Something I spend a lot of time thinking about is how you’d break open and decentralize the social web.
Today, every social network operates by enticing users with some sort of flashy product feature set (Facebook: engaging content; Snap: ephemeral messaging; Twitter: hot takes; etc.) in order to get them to add their names and behavioral data to a giant database, which the company then sells advertising against. The results are pretty clear: the incentives of this model have led to invasive tracking and loss of user privacy, harassment and abuse, and the gaming of algorithmic feeds to spread conspiracy theories and fake news; Not to mention that Facebook’s manipulation of the content in their News Feed has dealt a body blow to the business model of journalism itself.
It’s easy to imagine how a for-profit social network could be better managed, but at their root, they have to make money, and that will typically mean selling ads. A social network run as some kind of non-profit foundation (like Wikipedia) is one option, but I think there’s a better way: open-source, decentralized social. This is what I’d do if I were a bored billionaire.
Blair Reeves 