So when you get a brain tumor and come here to share your deep shit...

... but a third of the people aren't following Facebook at all,

... and another third are following it casually,

... and Facebook doesn't show all posts to everyone,

Most of the Dwellars will say they don't really know you, you are just a handle and a tumor to them! So good luck with all that, but the Internet is full of semi-anonymous people with handles and tumors. We are going to support our friends who have shared things with us, not semi-anonymous people with handles and tumors.

Take your tumor to Facebook! If your post is found to be "important" by the FB algorithm, they MAY show it to all your friends who logged in to FB during the hours following your post. That will *probably* happen if your friends notice and react to your post, and reply to it. *probably*

Of course the post about your tumor is going to be sandwiched by an ad and a post about the most recent dumb thing Trump did, so the impact is a little diminished. Maybe you can put "ATTENTION EVERYBODY" so people do pick it up. Of course people are putting "ATTENTION EVERYBODY" on posts about lost cats of people they don't know, so... uh....

I know maybe you can make a FUNNY VIDEO about the tumor? If it goes viral your Kickstarter will cover your meds!

Who is going to solve this terrible problem of community on the Internet not being REAL community? Where can we turn to, now that we hate all our real life friends for their horrible politics and ridiculous, petty concerns?

IS THERE A WEBSITE FOR THIS?

Nah, not really. Usta be. Good luck out there.

Facebook doesn't show all posts to everyone

Oh! You weren't aware, Dwellar?

Didn't it nudge you when you wrote that one thing and only got 7 likes? You have hundreds of friends! How is it that only a small fraction are reading your shit?

Wow over half my friends have never said a SINGLE THING to me on FB! Did they unfollow me? Are they not engaged? Am I writing shitty posts? Should I be on Twitter or Pinterest instead? What the fuck is Pinterest anyway?

I'm starting to not get it. I suspect others are starting to feel the same.

The motivation at Facebook is $18,000,000,000 of gross revenue in 2015, so they really want you to post there. Cellar gross revenue is about -$400. Our motivation is entirely personal.

follow the money--wise

My money's on you, UT.

Yeah, FB is a strange beast. My posts tend to attract the same folks over and over. Which is cool, because they are friends...but sucks, because I KNOW FB is limiting my audience.

Of course, on my politics/current events page, I can PAY to target specific people...and it works quite well. But then, aren't I buying friends in a way?

Then there is Twitter, which still does things linearly--for now. But quite frankly, once you have about 500 friends there, it's like pissing into the wind and hoping some of that piss lands on people other than yourself.

I play social media in a similar way to how I play business--I work the game to my advantage, rather than get run over by it. Some days are better than others.

FB sucks. I post there to try to reach family and friends who aren't here. But it doesn't work well.

I posted some horse riding family pictures on FB. Mostly for my family. Not really interesting enough to post here. Anyway, my wife was hurt and a little mad at me that I didn't take any of her and post them. Except I had. A lot. FB showed her about a third of the pictures I took.

I actually like social media a lot...but it can be incredibly fickle.

That's an interesting and instructive story. I'm sorry Mrs glatt was hurt.

I see fb as a business and you and all the others there (me too) are the product, or at least the raw materials for that product. The actual product is our attention, which they sell to advertisers who infect our inputs with their ads. You and I are trying to pay attention to what our "friends" and family are posting and by virtue of the art and persistence and numerical superiority of the advertisers' efforts, we pay them attention too. Sometimes it feels like stealing my attention when I'm trying to pay it to something/someone else. I find that whole experience/interface frustrating, waaaaay more than I find it interesting or appealing.

I see the cellar as a gathering place for my family of choice. I don't have chunks of my attention sliced off by flashing avatars, like buttons or tallies, not to mention the whole NO FUCKING ADVERTISING! This is worth cash money to me. When I'm trying to enjoy the content of some other stream, tv, radio, internet, print, etc. etc. I find the proportion / intrusion / distraction of the advertising a real factor in my enjoyment of the content.

If I'm watching television, I've been known to change the channel when commercials come on and I know I have a lot of company. Same with the radio. Sometimes, I go through my magazines and remove all the bingo cards and bound customer reply cards, sometimes even the heavier stock advertisements. I'm a big fan of ad blockers in my browsers.

This kind of winnowing is practically impossible on facebook, and that lack of control combined with the volume of junk (not just the ratio of wheat to chaff) is just too much to make it worthwhile. Lots of stuff there is interesting, just not interesting enough.

I'm going to start recruiting. Get ready for some weirdos to join up.

Wait for the software change though

When is that?

I dunno, like the next few weeks?

You need money?

No it's strictly open source here on out.

We should raise enough $ for UT to survive for a month and do nothing but Cellar updating.

Is that purely because it's unaffordable to keep with the paid service, or is it a better way to host the cellar?