SOCIAL MEDIA

Facebook and Twitter Would Be Better Platforms if They Had a Monthly Membership Fee

Advertising is the biggest problem with social media

I recently wrote about how smartphones are evil. It’s all because of social media apps. They are addictive and the social media companies know it.

J.R. Spiers asked:

“Just curious as to whether or not you consider Medium to be a social media. I’ve heard comments both ways. Thanks!”

Great question! Yes, technically it is, but the correct grammar for it is “social medium”, since “media” is the plural of “medium”. This is likely the reason why Medium was thus named.

But the big difference with Medium is that it isn’t funded by advertising. It doesn’t have an incentive to keep us addicted so it can earn more money by showing us more ads.

Medium’s only priority is to provide us with content we like, and a space to publish our own content. Then we keep paying our monthly $5 fee because we think it’s worth it.

Facebook would be a much better platform if it was funded by a monthly membership fee.

Because it is funded by advertising, it’s in its interest to keep you addicted. The more time you spend endlessly scrolling and liking, the more ads you see. Facebook makes more money that way.

Without ads, there would no longer be any incentive to make the platform addictive. Facebook’s priority would be to provide a service that the users think justifies the monthly fee.

Another problem with advertising is that it influences the content. For example, imagine a health magazine that contained adverts for drugs. That magazine would contain no articles that criticized those drugs.

Compare Facebook to Meetup.com. Meetup is a wonderful way to find like-minded people and meet up with them. It’s a social medium in the truest sense — it facilitates people actually meeting in person. You know, SOCIALISING.

Meetup has no motivation to make the platform itself addictive. All it needs to do is make it easy for people to find groups they are interested in and meet up with them. Making the platform addictive would go against its purpose. The more time you spend on it, the less time you’re spending actually meeting up with people.

All these apps and services that seem free are not really free at all. You still pay for them. But rather than paying with money, you pay with your attention and time.

On your death bed, you won’t be wishing you spent more time scrolling through Facebook.

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