The potential for Anytype to be or to work with a social media?

Talk
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1

With the implementation of chat and web-publishing, web3 with decentralisation is starting to move onto a different stage.. Website and messaging have been one of the major ways we create and access the internet for quite a long time. Anytype has done a great job creating the infrastructure to encryption and decentralisation. Just like how the first thing you are welcomed with is “A safe haven for digital collaboration”, when you enter Anytype.io

One issue with both encryption and decentralisation is that publications/websites don’t get access point from the outside world. This means information doesn’t get to spread as much and as quick as web2 unless there is a funnel point or platform for users to discover contents/spaces. This in turn creates friction for the growth of Anytype along with users’ spread of information. (For example, Truth Social got its popularity from the audience who were attending/supporting Donald Trump).

Hence, I ponder if and should Anytype take the role or contribute to such Internet infrastructure of social media. Perhaps classic social media design wouldn’t work with both privacy and encryption, but what if we can maintain sovereign with the contents we create and be able to share at the same time.

With this in mind, I discovered this kickstarter project: Haven Social. They use the core word ‘haven’ just like Anytype’s label for itself. It seems their rationale to protect users from surveillance and AI art theft seems to align with Anytype’s focus on data privacy and security. While I haven’t investigated deeply into this kickstarter project, as they mentioned in FAQ about evaluating how to be decentralised social medias, with end-to-end encryption DMs, maybe Anytype could work well with/for them? Or maybe Anytype is better off doing these stuff by itself?

What do you think, as Anytype team and as fellow community member? Curious how everyone think/imagine Anytype to be in the future.

Cheers.

3

When I first discovered Anytype and my mind was racing through the possibilities, I definitely thought about this (especially in the context of the web publish feature). I have been detaching more and more from traditional socials lately, but admittedly don’t feel compelled to replace that time with another subset of social media. If anything, I think a blog about a specific topic or theme would be more appropriate in my future (which I can certainly source right from Anytype).

I think there is definitely potential for this, but the core of it of course is adoption by a large user base which I believe is a big challenge.

4

Honestly, this is such a fascinating debate, but I’ll admit whenever I hear the words ‘social media’ I get a little nervous :sweat_smile:

Most Web2 platforms (and even many Web3 clones) are built on the ‘Timeline Feed.’ Those feeds are designed to be fast, noisy, and driven by algorithms that prioritize ‘engagement’ over substance. Anytype’s philosophy feels like the exact opposite of that, it’s about focus, deep work, and high-agency ‘Spaces.’

So, what if Anytype doesn’t try to be a social network, but instead pioneers Slow Social?

Instead of a timeline where we shout quick updates at each other, the focus could be on Knowledge Remixing. Imagine I publish my Anytype Space as a public Digital Garden or portfolio. You visit it and see a unique framework I built, a clean dashboard layout, or a specific collection of notes. Instead of just hitting a ‘Like’ button, you click ‘Sync to my Space’ or ‘Clone Object.

In this model, ‘virality’ doesn’t come from an algorithm pushing outrage or memes. It comes from Utility. People would discover your work because your templates or knowledge structures are so useful that others want to adopt them into their own personal brains.

It turns Anytype into a global, decentralized library where we borrow from each other’s shelves, rather than a crowded room where everyone is screaming for attention.

To me, that is the real Web3 revolution. Not a decentralized Twitter, but a decentralized, multiplayer brain :blush:.

In a world of constant noise, the most revolutionary social feature isn’t ‘more talking’ ,it’s ‘better thinking.’ I’d love to see AnyType become the ecosystem where our knowledge finally breathes together, rather than just another app competing for our attention :cherry_blossom:

5

Wow! I hadn’t thought of it quite like that before, I am really liking your concept!

“Slow Social” really resonates with me.. traditional socials are like you said, fast & noisy, and largely filled with entities seeking attention or outrage. It was too much for my brain and I had to detach. One of the side effects (and subsequently one of the reasons I jumped into Anytype) was I felt like I was losing so many thoughts and ideas in one day.

Absolutely love the idea of ‘better thinking’ over ‘more talking’! Yet another amazing possibility thanks to Anytype!

6

I like where this discussion is going - the study of why/how social media works or not.

For note-taking purposes, a close system would be most secure, aligning with the local-only use cases. When it comes to sharing though, there are multiple factors determining the information processing: Delivery, purposes, audiences, accessibility/approachability, quality/quantity, width/depth, ownership and sustainability.

