Should you join Ello?

I’m a little less sour on Ello now compared to when it first came out; a lot of my reaction is frustration with the hype surrounding just another VC-funded social network. I just don’t think not serving you ads is that significant, nor the biggest problem with Facebook at this point. I’m personally much more concerned about the issues surrounding the amount and kind of data Facebook collects, who has access to it, and what they do with it, none of which Ello really addresses.

I’m also fairly skeptical of their proposed business model, a “freemium” feature thing that still has yet to be defined. I’d be hard-pressed to believe this is going to be viable long-term, and a $5.5 million investment is a lot to leave to chance, and advertising is an easy out.

The biggest thing that concerns me is this:

https://twitter.com/cacheflowe/status/525328915653722113

I’m not interested in putting my data into a system that puts up barriers to reclaiming it. It’s not about the actual obstacle involved but the fact that you’re willing to include any obstacle at all. If you believe in not selling your users data, that also means selling it back to them.

Obviously, this could change in the future, as discussed in the thread of replies to that tweet, but until I can be sure I can remove my data, I am certainly not going to be putting it they’re in the first place.

The company is still young and a lot can change. They have an API of sorts but it’s not public or documented yet. Whether the values of this social network gets upheld as time goes on remains to be seen, but they have codified the ad-free values in their charter.

It also remains to be seen how else their value system expresses itself in their software. I don’t know what else the ad-free aspects of their network means to them, but they are going to have to make money somehow. Where do they compromise? What will they end up doing?

In the end, I wish them the best, but so far, I’m skeptical.