i don't trust your 'social media alternative' if...
I see that entrepreneurs are picking up on the general dislike for social media. There was this wave before, back when services like Ello started up. I even used to have an Ello account! But it seems like that wave is back, now more than ever.
Understandable. They want to capitalize on the people deleting and deactivating accounts or letting their accounts lie dormant, wandering around for an alternative. Now is the time to convince them to try something else with rather low stakes. When usually, you'd be met with "But all my friends use X!", that reason holding them back might not be there anymore now that more and more people drop off from the big socials.
So, they get to pose as the good social media, or social without social media, or whatever tagline they choose. The promise is basically to go back to the good old times: When even Instagram didn't have any ads, no data scandals, and felt small, intimate, not like performing.
I think this has a good chance of working on people who really don't know why the current social media giants became annoying - they don't know why ads, tracking, subscriptions, walled gardens and more are necessary and why everything is shoved down their throat now. It's like the universe just conspired to make something shitty for them, I guess. So the hope by the entrepreneurs is that the users have absolutely no qualms doing it all over again with another platform - this time, the entrepreneur's company, not Mark Zuckerberg. The users hopefully won't realize that the same issues will arise there with scale, time, and when the funding runs out. If they even got VC funding!
I sometimes get emails from people in the Indieweb to check out their product or talk to them about their idea. I don't mind this, it's fun. One time someone messaged me about their social media idea for dancers. But the past few days, a company sent a bunch of people on Bearblog (and probably other sites and blogs on the IndieWeb as well) an email about keeping the web weird, open and independent, where they advertise their new social media app. You might have gotten it too! I did write a bit back and forth with the person who sent me that to point out some stuff that bothers me about it and still wait for another answer at the moment, but it also inspired me to write this more generalized post that doesn't necessarily all apply to their company specifically, but that I've seen many other companies in the same or similar space do as well.
I doubt the people who want to message me about their stuff check my blog like that before sending it, but in case they do, consider it your primer.
So, I don't trust your product if...
1. ... there's unclear funding
If your website doesn't transparently state pricing, or that it's free, it sucks. If you fund it with ads, say it. If you fund it by selling data, say it (you have to do that, legally, anyway; this is not a courtesy). If you plan payment tiers with a free tier, show it and show the data/feature caps. If you say you have no ads, people are "in control of their data", and you have no VC funding, I wonder what the catch is. You can pull that with many social media users maybe, but advertising this to the IndieWeb people is a bold move because those are the exact people who suss out the pricing issue and therefore inherent "If you're not paying, you're the product" thing immediately. Some of them are "victims" of the Cohost shutdown, so they know how important financial sustainability is. Nothing sucks more than going all in on a platform and it crumbles.
2. ... your tagline obfuscates or bends the truth too much
This is just a personal, debatable view, and I understand basically all marketing works like this. But just as an example: If you advertise your product as keeping the web weird, independent and open, but it's a closed platform that may not even be open source and that is a walled garden needing you to sign in to use or see the content, it's pretty closed and dependent. I don't know what's weird about it, usually not even the design. Your product usually needs to be closed and dependent, else you wouldn't keep people locked in and make enough money. So I get it, but I don't know who is supposed to buy into it. There are enough people here who got burnt bad, who deleted socials, de-Googled, switched to Linux, or even self-host; why would they want to rely on a proprietary closed service not built or guaranteed to last if they can be in control instead or just.. not?
And for every other service who says they're social and not social media, why do you have all the features then? You are either a Facebook, X, or Instagram clone. Maybe it's time for a better tagline, or at least show what will be different to prevent your social media becoming shit. More moderation? Filter lists? Balancing around the algorithm to not surface and push outrage the most? No algorithm? You need to make obvious what the draw and difference is.
3. ... there's no clarity about content moderation
What about the BlueSky problem - will you delete the accounts of known assholes, nazis and instigators or will you remain committed to some sort of neutrality? Is sex work advertisement and porn allowed or not? What about NSFW Art? How do you as a small company intend to deal with gore and CSAM, even if it happens in closed groups and places on your platform? How are you as a small team equipped to deal with child grooming? Are there any design choices, settings, flags, automatic detection users should know about? How fussy are you about piracy and copyright infringement (not a big fan of enforcing that usually, but I want to know!).
3. ... I see or have to assume GDPR violations
That's not something a normal user would ask or care for, but if you're asking me for input, you'll get a part of this too because it's my passion and just what happens when you ask a law student who's working on becoming a data protection officer. I think the biggest issues tend to be around consent, transparency, right to be forgotten, and data portability. Platforms usually need a hook to make people stay and they hate to see them leave, and if I see business concepts around keeping people because it's too hard or impossible to delete their account or move the content they shared there off of there, I see that and I see it as a violation of Art. 20 GDPR and other principles.
4. ... there's only an app
Only having an app and insisting on it just tells me you desperately want my data. Logging in via browser on the phone or PC with whatever browser settings, extensions and more can really limit what data is extracted and even attain subscription features like themes or no ads, so services everywhere try to put a stop to that or don't even make it possible in the first place. I don't want any more apps. People are tired of apps. Their car and supermarket and bank and university and work and tennis club require apps or have their own, and it's enough. At this point, I don't think it's a given that people just blindly install apps and view that as convenient. It's another icon cluttering up the home screen or App Drawer. Now you have to compete for app space and prove why installing it has any upsides.
4. ... no disclaimer about AI
If you don't use it inside the product or to build it, I think it deserves to be there as a marketing selling point even, and if you use it, there should definitely be one so people can avoid it if they want to. I probably would, because the space is swimming in AI generated SaaS that are a privacy nightmare. Chances are you either are one of them or should be interested in proving that you aren't.
Edit: I’m continuing to mail with the company that inspired the post and some of the concerns have been addressed. Just adding this in case anyone in the future thinks I’m dragging someone for things they have disproven to me. I do wish more alternatives would, though.
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Published 22 Mar, 2025