’ve missed out on countless baby photos and party invites due to my anti-FB, but a lot of my friends ‘rely’ on it to connect.
I am hoping (and may help) that one of these products emerge as a replacement for the masses. It’s gotta be simple though. Even this is too techie. To really control your data, you need to know webdev (https://micro.blog).
@tom I’m sure we’ll come up with some sort of open source data siphoning category killer :)
@brent I also experimented with micro.blog and found it… wanting. A good start but the login method and the post ordering were just ridiculous. Yes, too techie.