Voiced social media app

Jon's post about FRNDLY reminded me of a recent experience with another social media app. It is called Voiced. And it was marketed to me on Facebook. Looked interesting. I'm game to trying new social media if it might rival FB. 

There was. .99 'activation' fee which gave me pause. But then I shrugged and thought, "ya know, it's expensive to run a website. This one claims to have no ads and no AI, so what the heck?" 

Logged in and it was Ok, but it felt very unfinished. The UI was basic, there was no dark mode, and there was hardly anyone on there.

On the main feed where there should be lots of people even if you don't follow anyone yet there were only a few people. 

It had pay options if you want to do very long form posts and such. I'm not opposed to paying for something if it is worthwhile. But it just felt off. I gave it some time. I had a couple of usage questions that I posted about that were answered by the founder himself. Turns out it was due to poor alignment of the UI, but that wasn't rectified. 

I was on it for about a month and there were maybe 10 new people who joined. One guy posted questions about the legitimacy of the site, but those questions were never addressed. Another user pointed out that the founder of the site was basically the only person involved in the company. And if you look him up on Lord Google, you will find he was associated with and convicted in a federal fraud case. 🤦🤦 

Everyone deserves a second chance, but, dude, before you charge people money for a site, at least put in some effort, or make it free until you gain some traction and at least have the basics expected of a social media platform. I deleted my account.