For example, when a piece of information is pushed to the internet, the information can be out in the wild, where author no longer has control over it. Under encryption, author and only those with keys can access the information. These information can be delivered with individual access or public access, for example:

  • A single piece of paper is passed to different individuals. If a person detent the paper, other people won’t have access to it. But this single piece of information will always be the original where there is least information loss.
  • Public speech where all audiences listen and interact with speaker. Attention is given to the speaker. The wisdom supports the information will always be intact, but most of the time we don’t pay much attention to a random person speaking something.
  • Community where each author has say and interactions with every other members. There are a lot of voices (if not noises) around hopefully the same topic. Community growth is the main theme, individuals don’t receive direct benefits as much.
  • Algorithm calculates multiple factors and somehow tries to predict/manipulate interests and feed users with contents. This is one of the mechanism which could facilitate and/or ruin freedom of speech with freedom of reach..
    • Some algorithms in popular social media run on interests of advertisers which could interrupt natural flow of information discovery and delivery.
    • Timeline-based feed works with the concept of news being new things, which works for certain information but not all. Linearity of time is good for notifications and for interactions with fresh memories, but not so much for incubation.
  • Copy (or Sync to my space and clone object): Each piece is isolated and ownership/authority of information is passed on to audience. This method is great if we assume audiences’ integrity, e.g. with academic referencing, but this method is less attractive for those with copyright concerns, like artists.
    • Feeding to AI’s calculations vs. Feeding to other humans’ brain ← Haven’s answer is to alter the art materials just enough so AI can’t calculate correctly but humans can process.

Ownership transfer also means whether the authors get returns for their efforts. Financial incentive is not the only acknowledgement that would fuel production, but unless we are running charities, people need money to survive in modern lives and sustain output.

  • Libraries require books and authors need to sustain the process to create books.
  • That’s where monetisation takes place. If users can sustain themselves on the platform, there are also larger chance for the platform to sustain itself.
  • Reaction-based evaluation to the value of products (e.g. likes/comments) are quick assessment methods but not so great for pioneers. Many artists didn’t get the acknowledgement they deserved until they died because people couldn’t understand the prospects and the messages they were portraying.

We can have multiple ways to access the same information and users can use their preferred methods.

Many social media companies play significant role in the enshittification of the internet, by using addictive UI/UX and selling data, discounting data sovereignty and authors’ efforts. So far, Anytype and its infrastructure works well with data sovereignty (mainly text-based materials) within the application and relies on users’ own privacy concerns for not sharing to people you don’t intend to share with.

  • That’s why I suggested to check out Haven Social which targets data sovereignty with sharing art/image/video. The technologies behind both softwares could support data sovereignty in different ways and perhaps support the sovereignty of both softwares.
  • “Slow social” responses to the short attention span associated with the addictive model of current social media. To counter this trend, deep thinking is indeed important, though the interesting things about deep thinking are:
    • Short materials can be condensed version of deep materials, and long materials can contain nonsense.
    • Owning something doesn’t necessarily mean actualising something. (Fun exploration: how many bookmarks have we clipped? How many are reused and have become the solid ground to valuable and expandable pieces?)
    • Speed/quantity doesn’t equal to depth. Just like how “I love you” can mean both love in first sight and love through hardship.
    • Depth doesn’t mean approachability, (re-)usability and acknowledgeability.. e.g. parents’ motto/wisdom is run in the background of children’s mind and might not be realised until later stage in life.

I don’t have a vision to how anysocial or information sharing could be implemented, but what I know is if that one day comes, I as users will try to tell thick stories and deep processes; and hopefully people can reach the contents; hopefully audiences will understand and find contents interesting :sweat_smile:

7

Wow, @C.c , you’ve really gone deep here. I love the points you raised about the ‘Artist’s dilemma’ and the need for sustainability.

You’re right if we just clone everything, we risk losing the connection to the original creator. Maybe ‘Slow Social’ needs a native way to give credit or ‘link back’ to the source automatically? Almost like a digital bibliography that’s baked into the object itself, so the author’s ‘ownership’ travels with the content.

And that point about ‘bookmarking vs actualising’ really hit home for me. :sweat_smile: I think we’ve all been guilty of hoarding information without actually processing it.

To me, the goal isn’t necessarily for Anytype to solve human nature, but to give us a better ‘kitchen’ to cook our ideas in, rather than just a ‘vending machine’ (like Web2) where we just consume and move on.

I don’t have all the answers for monetization or reach, but I love that we’re even having this conversation. It feels like we’re actually trying to imagine a better way to use the internet :cherry_blossom: