Hi Deepti, this is 100% spot on - especially the point about how most social products optimise for visibility and activity, not for the quality of human connection. We’re very aligned on that diagnosis. Agree with you that the future isn’t more social content, it’s systems that quietly help us maintain the relationships that already matter. Appreciate you articulating this so clearly. At Village we're experimenting with a social that puts humans and human-human connections at first and it's interesting to observe behavior when polarizing and addictive factors are out of the picture. We see real user engagement, leading to actual human connection inside or outside the app. Success isn’t time spent in the app, it’s whether you checked in, followed up, or showed care offline. Would love to have a chat and hear your take on our observations so far!
Hey Deepti, I totally agree with you analysis and am interested to see Roundabout when it comes into the public sphere. I am also wondering if you have thought about how we might build applications that operate in layers above the webpage. For example, imagine a Roundabout sidebar above every webpage. I am working on an overlay substrate that would enable any application to operate above webpages. That way, the web page is the start of the conversation.
In the pre-Facebook era there was a company called MyBlogLog that did something similar. Unfortunately Yahoo bought it and immediately ran it into the ground. Would love to see that make a comeback.
yes yes yes! i felt this so hard. have been a fan of New_ Public for a minute now and it's so exciting to see what is coming through Roundabout. i feel the isolation all the time and also have been finding myself coming up short when it comes to building social infrastructure in my immediate physical proximity and online as well. i've been organizing gatherings around the LA area that bring neighbors together around shared memories and feel like this will be on my mind for awhile! <3
Well put, “Who is the platform accountable to?, or as I have put it, “Who does it serve?” — and that we need better business models that are more win-win.
As a start toward better business models, my FairPay framework points to a blend of elements that we can mix and match to move toward, and a strategy for a new kind of repeated game that makes people and their service providers partners in understanding and sharing fairly in the value surplus they co-create together.
Open the platforms to make them accountable to those they serve (#FreeOurFeeds!) and insist on Personal AI Agents that ensure that their tools and their tool-merchants serve them with loyalty and trust.
I am so supportive of this idea. Social media is practically a utility service these day. Living without it can make people feel more disconnected and even lonely. They might miss local news stories or opportunities for in-person gatherings by opting out.
Can’t wait to try out roundabout when it’s more public.
It took me a while, but I finally published the text I started writing to respond to this excellent provocation from Deepti and New_Public. It's in Brazilian Portuguese, but it's meant to engage in dialogue with you all ;)
Indeed the Content consumption issue is deeply linked the Scroll user-experience, which is now a mass addiction worldwide.
I'm afraid, as long as people scroll, no business model will get rid of content-centric mechanics, which are the core of the old toxic attention models.
Yes we need to end Infinite scroll, but that is not enough: we need to get rid of the Scroll itself. Only then we will enable purpose over social media.
I'd like to see New Public also prioritize tech that builds collective intelligence as well as local connection. This video explains the Engelbartian Dilemma we are facing: https://youtu.be/WSTUimN3ELE
Hi Deepti, this is 100% spot on - especially the point about how most social products optimise for visibility and activity, not for the quality of human connection. We’re very aligned on that diagnosis. Agree with you that the future isn’t more social content, it’s systems that quietly help us maintain the relationships that already matter. Appreciate you articulating this so clearly. At Village we're experimenting with a social that puts humans and human-human connections at first and it's interesting to observe behavior when polarizing and addictive factors are out of the picture. We see real user engagement, leading to actual human connection inside or outside the app. Success isn’t time spent in the app, it’s whether you checked in, followed up, or showed care offline. Would love to have a chat and hear your take on our observations so far!
Hey Deepti, I totally agree with you analysis and am interested to see Roundabout when it comes into the public sphere. I am also wondering if you have thought about how we might build applications that operate in layers above the webpage. For example, imagine a Roundabout sidebar above every webpage. I am working on an overlay substrate that would enable any application to operate above webpages. That way, the web page is the start of the conversation.
In the pre-Facebook era there was a company called MyBlogLog that did something similar. Unfortunately Yahoo bought it and immediately ran it into the ground. Would love to see that make a comeback.
I had never heard of MyBlogLog but from what I can tell it does have a similar aim. Was it a browser extension?
It was a widget for blogging apps. These days it would probably need to be a browser extension
Im using extension and also web-embed SDK. Let’s have a conversation?
Sure! DM me for a calendar link
yes yes yes! i felt this so hard. have been a fan of New_ Public for a minute now and it's so exciting to see what is coming through Roundabout. i feel the isolation all the time and also have been finding myself coming up short when it comes to building social infrastructure in my immediate physical proximity and online as well. i've been organizing gatherings around the LA area that bring neighbors together around shared memories and feel like this will be on my mind for awhile! <3
👏
You might want to connect with the Weave project, a nonprofit started by David Brooks that's attempting something similar
https://weavers.org/
Good timing. Today Leigh Stein wrote an epic post about how moderating a Facebook group completely burned her out.
https://open.substack.com/pub/leighstein/p/the-end-of-my-career-as-a-professional
brava. thank you, deepti.
Well put, “Who is the platform accountable to?, or as I have put it, “Who does it serve?” — and that we need better business models that are more win-win.
As a start toward better business models, my FairPay framework points to a blend of elements that we can mix and match to move toward, and a strategy for a new kind of repeated game that makes people and their service providers partners in understanding and sharing fairly in the value surplus they co-create together.
An introduction to FairPay is at https://www.fairpayzone.com/2024/11/fairpay-innovative-win-win-customer.html, and a breakdown of the elements is at https://www.fairpayzone.com/2019/07/the-elements-of-next-gen-relationships.html.
“Who does it serve?” Is addressed for social media by open markets in attention agents, as summarized at https://www.persuasion.community/p/how-to-reclaim-social-media-from. How that translates to AI is explained at https://www.techpolicy.press/new-perspectives-on-ai-agentiality-and-democracy-whom-does-it-serve/.
Open the platforms to make them accountable to those they serve (#FreeOurFeeds!) and insist on Personal AI Agents that ensure that their tools and their tool-merchants serve them with loyalty and trust.
I am so supportive of this idea. Social media is practically a utility service these day. Living without it can make people feel more disconnected and even lonely. They might miss local news stories or opportunities for in-person gatherings by opting out.
Can’t wait to try out roundabout when it’s more public.
I applaud the ideas; but I'd take New_Public more seriously if its website didn't insist on cookies being used.
It took me a while, but I finally published the text I started writing to respond to this excellent provocation from Deepti and New_Public. It's in Brazilian Portuguese, but it's meant to engage in dialogue with you all ;)
https://uirapora.substack.com/p/um-modelo-revolucionario
Great piece! This reminds me of Joshua Citarella speaking about how we could model a digital commons on the post office. https://daily.jstor.org/the-case-for-a-public-social-media-platform/
Yes, Scroll is the not-so-hidden devil.
Indeed the Content consumption issue is deeply linked the Scroll user-experience, which is now a mass addiction worldwide.
I'm afraid, as long as people scroll, no business model will get rid of content-centric mechanics, which are the core of the old toxic attention models.
Yes we need to end Infinite scroll, but that is not enough: we need to get rid of the Scroll itself. Only then we will enable purpose over social media.
This piece really made me think, what if platform design started with public good, not investor retuns?
I'd like to see New Public also prioritize tech that builds collective intelligence as well as local connection. This video explains the Engelbartian Dilemma we are facing: https://youtu.be/WSTUimN3ELE
I would love to see someone seriously try out the platform cooperative model at scale - the users should be the owners! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Platform_cooperative