Memo, Facebook, and Cent: An Update of the Social Networks I Use and Why

in #update5 years ago

@Ezincrypto on Cent asked me if I made a post about memo.cash.

While I have, it's been a while since I've made a post about all the social networks I use... and, well, that whole thing could use a bit of an update.

About a month ago I was trying to stretch my testing at around 16-ish social networks, interconnecting and using all of them, which was exhausting, but incredibly interesting.
But also exhausting.

I also made a post where I linked all the profiles I have.

In this post, I'm going to cover which ones are my favorite, first, and why I'm still using them, so you can start using them too if you'd like, sooner than later, and then which ones I've stopped using, and why.

-1. Memo.
Obviously, I'm still using Memo.
Memo is currently essentially similar to Twitter, mainly in terms of how long of posts you can make, although it technically has the ability to expand.

What's great about Memo is that it can't be censored since it's on the blockchain, you can tip people a custom amount, or simply like their posts without tipping. Every action is on the blockchain (both BCH-SV (BSV) and BCH-ABC (BCH)), but the cost of the actions is so small (244 sats), that's it's practically free. Likewise, the minimum tip you can do is 546 sats, which is also practically nothing. (Currently, $1 USD = 27,795 Satoshi)

People have speculated about the idea of the price of 1 satoshi being $1, and I think that's missing the point, just as the idea of holding bitcoin until it gets to $20,000 and plus to make tons of money.

Why? Because that's the short game, not the long game.I'm not saying appreciating that idea is bad, but if it's your sole motivation, you're selling the potential and point of the project of bitcoin short:

Financial freedom worldwide, where anyone can trade and with anyone else without a middleman, without censorship. And yeah, you'll make a ton of money in the process in bits and pieces over time. So will everyone else. If only you benefit, and you're only focused on your own benefit, you're going to lose out on the biggest boon that the combination of crypto with social networks makes possible.

You can see, for instance, on aforementioned post talking about the $1 idea, that crypto-conspiracies would go to a site to just cash out 217 sats each hour. I get tips that exceed that every day on memo, just by posting the same way I would on Facebook! (After all, the minimum is 546.)

And I haven't even touched on my favorite feature of memo:
Infinite replies.

I've long had a dream that each and every reply you make to someone could be its own post. Memo has that!I also tested it out and posted about it on matter.cash... and if it wasn't currently down for upgrading*, I'd share the example I posted to there. The ironic issue with that is that if there are enough replies, well... your computer slows to a crawl trying to load everything!

*"Serverless blogs and tokenized communities on Bitcoin SV metanet.
Coming soon. Join the publishing revolution."

-2. Honest.
Honest.cash solved for that.
After 5 responses deep, "Load more replies"
I was on Honest before Cent, and for a while, Honest.cash was easier to use than Cent.

-3. Cent.
However, currently, "Cent is easy copy-paste" compared with Honest.

So, I'm consistently using Memo, and Honest and Cent are battling for my attention, with Cent currently in the overall lead because it's the only site with easy copy-paste + hyperlinking.
Obviously, I'm also using Facebook, but the whole idea of all of this is that Facebook is a censoring fascist controlling anti-human data-grubbing Big Brother monstrosity, so even though it's still the most advanced in terms of social interactivity, it's a terrible idea not to spread out to other social networks that have a freedom mindset with freedom tools.

One difference to note regarding Memo, Honest, and Cent, is that Memo and Honest use Bitcoin, whereas Cent uses Ethereum.

Now, for the sites that I'm using much less, and why, starting with the more popular ones:

-1. Steemit.
Steemit is by far the most famous alternative social network. It's payout scheme confuses me to no end, and if you don't have the social credits to post, you can't.
It's a mess, though still quite a popular option for a lot of people.
You might enjoy it too. I occasionally post there, but rarely.

-2. Weku.
Weku is based off of an older version of Steemit, with the intent to do the money stuff differently, without/against the use of whales. Until some weird stuff happened with my password, it was one of my go-to's for posting.
Now... not so much.

-3. Minds.
Minds is almost as popular as Steemit.
Bill Ottman, co-founder, has spoken a lot on YouTube about the philosophy of going toward open-source.
One of the key features of Minds is the Boost feature, where you can show your posts to everyone, or a select group of people, and the cost is tokens, which you can earn by posting to Minds and logging in each day. Initially, you could make posts that were private/unlisted, and provide the link, making it similar to YouTube's unlisted. Now, there's only the option for public/subscribed. Some people enjoy using Minds.
I'm not very fond of the format myself. It feels very spammy and random to me.

