> So what happens if Google has all your data? To the best of my observations over the past 20 years: best in class services, cheap, paired with excellent security and data availability.

And hope you never have your identity stolen, or an account hijacked, since that was the only proof of who you are.

Exactly. "It's good for you and takes some effort" is a bad growth strategy. For this movement to win, something will have to replace social media and walled gardens with a better dopamine hit, that just happens to keep data private.

I genuinely disagree. At this point, the only real way to make sure something like this stays worthwhile is when it is not 'super easy and convenient'. In other words, it has to take effort ( and obviously right now it does take effort and that effort ranks close to 'impossible' --- that should be pared down a bit ).

I think we're still missing an "open social" closed social network. Something like old-Facebook where you can post to an intimate audience of friends and family, and your feed isn't stuffed full of ads and influencers. Just a little private windows into your friends' lives.

That feels like something that could displace other social media in a way that's difficult for for-profit businesses to replicate since it goes against every product manager's instinct to leave engagement on the table, and would stand in stark contrast to the current social media landscape.

You may like Peergos (creator here) https://peergos.org/posts/decentralized-social-media

That looks really promising. It checks a lot of the boxes I already had in mind for such a system, like being able to continue a thread without exposing the whole thing to untrusted parties

Thanks! You can play around with it on https://peergos-demo.net

I wish I understood why people will pay for streaming tv subscriptions but not for social subscriptions.

I suppose social subscriptions have to overcome network effects and a plethora of “free” alternatives - ranging from iMessage to facebook.

I think at least one take on this is that people see it as paying for the content of streaming subscriptions, not the streaming infrastructure itself.

So the idea of paying for the infrastructure needed to see the content produced by your social network doesn't feel like a good deal.

Most of those 20 years have coincided with low interest rates and the internet growing constantly (and hardware and software maturing).

What happens when the rising tide stops but the boats still have to rise?

My bet is that we will hate Google, Facebook, Amazon, modern Microsoft a lot more than people in the 80s and 90s hated IBM and old Microsoft.

unless you travel to the 25% of the world they antagonize politically.

or unless you don’t comply quickly enough when they say “jump” and they unilaterally take away “your” gvoice number.

Look at QC Safe sometime. Same idea applies. Incentives are not consistent over time.

Giving all your data for better services is easily hijackable.

google has all data > google creates AI from data > google embeds their values into AI > you use the AI > you become what ever the google AI wants

"over the past 20 years" is not the same as next 20 years

...while selling you crap you don't need because they follow you everywhere.