Big Opportunities in Alternatives to Big-Tech

[MJ DeMarco]

...in other words, alternative technology platforms that do not censors political views, wrong-think, and language that is potentially offensive.

I suggested this a few years ago, but it has recently reached a tipping point.

There's a large market out there who is DESPERATELY seeking alternatives to the technocrats who use their political righteousness to censor dissenting voices.

I still think a Twitter alternative is viable, not a big fan of Gab.

Likewise, Minds.com with their crypto angle is starting to gain traction. I just created an account there to see how it works and to see if there are any advertising angles. (The best advertising values usually come from grassroots upstarts, more so than legacy properties who are saturated with advertisers, hence bidding up costs.)

On the search engine front, I already use DuckDuckgo.

Also note that a lot of these places are like the "wild wild west" so it might take some time to adjust your settings and "mute" content that is offensive. In other words, you get to chose what is offensive, not some technocrat in San Francisco.

If I was young and just getting started, this is an angle that I'd be looking at.

It would not be easy, but the market IS THERE.

 

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[Hyrum]

So far there's been a lot of complaining about how the status quo is unfair, and very little actual analysis on if this is a viable business idea. And while I think the privacy-minded services (Duck-duck-go, Protonmail) have a lot of room to grow, the anti-censorship platforms (Gab, minds.com) will have a much harder time reaching a critical mass due to basic business math.

For starters, like @ChrisR said, the current platforms are more than adequate for the majority of people. So right off the bat, you're dealing with a business model that is for a niche audience. How big is that audience? Alex Jones has what, 2M followers across all platforms? How many more can you attract to your platform? I'm estimating a platform like this would appeal to 1 or 2% of the total population. Is that enough for your business plan?

Also, how is this project going to funded and make money? Advertising is pretty much out. Remember when Papa John's was nominated as the official pizza of the alt-right?

Papa John's is now the official alt-right pizza, according to neo-Nazis

How long did it take Papa John's to publicly denounce that endorsement? Big companies are very risk-averse when it comes to their brand being associated with non-mainstream populations, so you're stuck with advertisements for dick pills and porn sites. And even then, will you have a large enough audience to break even or make money?

And are you truly committed to a censorship-free platform? Are you ok with neo-nazis using your platform to threaten violence against others based on their skin color? Are you ok with "GamerGate" people threatening to rape and kill women? Are you fine with Antifa's using it to plan violent counter-protests? Are you ok with ISIS and Al-Qaeda using it to organize terror attacks? (I use these examples since they have all been associated with 4chan). I know MJ said that users could block offending content, but how many people are willing to put in the time to sanitize what they see? And wouldn't that just give the platform an enormous amount of information on the user, which is what we were trying to avoid in the first place?

I've thought a little bit about what it would take to create an alternative social media platform in the past, and these are a few of the questions I asked myself while doing my due diligence. In the end, I decided against it because:
1. There's little to no money
2. I didn't want to be associated with the fringe populations (right or left)

I'm not saying it's not possible, or my business assumptions are 100% accurate. Just that at the end of the day I can find better business opportunities that more closely align with my values.

 

[MJ DeMarco]

This will be the last comment on this "debate" because this thread isn't to debate your opinion on the legality, right/wrong etc.

Is MJ evil for having his platform his way?

You're comparing APPLES to ORANGES.

You're obviously OK with having your TEXT MESSAGES, EMAILS, and VOICE CALLS monitored and then censored (when they contain "wrong think") simply because they use a giant corporation to facilitate that communication.

We're talking about widely adopted and used communication systems, "public square" stuff.

When people want to investigate entrepreneurship or business, 99.2% of the world doesn't come to The Fastlane Forum to hear my preferred ideology, all under the guise that it is the absolute truth and non-partisan.

When I visit Buzzfeed or Brietbart, I know exactly what kind of narrative view I'll be receiving. Partisanship is presumed and obvious, not covert.

The fact is, people aren't smart enough to realize that their "search resources" have been co-opted by a particular ideology and that they're not getting a full spectrum of either truth or opinion. Worse, this narrow worldview is then pushed everywhere into the mainstream to the point, you can't avoid it.

