Ask HN: Is #deleteFacebook an opportunity for a startup? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Is #deleteFacebook an opportunity for a startup?

2 pointsamerf13 comments

I remember when we were in college how super dependent we were on our blackberrys to arrange study groups and get updates on our courses. No one really used whatsapp back then because we were reluctant to give out our phone numbers

One day the blackberry servers crashed and we were at the end of the semester, we really suffered... everyone was looking for an alternative. A bunch of us moved to whatsapp as a temporary fix, until a couple of months later the blackberry servers crashed again. That’s when the rest of the bunch moved to whatsapp. Never went back to blackberry again.

Do you think there another social media platform out there benefiting from the deletefacebook move? Or is this the perfect time to start one?

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> Do you think there another social media platform out there benefiting from the deletefacebook move?

Probably every other one; especially those that directly compete with Facebook/Messenger in terms of use-case, or those that target more tech-savvy people, or those worried about privacy (ei, Signal, I'd assume Nextdoor since I'd guess it competes heavily with Facebook Groups, though I wonder if Snapchat too, since it competes mainly with Instagram which surprisingly I've heard little about).

> Or is this the perfect time to start one?

Maybe? Building a startup takes a while and it's unclear wether this is a temporary hit to Facebook or something more long-lasting. I personally think it's temporary-- being from outside the US I don't think this level of angst against Facebook is universal, but I might be wrong. Just like most people here, my evidence is anecdotal.

The privacy-savy people spearheading #deletefacebook are a good market to start, though keep in mind they'll scrutinize the business model a lot more. If twitter is any indication, as of yesterday there's a good 50,000 vocal people who deleted facebook as of yesterday (minus people just tweeting about the trend, plus people who delete and don't tweet, plus people who deleted it before the #deletefacebook hashtag) [1].

[1]: http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbcthree/article/6958e119-50eb-49f8-825...

> Do you think there another social media platform out there benefiting from the deletefacebook move?

It's called Mastodon. Chances are the last time you heard of it was because Lance Ulanoff couldn't find William Shatner and decided to bitch about it in Mashable instead of admitting his ignorance and asking more experienced users for help.

> Or is this the perfect time to start one?

Now would be a great time to start a hosting service that makes it easy to set up personal instances of Mastodon, Pleroma, or Diaspora* and offers support and updates. Such a service would ideally be based in a country that is subject to EU data protection laws and has a habit of saying "Warrant or GTFO" when Uncle Sam wants users' data.

Same UI/UX, homomorphic content encryption, different business model.

It almost certainly won't work but one can dream.

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