kinda feel like all social media sites are probably doomed
Because providing a social media site costs money for all the servers and bandwidth… and a social media site doesn’t MAKE money, except from advertisers (which is never enough to cover the cost, from what I’ve heard)
and supposedly most of the actual money is from shareholders who just invest because they hope the value will be higher at some time later on, even if they don’t believe the service will ever start making real profit, they just expect more shareholder money to go in, and this will only keep going for as long as people keep doing this
And I guess also there’s money from people buying things like extra features and premium accounts
Except that most of us don’t want to do that, and we’ve even got a culture of actively discouraging paying for those things, because we don’t want to support the site owners, because they are evil
I mean obviously. they are CEOs of corporations. They are gonna keep doing more and more unethical stuff to try and squeeze money out of the site in as many ways as possible, for as long as it is possible
And of course we know that if they stop being able to make money, they aren’t gonna keep running their business at a loss just for the sake of being kind to us
So, I guess we’re all just living in the moment and trying not to think about what we’ll do when the bubble bursts
And I really really need to work some more on my HTML site and figure out how I’m gonna connect it to others who have HTML sites (90s-era geocities webring style lol) and also set up an email list or whatever
But I am sooooooo tiiiired
You’re right that it’s unsustainable.
What I’ve recently (surprisingly) HAVE found sustainable lately are relatively small websites with traditional forums who run an optional Patreon. Mastodon servers with a Ko-fi.
Returning to how the internet used to be would be better for users, obviously, but we’ve also hit a point where internet users are adults with income. Not every BBS can be a team of full time jobs, but if you’re useful or close-knit, you can recoup server costs with some extra cash.
This! I’ve definitely found that small independently managed online groups are the most capable of being sustainable, for many reasons (though of course they aren’t guaranteed to be sustainable, since each one depends on the continued availability of a few specific people).
And while there are downsides to socializing in such a small group, there are benefits to it as well….
(Which is another reason I really want to overcome my current tiredness and figure out some small independently managed options for myself and some friends. Argh.)