No, I don't want my iPhone default "news" to push The BezosTimes, HuffPo, VOX, and Salon articles, and then I have to jump through hoops on fire to get rid of it.

What the technocrats are doing is akin to having a phone company in 1970's listening in to your phone calls and disconnecting them because "we heard speech that we consider 'hate'". We've reached the point that anything that disagrees with the preferred mainstream narrative is now labeled HATE, when in reality, it's pure censorship.

And are you truly committed to a censorship-free platform? Are you ok with neo-nazis using your platform to threaten violence against others based on their skin color?

Of course not. You're using a slippery slope and a straw man argument. The people being censored aren't threatening violence, their opinions are simply being muzzled and pejoratively labeled as "hate" -- so if I advertise on social media that "democratic socialists" are useful idiots, I guess I'm spewing hate and subject to being muzzled.

There's a big difference between FREE Speech (Trump is Hitler! Clinton is a criminal and should be in prison!) and speech that has no protection, such as threatening the life of someone. Yet, YOU CAN threaten someone on social media if your threat is directed at specific people with specific political leanings as evaluated by some millennial snowflake in Mountain View California.

Free speech does not you entitle you to threatening or slanderous speech. So yes, if neo-Nazis and/or Antifa/neo-Commy thugs who are making threats, they should be censored. There's a big difference between that and Alex Jones conspiracy rhetoric.

Unfortunately in today's hyper-partisan world as ensconced by the tech-giants, the former statement (Trump is Hitler) will get you a "blue check mark" and a legion of followers, while the other (Clinton is a criminal!) will get you banned.

Anyhow, this thread is NOT to argue the legality or opinion of the censorship (and how regulation, if any, fits in) the fact of the matter is, IT IS HAPPENING.

And because it is happening, there is an opportunity.

This thread is about the opportunity. Please stick to that topic.

If not, I will start CENSORING (removing) opinions that have nothing to do with the opportunity. See how that works in my small little community which 99% of the world DOES NOT use as a central form of communication?

 

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[TheOwl8]

Few things bother me more than tech monopolies in Seattle and San Fransicko lecturing us about tolerance, inclusion and diversity, while they actively censor, ban, and financially ruin any one who actually has a diverse opinion. It is pure hypocrisy.

Facebook and Google have self-appointed themselves as the judges of truth. Talk about power in the hands of a few.

I would love to see alternative free speech platforms gain traction, but these tech monopolies ARE monopolies. To the entrepreneur out there who wants to take them on, I salute you.

 

[Deleted50669]

Alright, I'll do it

 

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[Raoul Duke]

I've checked minds.com and one of the frontpages seem full of fanpages for people such as Trump, Jordan Peterson, Ben Shapiro and Alex Jones, it appears to be a platform for mild opinions instead of actual truth.

That is why, you will never be rich.

Before you respond with a rebuttal. Reread what you wrote.

 

[Xavier X]

@marklov What you're not taking into account is that growth is directly proportional to the need for regulation.

When a platform starts out small and "owes no one anything," it's easy to accommodate "things" and be a rebel for the cause.
However, when you're a behemoth company that can't exist without structured income, the rules change.
When you're a behemoth company wide open to constant 9-digit fines and litigation, the rules change.

While I am all for options rather than monopolies, in practice it is a vicious cycle that goes something like:

Underdog breaks away from the evil Big Dog to start its own "unrestricted" thing.
People love a good underdog, so they tag along.
Underdog's platform is going great - Utopia at last!
Underdog grows
Underdog grows
Underdog grows even more.
User logs into Underdog's platform one fine morning.
Underdog is the evil Big Dog.

Rinse/Repeat.

 

[MJ DeMarco]

Another thread on the topic...

Fastlane - Social Media Censorship = Huge Business Opportunity?

 

[daru]

Cool. I'm working on this!
This and "own" your data. Read Future Crimes and Data and Goliath and got pissed off.

Recommendation for security/privacy: Signal messaging app

 

[GoGetter24]

It doesn't work.

You have to remember why all these services are so popular, resulting in these companies having so much power.

The concept that the internet is a force for decentralization (or "democratization" as some say) has been so far proven completely false. It's been one of the greatest sources of centralization ever.

