> I wonder what would happen if ActivityPub was used to build Twitter/Instagram/FB alternatives with less aggressive advertising. But with the same user friendly interfaces.
What path would lead to less advertising? Email is federated, but is still dominated by a few vendors who rely on advertising.
That is a very interesting question. My assumptions are:
1: Running a ActivityPub server is much much cheaper then building a hyper growth company like Facebook. So less revenue is needed. I would expect that an AP server running on a cheap VM for less then $100/month can handle many millions of monthly users. I know admins of other systems, serving a million monthly users with a $10/month VM.
2: Facebooks valuation per user is insanely high. The company is valued at over $200 per monthly user. The average site owner would be happy with just 1% of that. I know people who built communities with a million monthly users. And they are not worth millions. Let alone hundreds of millions.
3: I think there is a better way of advertising then the aggressive approach we see on FB, Twitter etc. It might not work for super big companies. But I have the feeling that a site owner who caters to say 10 million users could get a few sponsorships and make 5 figures monthly with very very lean ads.
What path would lead to less advertising? Email is federated, but is still dominated by a few vendors who rely on advertising.