Minds

Minds is a Facebook alternative that centers on user privacy and rewarding users for their time. 

Overview 

Minds is a decentralized social media platform that promises not to sell their users’ data to shield them from unsolicited marketing and advertising efforts. It positions itself as an alternative to Facebook to address the rising concerns of centralized social media.

Minds operates a free and open-source platform for others to build on and share things with one another. It offers end-to-end encrypted private messaging. The platform seeks to attract individuals that are passionate about building solutions, and are not afraid to share them with the world.

This is premised on the fact that Minds team is made up of individuals passionate about data privacy and freedom of expression and are known for their internet-related activism. 

Product Details 

Minds has a user interface that is similar to Facebook. However, the platform fills a user’s timeline with Boosts which is the equivalent of ads but can be banished from the user’s feeds with Minds Plus monthly subscription. 

Minds operates a contribution economy. Users receive tokens when others interact with their posts or spend time on the platform. Bill Ottman stated that a major focus of the platform is helping people make money online. Minds operates under a new business model that rewards users for their activities on the network with revenue and expanded reach. The platform also provides content creators with the needed tools to monetize their content independently with their peers. These tools include crowdfunding, paid subscriptions, ad revenue-sharing, tipping, peer-to-peer advertising, and a proven contribution-proven reward system.

The implementation of crypto-tokens with the reward system allows users and developers to translate their time and energy into tokens that hold real, lasting value on the Minds platform. By coupling peer-to-peer monetization tools with a properly structured, incentive-based reward system, Minds has built a sustainable digital economy that effectively rewards their users who contribute the most to the platform. 

Minds operate two types of targeted ads (Boosts). The platform has newsfeed boosts that operate in the same way as traditional digital ads which are injected into people’s feeds. The second type is the peer-to-peer Boosts that allows users to pay one another for shared posts. This model is equivalent to influencer marketing where a brand pays an Instagram blogger to wear their product. 

Minds disallows targeted adverts. Hence, the platform does not allow Boosts to target specific users on the platform. However, posts are shared with random people for each token spent. When a user hasn’t earned enough tokens to cover for Boosts, Minds permits its users to pay for either type of Boost with a credit card. 

Minds aims to be community-owned. Its revenue model is quite different from other open-source social networks. It raised $1million from more than 1500 individual backers and relies on revenue from people buying boosts. It represents a prototype of what can be a different social network. 

Minds promote equality among users. Unlike other platforms, Minds’ voting system isn’t discriminatory and the same value is placed on all users’ votes irrespective of their rank on the platform. On certain platforms, like Steemit, more value is placed on the input of older accounts such that their votes might be worth several dollars while that of a newbie might be worth less than a cent.

On Minds, however, an individual’s daily contribution will be determined by how much they contributed to the network that day relative to the entire community. This percentage will then be applied to the daily reward pool to determine each individual’s daily token grants. 

Minds offer users the choice of Off-chain and On-chain transactions. OnChain transactions benefit from being published and secured on the public blockchain while OffChain transactions benefit from speed and no transaction fees. 

Minds allow users to earn tokens when they discover software bugs or contribute to the platform’s code. With the platform’s built-in Patreon-like feature called Wire, users can tip creators or pay for exclusive content.  The token system is undergoing testing in a bid to be converted into a new cryptocurrency. 

Minds operates a free and open-source software platform. The transparent nature of open source software sparks innovation at a much more rapid rate than with proprietary technology because it opens it up to rigorous peer review and new use cases. Minds reward developers for finding bugs, identifying security vulnerabilities, and making contributions to the code or open-source documentation. Reward sizes are evaluated according to severity calculated by the OWASP risk rating model which is dependent on impact and likelihood.

New features are also considered but Minds only issue rewards for new features that are first approved and then implemented on the network. However, all submissions for new features are expected to be in line with the platform’s philosophies of Internet freedom, exponential reach, improved monetization, and user rights.

Minds promotes users who contribute to the liquidity of the platform. The Uniswap integration on the platform implements a new feature called “ad mining. So these users earn a spot on a digital billboard on the application. The billboard advertises those users’ respective channels and provides creators with the opportunities to put their content in front of more eyes. 

Minds champions free speech, privacy and the value of open-source software. Minds has partnered with Ethereum to build a fair crypto-contribution economy. This structure rewards users for sharing ideas, engaging in civil discourse, and generating popular content. It has positioned itself to emphasize the use of decentralized technology to protect free speech unimpeded by a centralized gatekeeper. 

Minds has enabled the use of reporting tools to protect users and moderate content. Given that it is built on a blockchain network, there’s little that can be done by Minds team to censor content even if such content promotes hate speech. 

Recap

Minds is an open-source and decentralized social network for Internet freedom. Users earn crypto tokens for their contributions to the network. Such tokens can either be exchanged for more views on content or sent to other channels as a tip or paid subscription.