Talking to early Sunslider users, it was clear that lots of the problems people have with Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, and other social platforms come back to one thing:
The social giants broke the promise of sharing via social networking, instead slowly converting their platforms to push us into the endless scrolling of social media.
That shift from “networking” to “media” is a subtle name change, but it hides lots of consequences.
Social networking is:
Interactive, with people we know in real life or get to know online
Communal, with everyone sharing bits and pieces of their life
Additive, giving us something extra in our life thanks to useful digital tools
Social media is:
Passive, showing Influencers, brands, and ads with heavy, data-driven algorithms
Restrictive, with most content never being seen
Subtractive, capturing more of our time and attention thanks to psychological tricks
Why did this change happen? It wasn’t because of evolving user needs, or societal changes, or COVID, or anything like that.
It was because the foundational aspects of the companies behind these platforms led to thousands of everyday business decisions, each one moving them further away from the actual users - us - and toward the beneficiaries - advertisers and shareholders.
Moar networks, please
Ever since the heady early days of Friendster, Myspace, and Facebook, social platforms have been hard, especially at the beginning (trust me, I know 😅). And the thought process for founders and investors has always been based on “winner takes all” network effects, meaning that people raised as much venture capital as possible to grow as quickly as possible.
But therein lies the original sin of social: since the app needs massive growth, it’s given away for free; all those free users are then turned into billions of data points; those data points are sold to the highest bidding advertiser (and the next highest bidding, and the next, and the next).
In an advertising-based model, only three things matter:
Total users (more eyeballs = more ad inventory)
Total time on app (more scrolling = more ads shown)
Total data collected (more targeting = higher ad prices)
What's missing? Whether users are actually happy.
This kind of ads-above-all focus is how we come up with ridiculous ideas like Elon Musk’s dream of turning Twitter into “the everything app”, or Mark Zuckerberg’s thinking we’ll all agree to throw on headsets and live in his metaverse for 16 hours a day. It’s the kind of setup that considers a social network with 10 million (hell, even 50 million!) happy users to be a failure.
The bet at Sunslider
It's simple: we're using patience instead of venture capital, values instead of advertising.
We're building for the long term. That means our users need to be our customers, not our product.
That being the case, we can't have targeted ads; and since we can’t have targeted ads, well, why not just make the platform ad-free and move on?
That sounded good. Challenging! But good. Because it helped us to realize that if there are no ads on Sunslider, we don't need to:
Track how long you spend in the app
Create pushy algorithms to trap you in endless scrolling
Build tools for influencers
Block links to other sites
...and a million other annoying things
Because we’re not optimizing for data collection and ad revenue, we can optimize for your experience above all.
Where’s the money, Lebowski?
“Ok,” you’re saying. “No ads. But the app’s free! So how are you going to make money?”
Good question! From day one, we've been opportunistic. We even launched a merch shop to help fund development.
Grab yours (hell, grab 3!) But still, t-shirts alone won't build a sustainable business 😉
That's why we're working on new revenue streams that will always fit two key criteria:
They keep our users at the center, i.e., no turning users into a product
They’re data- and algorithm-light, always respecting your privacy
We’re really excited about the first of these, which will launch in early 2026.
Here's a hint: What if you could have your own private Instagram?
Just you and the exclusive group you want to share with. No algorithms, no strangers, no BS.
Make sure you’re either already on Sunslider (iOS for the moment, Android coming soon) or signed up for our newsletter to be part of the special group who will have early access.
At Sunslider, we're building the Patagonia of social networks: long-term, user-oriented, faithful to our values.
If that sounds like something the world needs, help us spread the word.
Share this post, invite a friend to Sunslider, or just tell people that things could be different, that there are indeed some lunatics out there building something different 🤗