Anyone want to help build an open source social media platform?
3 comments
The problem with open source is that developers can't earn a living while developing the software. I know that I would take a pay cut if I started to work for something I truly felt good about. But at the very least I need a wage to live on.
Fix the wage issue and you will get the project moving.
I think a model similar to the peace corps could work. Young people could work on a project for 2 years. They can get experience and learn while doing something good. But I don't know how to finance it.
Fix the wage issue and you will get the project moving.
I think a model similar to the peace corps could work. Young people could work on a project for 2 years. They can get experience and learn while doing something good. But I don't know how to finance it.
It's not a bad idea...but we have seen the EU bankroll lot of devs. Lot of garbage gets produced cuz theres no one herding the cats or holding a whip.
Why open-source? Many of these projects already exist. They all work fine, but no one uses them. How would this one be different?
Maybe fix the issues you really care about (privacy, etc.) but still serve ads or do something to make enough money to pay the server costs.
How about working one one of those that already exist?
So I think, what could I build on my own that impassions me? Well, anger is a great motivator. Find a problem that makes you angry, and that can inspire an entire company vision. For me, I truly think social media might lead to some sort of collapse of our society, in some form. Especially now with Horizon on the... horizon.. I'm just genuinely concerned that fuckerberg is going to turn our world into his own circus.
So why not an open source social media platform? The initial ideas from me:
* Create a discord so we can start talking and collaborating * 100% of the code (front and back end) would be hosted online for anyone to contribute to or fork, so full transparency * Eventually, there may be some salaries for whoever ends up maintaining it, but it will be strictly not-for-profit * Ideally completely donation supported with no ads, and the donated money details could be made public, so everyone could see what was in the bank, how long the service could keep live on donations, and some sort of ledger so any withdraws and their purpose were public as well * All features of a modern social media platform should be supported, so video (short and long), pictures, text posts, followers, friends, comments, explore, several different types of feeds. This could actually be a great opportunity to brainstorm how we could incorporate the best features from all the current major players and perhaps make something even better * We could start a kickstarter too!
This is my first post with this idea, so I'm partially just trying to see if it resonates with anyone else and if there's enough people who'd be willing to help with a cause like this. To me, social media is perhaps becoming too ubiquitous and influential to be for profit, and maybe it needs the Wikipedia treatment?