It's so conducive to centralization that "google" has become a verb for "search the internet". Facebook has penetrated the social landscape of any country who's government hasn't outright blocked them by force. Then on top of that governments have used it for dragnet surveillance of their own citizens on a scale never seen before.

So why don't people just use these alternatives? Because life's hard enough without deliberately hobbling yourself. Whenever anyone uses one of these alternative sources, they face the immediate problem of: "it's not as good". Then there are the network effects. Most people are on twitter. Most people are on facebook. If you go elsewhere you're missing the point.

What we should do is pay attention to the existing sources of decentralization we already have, without screwing around with "clever" new decentralization technology that nobody can relate to (like bitcoin & web 3.0).

Such as:
- Email (private, not webmail)
- Websites (case in point: forums like this one)
- Hyperlinks

Instead of the hub-and-spoke siloing of websites (being discovered from Google or not at all), there should be much more extensive interconnection between them. More hyperlinking, more joint ventures and alliances, more internal or "consortium" search.

The solution isn't another monolithic point of centralization. It's using what decentralization we already have and expanding upon it.

 

[Ayanle Farah]

I've checked minds.com and one of the frontpages seem full of fanpages for people such as Trump, Jordan Peterson, Ben Shapiro and Alex Jones, it appears to be a platform for mild opinions instead of actual truth.

 

[Ayanle Farah]

Really gotta be careful what I say here. I can't the rabbit hole goes to deep you need to figure it out yourself. Once something traumatic happens to you, you might see the light.

I don't know what you're talking about and I hope whatever bad you're wishing on me goes back to you. I don't feel like talking to you anymore.

Put on ignore list.

 

[rogue synthetic]

I'm interested to hear your thoughts on how it could get out of hand.
Care to elaborate?

I'm just thinking about the logistics of scaling a database that gets larger with every transaction, where everyone has to have a copy of it and transactions are permanently encoded in the unalterable blockchain.

This mostly makes sense for what a cryptocurrency is meant to do (part of the point is to keep the books without depending on a trusted third party), and Bitcoin is having to face these challenges in order to keep this working. But it seems complete overkill for the usual web 2.0 applications, which are mainly just databases plus some nifty front-end UI functionality.

Mainly I'm just wondering what advantages the blockchain tech offers over other currently-existing encryption and distribution methods.

And something else... I'm old enough to remember and have used Usenet way back in the Before Times. The NNTP protocol was already doing a lot of the distributed censorship-resistant work back in 1996. Once the social media companies started consolidating all the traffic, that kinda fell to the side.

I could be wrong here, but my hunch is that blockchain-buzz is riding on some of the vogue of 'encryption' and 'decentralization' to try and recapture some of that old functionality... but I'd be worried that the problem isn't with the technology so much as the user habits and desire for convenience that made Big Social into the monoliths they are.

Anyway. Just me thinking out loud, feel free to ignore.

 

[GoGetter24]

I'm just thinking about the logistics of scaling a database that gets larger with every transaction, where everyone has to have a copy of it and transactions are permanently encoded in the unalterable blockchain.

Yeah, it simply doesn't work. As anyone who tried using bitcoin during the peak knows, the moment it actually gets popular, the clearing speed drops through the floor and the transaction costs go through the roof.

People aren't understanding this decentralization situation because they haven't spent the time to actually think through why centralization happens in the first place. It's not just because governments and big tech companies have some ominous oppressive power. People have voluntarily behaved in a way that has caused mass centralization. They have willingly and eagerly handed over the power.

Contrary to being some decentralizing force, the internet has been the most severe catalyst of centralization mankind has ever seen. Facebook has 2.2 billion active users. That's more than a quarter of the earth. And they've moved into ISP services to continue expanding their reach even further.

I don't think people are fully appreciating the gravity of what has been unfolding as a result of the internet. It has been quietly F*cking everyone up and everyone just seems to want to use it even more.

Unless there is some severe counter-reaction to the internet and its centralizing effects, society is going to be increasingly dysfunctional. And starting with "the internet is fundamentally good, we just need to tweak it with clever IT wankery" isn't going to discover the solution.

