Minds.com Gives Power And Revenue Back To The Community

Minds’ business strategy seeks to expand self-sovereignty, transparency, privacy, crypto-economics and community governance
The network’s stated mission is to “Elevate global discourse through Internet freedom”
A major partnership with Daryl Davis encourages open civil dialogue over censorship

Minds.com is challenging the lucrative business model that has created several Big Tech tycoons in Silicon Valley, as it seeks to cut the community into a platform’s revenues. According to recent figures, Meta, formerly Facebook, had 2.91 billion monthly active users in Q3 2021, up 7.18% from the same period the previous year.

Given the staggering number of individuals who use social media on a daily basis, it's reasonable to wonder, "How do social media companies make money while providing so many free services?"

They do so by monetizing user-generated content where often, as in the case of Linkedin and Facebook, users who work hard to produce content are often rewarded only through fulfillment of their own need for esteem, creating billions of revenue for social media platforms.

The Business Of Social Media

The Facebook business model is centered on providing its tools and services to billions of users for “free”, and then making money by allowing businesses to display advertisements to Facebook's users. Advertisers pay Facebook the price that is established in an auction based on supply and demand. That means that the people who utilize Facebook's services (users) aren't the ones who pay for them. Small companies who advertise on Facebook's family of applications are the real clients.

Facebook is neither the first nor the last company to use this business strategy. Nonetheless, Facebook serves as a great example of how this economic model can be problematic when the interests of users and customers (advertisers) diverge. Many businesses provide free services in exchange for advertising or other fees on the back end. There are many instances where the interests of users and marketers are aligned, however, privacy is clearly not one of them, and we should be aware that, if allowed by law, Facebook will almost certainly side with advertising.

When we consider that Apple and Google's decision to make it harder to track people on the internet outside of one app or service could actually solidify Facebook's position in targeted advertising in the long run, Facebook's dedication to its roughly 10 million advertisers is even more striking and intriguing.

Companies that strive to prioritize content creators, rather than advertising companies, include Minds.com. Based in Connecticut, and with contributors globally, Minds is a crypto social network that includes an instant messaging chat program that allows users to connect in real time. Since launching its first mobile app in 2015, it has expanded to over 5 million users. Rather than making money by mining user data and serving advertising, Minds makes money by selling recurring memberships with its Minds Plus premium accounts, which include additional capabilities and revenue sharing with the community. The MINDS token is rewarded to the community on a daily basis for various contributions to the network. The Ethereum-based ERC-20 token represents ownership of the ad real estate on the network and was created in reaction to algorithmic manipulation of the newsfeed on big tech platforms resulting in the plummeting of organic reach, a soft form of censorship.

It also distributes the Minds+currency to the most popular content creators on the social network. "We already have thousands of Minds+subscribers. People truly appreciate being reward for their energy online rather than exploited with surveillance," Minds CEO and founder Bill Ottman writes. "I believe that people genuinely want to support networks that respect their right to privacy. People, I believe, are willing to pay for subscription services. We do have advertising, but it isn't our main source of income, and it isn't surveillance-based."

Security And Social Networking

The same aggressive strategy (along with its intrinsic flaws) that propelled Facebook to the top, appears to be one of the reasons why the company's success has been soiled by numerous embarrassing privacy and security breaches. Facebook's previous problems were not one-time occurrences, but rather a decade-long pattern of conduct in which the company exhibited complete contempt for people's privacy and security. All of this culminated in the well-known Cambridge Analytica scandal, which resulted in a $5 billion fine from the Federal Trade Commission in 2019.

Mark Zuckerberg claims that over the next decade, he wants Facebook to develop a strong reputation for privacy. Some may interpret this as a meaningless remark that contradicts both Facebook's economic model and its recent actions. When it comes to privacy, Facebook is publicly advocating for users to have fewer options. The only other reason seems to be that Zuckerberg's notion of "privacy" differs significantly from most people’s.

Civil Discourse Over Censorship

Due to the secrecy, censorship, and surveillance of large companies like Facebook (recently renamed Meta) digital rights, freedom of expression, and privacy are under jeopardy. According to Minds founder and CEO Bill Ottman: “The next evolution of social apps and internet communities is one where people control the network rather than the network controlling the people. This means maximum digital rights including transparency, privacy, free expression, member ownership and peer-to-peer technology incentivized with revenue-sharing, voting and crypto. The community jury system for moderation appeals is a key initial implementation of our goal of removing the company as a middle-man disrupting the community goals”.

Minds started in 2015 and has grown in lockstep with cryptocurrencies. It became popular with users who valued their privacy, such as members in the cryptocurrency community, because it focused on encrypting user messages. According to Ottman, the network is designed to provide people with independence and eliminate the need for back doors that could jeopardize everyone's safety and security.

A major partnership with Daryl Davis, famous for deradicalizing hundreds of members of the KKK by befriending them, aims to bridge political and cultural divides, differentiating Minds from the ever-emerging number of polarizing right and left leaning social networks. Daryl hosts a podcast called Changing Minds hosted on Minds.com, hosting a variety of former-extremists and other prominent voices in the deradicalization space such as Deeyah Khan. The partnership aims to expose the reality that censorship causes deeper social division and dialogue is a requirement of cultural healing, no matter how difficult.

Final Thought

With social media companies having extensive access to our privacy, it is important to understand what these companies use this information for and who actually gains from it. One can think of the future of social media, as proposed by Bill Ottman, as a direct democracy. Elon Musk writes in a tweet that his preferred governing structure is a direct democracy that is governed by the people. Minds provide independence for its users and enable them to create a policy that works for them - and ultimately gives the power of revenue back to them.