[taurath]

Wait, Facebook cares about engagement between people instead of between people and ad-supported lowest common demoninator content? Could have fooled me over the past several years. I’m really cynical about FB but it really has earned it.

I hope it becomes more useful, because for me their original value proposition to users was great but has totally lost its way as they’ve monetized.

[jcadam]

Yea, at this point I'd be willing to pay $10/month for a social network that respected my privacy, didn't bombard me with ads, and just generally treated me as a customer, rather than product.

The trick of course is convincing anyone who isn't me to pay :)

Heck, maybe it should be a non-profit.

[itissid]

I use umatrix chrome extension to block FB and twitter to the max and almost every ad server. That keeps FB and twitter and a bunch of other nonsense out.

[eckza]

Just... get your real friends to text you.

If they won't text you, they're not your real friends. (This isn't always true, but I'd say that it's 95% accurate.)

I'm not being condescending or pretentious. I have done this, over the last few months, and it's helped me to realize who's really worth having in my life on a daily basis, and who's not.

[freehunter]

I don't want my friends texting me everything. That's far more disruptive than a passive feed I can glance at. And I don't want to text my friends everything either.

One of the great things about Facebook is the unexpected social interactions. I post a picture and someone I haven't talked to in a while comments something really great on it and sparks a conversation and rekindles the friendship. That's not going to happen over text.

People in my life on a daily basis are in my life on a daily basis. People in my life occasionally are on Facebook.

[Double_a_92]

We have a Telegram group with all the important people.

Just mute it so you can passively read it. And if it's something specifically for you they can @handle you.

Also we have more specific groups for gaming, memes, serious, homework,...

Oh and a "huge" group were we can add new people at first, that somebody randomly met somewhere. So they can maybe get friends with some of the others too.

[eckza]

That’s fair.

I am personally going through a period where I need to tighten my circle and cut down on the number of people that I communicate with on a given day, so that’s what’s driving my approach.

Thank you for sharing your perspective.

[DashRattlesnake]

> I don't want my friends texting me everything. That's far more disruptive than a passive feed I can glance at. And I don't want to text my friends everything either.

Real friendships aren't passive.

[freehunter]

You have a very restrictive view of what a real friendship is. I'm sorry, but you don't get to define my relationships, that is not your right.

[freehunter]

It was called app.net, and it went out of business a few years back because no one wanted to pay for it.

[rainbowmverse]

Mastodon

Most instance admins have a Patreon and/or Liberapay if you want to send $10/month their way.

[DashRattlesnake]

> The trick of course is convincing anyone who isn't me to pay :)

Honestly, maybe invites/sponsorships? One person who care's enough to pay $10 can bring his "social graph" (or a subset) with him.