The movie The Matrix has proven itself to be an incredible portent. The wires are just the next bit: with people like Elon Musk working on neural links because "bandwidth is the limiter". One wonders now if removing that limit is a good thing. I submit it could be a game ender. People, especially the young generation, are already completely plugged in with their eyes and hands.

With guys spending all their time playing computer games, wanking to high def porn, reading blogs & social media, watching tv shows and movies online, and then spending all their time at work on the internet; with girls spending all day on social media looking for attention and validation; with both groups using crap like Tinder: "sexual relations and validation as a service".

Meanwhile the psychos of society are using it to exert a level of control, and to extract benefits, that their predecessors could only have dreamed of.

Do you all realize how F*cked this is getting? We've just sleepwalked into an insane level of dysfunction.

Gentlemen, we're always looking for the next big thing, the next wave to catch, so we can get on it and get filthy rich. I submit the next big wave is going to be in some big counter-reaction to the internet. Non-internet services and products.

And even if that doesn't happen, the ever-consumption of society by the internet, and upcoming generations being increasingly plugged in and incapable of real world pursuits, is going to start draining competition from other real world physical businesses, so there will be increasing opportunities to make money offline.

 

[Brian Christel]

The level of bias on censorship has gotten out of hand and it's really a shame. You'd think the tech/social media giants, who constantly push for innovation/diversity/inclusion, would be above that but it opens the door for HUGE opportunity that would put the USER in control of what's in their feed.

 

[ChrisR]

I've thought about this a lot over the last year and a half. The shit that's happening is outright insane.

The thing that worries me the most is the top companies controlling the internet. Look what happened to Alex Jones and Gab.ai. If the powers that be want you gone then there really isn't a whole lot that can be done about it.

 

[Timmy C]

I've checked minds.com and one of the frontpages seem full of fanpages for people such as Trump, Jordan Peterson, Ben Shapiro and Alex Jones, it appears to be a platform for mild opinions instead of actual truth.

Oh please that was never what was being discussed we are talking about censorship, the right to free speech regardless of opinion, free speech is a right and censorship is the issue.

The censorship itself is often to keep you from such truths as apart of an agenda.i am not saying that is the case with all the people you have listed. Although Jordan Peterson does make great points, about society now being a feminist society which is 100 percent accurate.

 

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[Ayanle Farah]

Oh please that was never what was being discussed we are talking about censorship, the right to free speech regardless of opinion, free speech is a right and censorship is the issue.

The censorship itself is often to keep you from such truths as apart of an agenda.i am not saying that is the case with all the people you have listed. Although Jordan Peterson does make great points, about society now being a feminist society which is 100 percent accurate.

Even if you're given an outlet to rant about a few topics, suggesting to you what you should think is still a form of censorship which is what the ones I've mentioned above are doing, the point is to not be a follower of anyone.

 

[Timmy C]

Even if you're given an outlet to rant about a few topics, suggesting to you what you should think is still a form of censorship which is what the ones I've mentioned above are doing, the point is to not be a follower of anyone.

The censorship of the individuals above is not about being given a place to rant but more to have a discussion about issues in society from both sides like a civilised society.

Bias is a tendency to lean in a certain direction, often to the detriment of an open mind. Those who are biased tend to believe what they want to believe, refusing to take into consideration the opinions of others.

A bias is happening on every single social platform from, youtube, to facebook and the list goes on. Why else would they be censoring individuals, the people speaking out and giving there opinion are not censoring they are being censored.

A corporation should not have the right to control the narrative being played all over the world at the moment media especially and the list goes on. A decentralized platform squashes this into oblivion.

 

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[Timmy C]

I'll kindly decline as it is painful for people to hear and I don't feel like being controversial and ruining peoples realities, PM me if you want but i am not putting it out in the forum.

 

[ChrisR]

I've checked minds.com and one of the frontpages seem full of fanpages for people such as Trump, Jordan Peterson, Ben Shapiro and Alex Jones, it appears to be a platform for mild opinions instead of actual truth.

I think your statement proves how a great majority of people think.

I believe the existing sites are more than adequate for most people. They are totally content with the way companies like youtube and facebook operate. Those are the people that aren't being silenced.

