[ubicomp]

Re-doing social networks based on one size fits all social activity streams seems like it's going in the wrong direction. Especially since these social shapes typically necessitate funding requirements like ads or pay to play.

I wonder when we'll go back to forums to connect. Earlier "slow social" methods (mailing lists / message boards). Forums can be free. People can self-host. They can run for years and years and years. Folks can organize around a single subject or a series of subjects and grow together over time at various levels of engagement without resorting to a one size fits all model that social networks force on users.

I really enjoyed running forums for my friends. I never had to pay giant server fees because it was just a few of us. We had 100K page views per month. We never had to have ads. We had forum permissions and mods and a lot of fun times.

I see Discord being similar to this vs. social media, where you can slowly join communities and get nearer to the core. More of an onion model of community. I'm looking forward to seeing what happens in this space.

[CitrusFruits]

> Especially since these social shapes typically necessitate funding

I would actually argue, that with today's technologies and cloud offerings, this isn't necessarily true. The operating costs for a high availability sites aren't all that high. You can easily support a million users for under $1000 a month. The real cost to most other social networks is the need to generate infrastructure and growth engines around returning investment to venture capitalists and other stakeholders.

But regarding your other points, I definitely sympathize. I've actually tried to get my friends onto forums, and thoroughly enjoy Discord. Slow Social, however, is for a niche that I don't think those other options fully serve.