Social media platforms — Why I believe we deserve something better
People need to be connected, people need to share things and learn things from different folks to keep growing, to be happy, to be alive. Social media platforms used to do this really well, some might argue that they still do, and I might even agree that some do, but my question is, at what cost?
Ever since Advertisement has been accepted as the standard business model for this industry, people are not in charge of these apps anymore — they’re actually being used by them.
Companies need to make money, that’s their role in the world — to be an active agent of the Economy, I get that. I also understand why Advertisement as a business model is so appealing, it’s one of the biggest industries there is and a proven recipe to success — all you need to do is build something that injects the right amount of dopamine to keep users on screen for a few minutes, and later on, send a few notifications to bring them back again.
You keep looping these two steps over and over again, and you try to keep them engaged as long as possible — it shouldn’t be that hard since you have an insane amount of data from them and you know what keeps the stuff going. Next, you put some highly targeted ads all over the platform and you make enough money to never have to work again for the rest of your life.
Initially, I didn’t see this as a huge problem — TV Channels, Radio Stations, Newspapers, Blogs, lots of other industries make money with advertising and there’s no problem with it. Obviously, social media platforms have this insane amount of data that makes advertisers’ jobs easier and their campaigns more effective, but then the ball dropped and I was faced with this question if these companies can manipulate us so easily just to show us some ads, what else can they do with this huge amount of power?
None of this is new, and lots of it has already been covered in documentaries, blog posts, podcasts, interviews, etc. Lots of different folks are pushing as hard as they can to raise awareness for this problem and to prevent things from getting worse.
As for me, I’ve decided to build Ripplr.
Ripplr is a social platform with no ads, where every post is a link — anything that exists on the Internet and has a URL, can be found and shared within Ripplr.
We believe that having ads in our platform would make us work for advertisers, not users — ultimately building the product for them, and that’s not what we want to do.
Our goal is to build a remarkable product for our users, something that they would actually pay for, not to exploit their data. At Ripplr, users choose which content they want to see, and when they want to see it. The platform has lots of different things to offer, and each of us will use it differently, based on our preferences and our choices.
If you’re interested in finding more about Ripplr, join us at ripplr.io and help us build the product we all deserve. A product that values people and their choices. A product that wants to be different.
Thank you so much for your time.
Mário Balça,
Founder of Ripplr