It's the people that are being silenced that are going to create or find other outlets. These people are typically right leaning or conservative. When a new site pops up and it has a lot of what you mentioned, they automatically deem it as hate speech like they did with Gab.ai. They think it's a right wing outlet full of hate, bigots and xenophobs.

Idk how someone would successfully launch an unbiased platform.

 

[Timmy C]

I think your statement proves how a great majority of people think.

I believe the existing sites are more than adequate for most people. They are totally content with the way companies like youtube and facebook operate. Those are the people that aren't being silenced.

It's the people that are being silenced that are going to create or find other outlets. These people are typically right leaning or conservative. When a new site pops up and it has a lot of what you mentioned, they automatically deem it as hate speech like they did with Gab.ai. They think it's a right wing outlet full of hate, bigots and xenophobs.

Idk how someone would successfully launch an unbiased platform.

I agree. I have given people clues in my day to day life even my father.

He said I wasn't right and I said to pay attention, he came home the other day and said I thought you might be right but after what happened the other day when I was out for dinner I new you where 100 percent right and he was shocked. I left it there and didn't tell him anymore harsh truths because I could see the pain he was going through its best to leave breadcrumbs.

 

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[Timmy C]

So far there's been a lot of complaining about how the status quo is unfair, and very little actual analysis on if this is a viable business idea. And while I think the privacy-minded services (Duck-duck-go, Protonmail) have a lot of room to grow, the anti-censorship platforms (Gab, minds.com) will have a much harder time reaching a critical mass due to basic business math.

For starters, like @ChrisR said, the current platforms are more than adequate for the majority of people. So right off the bat, you're dealing with a business model that is for a niche audience. How big is that audience? Alex Jones has what, 2M followers across all platforms? How many more can you attract to your platform? I'm estimating a platform like this would appeal to 1 or 2% of the total population. Is that enough for your business plan?

Also, how is this project going to funded and make money? Advertising is pretty much out. Remember when Papa John's was nominated as the official pizza of the alt-right?

Papa John's is now the official alt-right pizza, according to neo-Nazis

How long did it take Papa John's to publicly denounce that endorsement? Big companies are very risk-averse when it comes to their brand being associated with non-mainstream populations, so you're stuck with advertisements for dick pills and porn sites. And even then, will you have a large enough audience to break even or make money?

And are you truly committed to a censorship-free platform? Are you ok with neo-nazis using your platform to threaten violence against others based on their skin color? Are you ok with "GamerGate" people threatening to rape and kill women? Are you fine with Antifa's using it to plan violent counter-protests? Are you ok with ISIS and Al-Qaeda using it to organize terror attacks? (I use these examples since they have all been associated with 4chan). I know MJ said that users could block offending content, but how many people are willing to put in the time to sanitize what they see? And wouldn't that just give the platform an enormous amount of information on the user, which is what we were trying to avoid in the first place?

I've thought a little bit about what it would take to create an alternative social media platform in the past, and these are a few of the questions I asked myself while doing my due diligence. In the end, I decided against it because:
1. There's little to no money
2. I didn't want to be associated with the fringe populations (right or left)

I'm not saying it's not possible, or my business assumptions are 100% accurate. Just that at the end of the day I can find better business opportunities that more closely align with my values.

in my opinion the tide is already turning but how quick it turns you can't be sure. This goes deeper than alt right alt left.
We say North Korea are force fed bullshit news that is controlled by government but it is of my opinion we are getting force fed a bunch of crap to that keeps society obedient l am not just speaking about fastlane and unscripted script speak. It goes much deeper.

the critical masses are buying into it at the moment but we at least have the means to uncover the truth if we dig deep enough into the shit storm and web of lies which some already have done. It is of my opinion when critical mass realise this there will be a major shit storm upon us and shift in public opinion.

In regards to ISIS etc we'll that will happen whether we like it or not and will be a direct consequence of the government's of the world pulling the wool over the masses eyes and corporations having control over free speech.

You make some good points for someone looking to persue this for a fastlane investment though.

 

[MJ DeMarco]

Sorry but what is an INE ? The link is dead (or may be for INSIDERS?)

