As the saying goes, “if you’re not paying for the product, then you ARE the product.” Rather than selling your data to advertisers we’d rather have a direct relationship with you so we can focus on bringing value to you as a customer rather than just a user. Unlike many subscription services, we do not charge a subscription to see content. Instead we charge a subscription to make public posts. You can think of it like putting a tax on bots and trolls. That cleans up the space for more reasonable conversations.
Firstly you support the economic viability of a Social Media platform that is dedicated to cleaning up our information network. While we’ll continually be adding features here’s a list of what your subscription gets you the ability to:
Post your Thoughts publicly and have them be Amplified by anyone
Privately follow other accounts
Create ultra exclusive private invite-only groups called Cliques
Direct Message any account
Mark your replies as private, only viewable by you and the account to which you are replying
Schedule your Thoughts to be posted later or limit how long they are visible
Endorse other accounts for following by adding them to a public Recommended Follows list
While we recognize that not everyone will have the means to pay for a subscription to Sound Off, we also know that bots and trolls wreak havoc on platforms that have frictionless public posting. Therefore as a non-subscriber you have the ability to:
Read any Thoughts posted publicly or posted to Followers of accounts you follow
Post your Thoughts to your Followers only
Amplify any Thought (without comment) to your Followers only
Emoji react to any Thought
Post Thoughts in any Cliques to which you are invited (note Cliques can only be created by subscribers)
Direct Message any account you are following that is also following you back (i.e. a friend)
Typically we talk about how social media Users need to do a better job at media literacy and need to exercise the discipline to manage their own mental health when engaging with these platforms. Rarely do we talk about the responsibilities of the platform. Both the mental health of its Users and its effects on the public discourse. Sound Off strives to be different in these respects by aligning our business model with making a positive impact in both of these areas. Your support is a critical part of how we bring this to the world.
First, we don’t make more money the longer you “doom scroll”. Our business model allows us to tell you to take a break. Or find faster ways to get you caught up on the information you care about so you can go about your day. We allow for emoji feedback on posts (we call them “Thoughts”) so you can help us better understand your reactions to the information you’re seeing. And all of this can help us tune our algorithms which will take into account mental health, and not purely optimize for engagement. What we cannot do, however, is make it seem like the problems of the world don’t exist. We can’t ensure that you only interact with people that agree with you. This isn’t something we’re going to get right on day 1. This is going to be an ongoing area for us to improve. Though, we can guarantee our commitment and dedication to improving. And your partnership is a critical part of how we get there.
First our business model means that we’re not incentivized to amplify content just because it’s engaging. Because we don’t make more money the more you scroll, we can design our algorithms to take into account the trustworthiness of the source. Second, we give special prominence, and features, to certified journalists. We believe that quality journalism is essential to healthy public discourse. By delineating reporting from opinion we believe that we increase the quality of both.
Email us at support@sound-off.co