I created this topic as a companion to this post in the MeWe as Exemplar of Humane Technology thread: Exemplar of Humane Tech Social Network: MeWe because it was too long to post there. Read there for context.
The text below is a copy of a discussion thread on Google+ and copied because it may disappear after shutdown of G+
John Lewis wrote:
I can no longer remain quiet regarding MeWe.
After much thought and some very long nights of research, I can no longer silently suggest MeWe as a viable option for migration. My silence may have previously been considered support for the platform, but there are three considerations that forced me to make an active stand:
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Many people from here are migrating there (based on polling data.) This means it’s my duty to inform you that I think this is not a good idea.
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I have interviewed numerous people who have used it. I have yet to have a positive review from these random samplings.
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As a private, for-profit company, their loss of an app on the Apple App Store is a very significant sign that they are in trouble and that their life cycle is coming to an end.
I can go into more details to specific questions asked in the comments, but I can no longer silently accept that the site would self correct if enough people migrated there.
It’s my conclusion that the monetization of the network is untenable, the company is shaking hands with the devil to stay afloat, and will likely fall in short order.
Isaac Kuo shared:
Say no thanks to MeWe
I do not understand the enthusiasm with which many users being abandoned by a “good” corporation’s closed garden are running toward a newbie startup corporation’s closed garden.
Oh sure - a startup promises everything and seems very responsive to the customers. They all do. They’re not being funded by the customers, they’re being funded by VC cash. They try to lock you in while they can, so they can extract value from you later. This is what always happens, because sooner or later the VC’s always want their money back and then some (a LOT some).
And you know what? MeWe is going to fail. I mean…there’s a small chance it won’t, but most startups fail. From the VC’s perspective, that’s just the price of doing business. Most investments fail, but you get a big payoff from the one that doesn’t. That’s cool for the VC’s, but what good is it for the end users?
For the most part, the end users aren’t stupid. For the most part, we avoid getting in deep with dubious startups, and just try to take advantage of freebies while the getting’s good. But with this MeWe mass migration, it’s like a form of mass stupidity.
The hard truth is that there weren’t enough G+ users to justify Google continuing to invest in G+. In terms of raw numbers, there weren’t enough of us to keep a Facebook wannabe afloat. Even if we all migrated to MeWe, it would still be a struggling Facebook wannabe.
In contrast, far smaller numbers flooding into diaspora are enough to breath new life into the project. It doesn’t have to live or die on high stakes venture capital. Diaspora and Friendica and Mastodon etc have been around through tough times…but without greedy VC’s looking to cash the chips in, they have plodded onward rather than folding. The open interoperability means that it’s not a closed garden. You can shift from one option to another if one goes down or stagnates.
If you want something future-proof, I’d recommend Hubzilla. It already federates with both the diaspora world (Federation) and the Mastodon world (Fediverse). It offers a unique capability to migrate from one pod to another live - no export/import process required (such as its predecessor, Friendica). Multiple “clones” can be live across pods, meaning that even if one pod goes down you’re still up - your followers/followees see no downtime. It’s not 100%, since followers/followees in diaspora/Mastodon are pointed to your “clone” on a specific pod, but it’s as good as it’ll get.
The bottom line is that you’ll be part of an open system which has been around the block, and which is resilient to the loss of pods. Your followers/followees don’t need to make the same choice as you do - they can use diaspora or Mastodon or whatever.
There are 28 comments on the thread, some very positive, some not. I have not included them, because there was some (a lot) of emotion and specific opinions in it