Idea Needing Execution -- its a sub forum on the INSIDERS forum for ideas available for execution with discussions about them.

 

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[marklov]

I believe the big opportunities are...

Facebook problem being, college kids post their debauchery then show up in their parents or some other "old" person's feed.


What's so intimidating about these big tech companies?

Remember it's advertisers that are keeping facebook alive, they are really just a good one trick pony surviving off a massive database.


Are these tech companies really that infallible or is it just millenials don't have the drive to execute like a motherfcker?.

These tech companies were never the first of their kind to enter their market....won't be the last either.

Build a chump change Amazon store or...
slaying a giant and make billions becoming the better Google or Facebook ?


Maybe I just think TOO BIG but going after one of these big tech monopolies should be the real endgame, Amazon FBA chump change can kma.

 

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[chimichangatime]

Large companies can censor stuff too, not just the government.

Yes, but it's not a "freedom of speech" or First Amendment issue at this point. These are separate issues. Freedom of speech doesn't apply from Facebook, et al, because they can censor whatever they want.

Second, MJ and his forum aren't the same case at all. The forum has a theme, a smaller user base, and anything censored has a real reason to be.

This is patently ridiculous, and a logical fallacy.

The problem with these larger companies banning certain speech is that they are topic less large platforms that are one of the main sources of information (credible or not) available.

So... /r/ketogains is a pretty small group and not topic-less. In fact, Reddit has been accused of censoring (it's true, they have; they're privately owned!) but doesn't fall under your definition, though they'll certainly delete your posts if you go in there ranting about how they're gonna die if they don't eat more carbs.

the suppression of certain opinions is exactly the kind of censorship that is wrong.

"Certain opinions?" What does that mean? Who's the arbiter of that? And what does "wrong" mean? Who are you to tell anyone else what's "wrong?"

Can I join your Underwater Basket Weaving course you sell and then just be a straight-up dick to everyone there without consequence? Can I make death threats and scare everyone off? No, you'd kick my a$$ off. And you'd be right to, especially if you owned the platform.

 

[Not_That_MD]

I believe there is much bigger problem with those giant tech companies than the fact they censor the content on their platform. From the top of my head, at least Google and Facebook have plans to also provide worldwide internet coverage. What happens after they make it real and the regular providers cannot compete anymore and die? Will internet stay synonymous to freedom? I guess not. The internet itself will become their platform.

 

[AFMKelvin]

It's funny how all the big tech companies have strayed from the foundations that built those companies. The idea to give a voice to the voiceless. To push boundaries and say the things you wanted to say. The whole hacker culture and free spirit of the early founders of sylicon valley has been eradicated.

Now they have turn into the very thing they were trying to break away from. If you don't agree with their rebellious attitude you are a tyrant that must be silenced.

For those of you that don't known Facebook has been on a full blown censorship campaign against conservative viewpoints since 2016. They changed the algorithm to automatically flag certain keywords as offensive. Even images like the green frog Pepe were been censored.

I am by no means a conservative but I love free speech so it does affect me too. The latest example was the censorship of Alex Jones by all the big tech Giants. If you silence him today who's next tomorrow?

If anyone is interested there's a new social media platform that's revolutionary because it's based on blockchain technology. Once you upload something it's on the blockchain forever. It's free from the clutches of hosting companies so it can't be shut down.

Check out their website out AKASHA Project | Co-creating The Language of Freedom

 

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[LittleWolfie]

...
I suggested this a few years ago, but it has recently reached a tipping point.


I still think a Twitter alternative is viable, not a big fan of Gab.

Here you go.
Peepeth

These are now technically viable due to the advances in distributed ledgers and crytography. The etherum virtual machine means you can now write any distributed version of any app, the hard part is getting the critical mass of users and making a simpler entry into the application. think Etherum Name Service and ETH APIs are going to be big. The average user doesn't want or need the complexity, currently in the space. Imagine if you had to fill out the DNS records by hand to get online with your new PC.

Steemit is the distributed Reddit. I forget the name of the youtube equivalent.

 

[Roli]

I forget the name of the youtube equivalent.

dtube.

 

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