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Could it be this easy to solve the modern Social Media mental / social heath conundrum?
Posted by on October 11, 2020 at 8:56 amProposed Solution: ban paid advertising run by the platform (individual creators can have their own sponsors and in-content ads, but the platform itself cant, and their algorithms can not have advertising metrics.)
So, facebook, youtube, etc. themselves would only be able to make money via more traditional methods like donations or monthly subs, (selling their service directly) and they would not be allowed to use any monetary factor in their algorithms other than growth factor (self advertising for their own new customers, subscriptions, merchandise, or donations).) this would also prevent/ban the “pay to remove ads” models as well. They would not be allowed to sell “advertising space” in any way, the would not be able to sell “better placement” for the creators/their customers either.
They could not sell product on behalf of their creators/customers either, nor could they take a cut / profit from transactions between customers on a marketplace. The only thing they could sell is access to the platform (and their own merchandise “facebook tshirts” stuff like that) though they could sell different “levels” of access to their platform, such as selling the ability to access the marketplace, or selling the ability for creators to put their own sponsors/ads in their creator content, but these charges would have to be a flat fee that is universal to all customers (every creator gets the same prices, regardless of their influence levels, and the creators/customers cant get discounts based on their participation/reach/influence metrics either.)
In otherwords, they could only offer you better SERVICE / product itself as incentive to use their platform instead of their competition’s. Their goal would be to improve their algorithm to actually give you what you WANT in terms of content, not what sells/pays for clicks/meets some advertising quota, IE: makes them more money from a third party… etc etc Would this flat out demolish the inherent evil in the current systems? I imagine you would get it passed by declaring it a national (really World Wide) HEALTH issue?
I have been a professional in internet marketing for more than 18 years (social media specifically for the last 9), and non-professionally since the early 90’s, and I have been considering this proposal seriously for at least the last 4 years, and I may believe this is the only way this disaster will ever be curbed. But in truth, I would rather spend my time actually focusing on the end-user’s honest desires instead of the share holders’ laughable desires when putting thousands of hours of my own life into the endless ocean of code. What do you think?
#AdFreeAlgorithms
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5 Replies
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This makes a lot of sense- but the revenue model seems too weak to sustain the business. Nowadays some of the content that is put up on YouTube etc has the same quality as that of any big production house.This is the due to the difficulty of creating content sharply falling.
Would it be possible to build a model around this content.
Would it be possible to share the revenue that this content generates between the content creators and the platform?Instead of having the content creators depending on the platform’s ad revenue, value the content being put up- and have subscription models around it.
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But is advertising really the issue here? The toxicity of social media isn’t so much because of advertising but more so the ability of people to manipulate information and content and the tendency for people to only post the good leaving others to believe others have it better than them. In my opinion at least.
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It’s a challenging conundrum, especially because people are accustomed to getting the product for free. However, with more awareness from documentaries like “the social dilemma” and scandals on data being used for political or fake news purposes, people are starting to realize the role social media companies play in influencing individuals, communities, culture and even countries.
There are some options out there… Check out Vero but their business model doesn’t exist right now. There’s also TapeReal, they’re building a new social network where people come first, where you can only share and engage through reality-based audio/video. They have a freemium plan, and have subscriptions if you want to record more minutes or want to rank higher on the feed. I find there’s less pressure to have super polished content… it’s more raw and natural… seems like it’s more about socializing which is different…
I think the next big social network of the future will need a very unique business model that benefits users first. It’ll be interesting to see how it plays out.
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Yes I support this model
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Waht you are proposing I consider mostly an interesting thought experiment, but has very little to do with where social is going. I think social will die because large media companies will not invest their content in it in the future. Streaming social might be the future, but definitely not hiring a social media team to make quirky memes for 10.000 followers.
O and I although you are rather vague on your premisse that social media is leading to a health crisis (you might want to lead with that explanation first), your proposal will not solve anything: since platforms are already moving away from that model. The problem is unethical design and real life intrusion, not advertising.
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