Anyone else out there who doesn’t use social media at all?
Never had a facebook account, deleted my twitter account a few years ago (never really used it). I still have a Insta account, but not looked at it in ages, and then only for seeing family photos/messages, and they have all stopped posting as well. So that is up for deletion soon.
That’s it for mainstream socials. My wife has even suspended her facebook account and she was a big reader of it, she can’t quite bring herself to delete it yet!
We use whatsapp for small closed family groups etc.
+1 for “no” social media
Only use whatsapp for small closed family groups etc.
Only use Facebook and Instagram mainly for keeping track of family.
Stuart
Not wishing to scare anyone away, but this forum is a kind of social media. It’s just not one of the big named sites.
Yes but this one does not pester me to add ‘friends’ all the time
Stuart
Ahh, so the forum could be said to be anti-social media?
I had a facebook account but only used it to checkin when on holiday once…
I setup a Facebook account in 2006 to monitor my son’s account when he went to college, then to monitor my daughter’s when she went to college in 2011 (they probably had a second account I never knew about!). I never posted. Hadn’t looked at it in over 10 years, but just resurrected it because our new neighborhood has a private page that has useful information about local activities. I do have a LinkedIn account - kind of need one for professional reasons, but I have never posted there either.
I have all the social medias, but I rarely use any of them other than Youtube. I keep aquariums and am a member of the “FishFam” on Youtube. It’s a super supportive group of people that are very inclusive and helpful. We do a lot of charity things and help people out as much as we can.
For example, a friend of ours lost his wife to cancer and his oldest son to covid, all in a couple of months. We were able to raise over $19K from the community to help with funeral expenses.
I enjoy a ton of support from the community and recently passed 11K subscribers which isn’t a lot in the grand scheme of things, but a decent amount for our niche.
{EDIT} I should probably start proofreading.
{EDIT #2} For anybody interested. https://www.youtube.com/@RikoStan
Nothing personal, you understand, but – oh, how I hate YouTube
I get it, I feel the same way about Facebook and Twitter.
It’s not the platform that I enjoy so much, but the group of people I found.
I’ve been a member of a lot of different hobby communities over the decades, but the Fishfam is the most easy going, supportive, enjoyable one I have ever been a part of, including the weather community.
Plus they like to give me money. LOL, sorta kidding there. I don’t engage for the money, but I average about $5k a year and for a retired person (as you know) it’s pretty helpful.
We build our own… just not to keen on the fact that others are selling my private data for profit.
If a service is free then you are usually the product that’s being sold.
Too many people expect the Internet to be completely free. It’s not and cannot be. Servers, switches, routers, communication links, etc. all cost real money, as does the power to run them and run the A/C to keep them cool. Then there’s the cost of buildings to house them, and staff to run the services.
There are some services run ‘philanthropically’, e.g. this forum and associated services…but whilst you are getting a free service I’ve paid tens of thousands of pounds over the years to keep it all running. Economically that doesn’t make sense though, so if you want a free service from a business then you need to give something back.
+1, no social media user
Yeah… not quite… I think you missing the point.
I fully understand that there is no such thing as “free lunch”. How that lunch is being paid, in the context of my answer, is via known interaction eg advertising and unknown interaction eg selling my browsing data, profile, patterns etc.
It is the latter that I am not a great fan of. Hence, I co-own (https://ancop.au), whereas the latter, as in selling your data, is a big no-no. Everything is encrypted, and we have no interest in what you do or who you do it with because it is within the laws, more ethical than legal.
But I digress.
Social platforms make their money in several ways, as you fully know, one of them is selling your private data. That is the part I have issues with, happy to click on adverts etc. The missus is advertising here artwork on Fakebook for example, she pays for that. Hence I disagree with having my “private” data sold.
I’m not really sure what point I’ve missed. I didn’t say I liked private data being sold, but I don’t really see a model where you can have something free where your private data isn’t being sold in some way (which includes adverts).
You seem to be OK with adverts paying for sites, but adverts are using your private data too. They record your preferences, lead to more adverts of a similar type and probably lead to you being tracked. Of course, adverts aren’t really free, we just don’t see the costs to us because they’re baked into the prices we pay for pretty much everything.
Your co-owned organisation isn’t like the free social media sites, because it’s not free. You’ll have a different demographic because not everyone will want to pay, or be able to pay, an up-front fee for something they may not use much. For example, would you be a member of this forum if you’d had to pay up-front to join and access the content?
I don’t know what the answer is though. I don’t like adverts. I don’t like my private data being sold. I don’t like to pay up-front for something I may not really use. I don’t like to pay monthly fees that are suited to someone using a service 24*7 when I just want to post something a couple of times per month. The only thing I can really come up with is pay as you go using micro-payments, but despite those having been talked about for years we don’t seem to be any closer to being able to use them.
Would I be a member of this forum if I had to pay upfront?
Yes, I would.
Why?
This is a knowledge media forum; folks talk about stuff, but I only come here to gather knowledge and, where possible, share knowledge (the little I have on the topics), so yes, I would pay.
For example, when restoring a laro, I paid to be a member of a laro forum, it is (in my view) only fair to contribute financially towards the cost of running a forum. “Owning” a data centre, I understand the cost involved. When I finished the restoration I left. I would not expect any difference here. I doubt people have an issue with paying a small fee eg a “cup of coffee” (although coffee is getting quite expensive lol) a month for what you put up. See 100 folks paying a dollar is not much for them, yet it all adds up for you, but you know that.
As for what we build, you are right. It is not at all like a free social media site at all. It is quite a bit more; for example, folks are happy to pay for video conferencing, which is part of our fee, etc.
As for paying thousands over the years, I get it… I do. I am in a similar boat regarding providing an online service for my local community. I recently put up a membership for just a few bucks a month. Guess what folks are happy to pay a few bucks a month?
I do, however, disagree with how you say the advertising works on social media, but I do not believe this is the right forum to discuss that. I appreciate what you do because I understand the financial, time, and emotional costs.
I do appreciate it