What will it take ‘Alternative Social Media’ to become mainstream
People are getting more hooked on messengers and social media, but despite a considerable variety of different applications always coming up, most users flock to the 6 or 7 big platforms. These big social media companies are centralized identities with certain political and social biases. If they decide to ban your account because they disagree with your opinion or political views, your account is gone forever.
In 2021, Twitter expanded its privacy policy to ban sharing photos or videos of private individuals without their consent. This policy change allowed far-right activists to file reports against accounts using pictures from public rallies to identify extremists, which got these accounts suspended by mistake.
Twitter pulled down 500 accounts linked to farmers’ protests against the new agricultural reforms in India after the government threatened legal action against Twitter executives.
Consequently, there is a case to be made for alternative social media, which targets a subsection of the population — mainly people who have grown tired of mainstream media’s constant policing and want a place where they can express their views freely. The question is, what will it take for alternative social media to become mainstream?
THE NETWORK EFFECT
The major stumbling block to overcome is the network effect. Since your friends or family are all using traditional media channels, you are less likely to make a switch. You’re not going to buy an Xbox when all your friends play together on PlayStation. This leads to a lack of content on these platforms.
It’s not uncommon to log in to a website and see just 14 new posts over the course of the last week, in stark contrast to the 500 hours of footage being uploaded to YouTube every minute.
The only way to generate enough content is to acquire a large number of loyal and active users, who create content for your platform and keep the ball rolling. That could include a greater focus on everything from better marketing to better user retention.
SEAMLESS INTEGRATION
Also, one of the great advantages of the modern internet is how easy it is to use all these social platforms in tandem. Found a cute cat video on Facebook? Here, in just a few clicks you can share it with your friends on Instagram, your family on Messenger, and your wife on Snapchat.
In fact, better make a quick post about how remote companies can model HR functions on the pack behavior of big cats and let everyone on LinkedIn know. This seamless integration allows these companies to keep users within a loop while making it harder for new channels to pop up and gain traction.
Creating a bridge to traditional social media websites isn’t an option, because that’s how cyberattacks continue to happen. Instead, developers should focus on creating an ecosystem that allows all kinds of Decentralized Applications to thrive together.
USER INTERFACE DESIGN
Users have come to expect sleek and intuitive UIs. A clean UI keeps the users onboard, and it is especially important because it’s the first thing a user sees. Many alternative social media platforms are maintained by a small team, and in most cases poorly designed.
These platforms need to pass a ‘Turing Test’ of sorts, where the average user shouldn’t be able to make out that it’s a decentralized or alternative social media website because it should look and feel exactly like the traditional centralized websites they’re already used to.
CONCLUSION
To sum it up, simply being decentralized, private, or censorship-resistant isn’t going to cut it. Alternate social media projects need to make sure their platforms are part of an extensive ecosystem, have a user-friendly design, and have plenty of great content that keeps users engaged. Only that can spur effective growth and make sure the majority of people actually start migrating to new decentralized platforms.
One of the aims of Point Network is to create a Decentralized Social Media called Point Social. Point Social is censorship-resistant, with a user-friendly UI, created to go along with the vibrant ecosystem we aim to create for all kinds of dApps. You can join the official Point Network Telegram channel to know more about the development process.
Disclaimer: This post is not financial advice
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