-4. MeWe.
MeWe is presented as an alternative to Facebook, and lots of Facebook people have eschewed Facebook for MeWe.

Apparently, you can't be censored on MeWe, and there's lots of nudity on there.
However, you cannot link your posts to anywhere else, which is why I don't use MeWe:
It's a closed system.

-5. Yours.
Yours was created by Ryan X. Charles, who is now focused on The Money Button, from what I understand.
Yours was the first website I was aware of to utilize the combination of the finances of Bitcoin Cash with social networks.
Yours has an incentivized and ranking voting system, and you can learn about it by visiting it's channel.
Here's an interview with ColbertReport, as well.

Some current flaws that are fatal for my wanting to use, talk about, or promote Yours include that you cannot currently join the site, you cannot reply to comments, and it was down for 1-2 months recently with no explanation from Ryan whatsoever.

This has been a lot of writing, so I'm going to go through these last ones a bit faster, with less detail, and if you want to check them out for yourself, feel free.

And, before I go to some less well-known sites, a quick shoutout to two growing Patreon alternatives:
-1. SubscribeStar.
-2. BitBacker.

Now, for some less well-known sites:
-1. Ello.
Ello functions in a way similar to Instagram, Facebook, and Weku/Steemit/Cent, in my mind, in that posts are laid out in a very visual style (that I'm not especially fond of), and you can hyperlink text. There is, however, no earnings program. Aside from the visual format, it is quite close to the aim I had to make what I called "Social Wiki", an idea of combining the social elements of Facebook with the deep linking of Wikipedia.

-2. Sola.
Sola seems to function similar to Steemit, in that you need to have enough credits to post, though instead of a sort-of related app like eSteem, Sola has its own app.
I made a few posts and then ran out of credit, and stopped using the app. I'm looking at it again and I can post again, though I find the layout very disorienting.

-3. Smoke.
There's only one thing you need to know about Smoke:
ONLY POST MARIJUANA CONTENT.
(Or just mostly, like 80-90%)

Seriously. That's all you need to know.

I at first was overjoyed by finding it, because its format looks like a direct copy of Steemit/Weku, but it has an app!
I was in heaven. I first found out they didn't like the association with Weku.

I then quickly found that the community there HATES it when people post ANYTHING on a regular basis if it isn't weed related. Don't even bother if it's not about weed. Seriously. They can't censor you, but you will not enjoying being there AT ALL.

And that's why I stopped posting there.

For a hot second I got the same impression from Cent that I got from Smoke, but that's faded since.

-4. Whaleshares.
I'm not sure what Whaleshares is or how it functions.
I'm still trying to sign up.

-5. PornHub.
Well, you don't have to post just porn there, as Disenthrall found out.

And now, for some miscellaneous stuff...

There are also alternative videos sites:
-1. D.tube.
D.tube is connected with Steemit. Whatever you post to D.tube is posted to your Steemit.
I've been having the darndest time uploading videos to there though.

-2. Keyport.tv.
You log into Keyport via your HandCash, which uses BSV.
Keyport is currently down and under development.

You can earn for each minute/second of content of yours that people watch, or you can set it for free, and people only pay the fee for the video to be seen via the service... I think. I've had more success with uploading to Keyport than I have with D.tube, although it's still quite difficult and generally I can only post short clips, although I've seen others post much longer ones.

-3. BitChute.
BitChute enables you to hook up your YouTube to make your content more resistant to censorship. It can be a bit of a process, but quite worth it in this censorship day and age of YouTube.

-4. Bit.tube
I haven't had much experience with Bit.tube, but here's a mention for it.
But here's a video from Disenthrall about it.

As well, there are alternate audio sites:
-1. CastBox.
-2. SoundCloud.

There are also up-and-coming sites:
-1. Trybe.
-2. Yen.

There's is also a push to include adult content on the blockchain:
-1. SpankChain.
SpankChain, where you can be tipped in crypto.

I'm on Chaturbate, and the difference of difficulty for signing up is quite apparent, as while on Chaturbate you don't need to give your information to watch, unless you're also a performer yourself, you have to give all that information (like your license) upfront. The process, I've found, is much more difficulty than I was expecting, and I still haven't signed up.

-2. Tube8.

This certainly got exhausting to write.
It's also going to be exhausting to cross-post.
However, this is one of the few posts where cross-posting is relevant, makes sense, and matters.

That's weird that it was so easy to copy-paste from Weku to Yours. I like that. Minds, Honest. I like how Ello automatically includes the Weku format into links. Cent, Facebook, Memo, Bitbacker.