A social app for creatives, Cara grew from 40k to 650k users in a week because artists are fed up with Meta’s AI policies | TechCrunch
A social app for creatives, Cara grew from 40k to 650k users in a week because artists are fed up with Meta’s AI policies | TechCrunch

A social app for creatives, Cara grew from 40k to 650k users in a week because artists are fed up with Meta’s AI policies | TechCrunch

Artists have finally had enough with Meta’s predatory AI policies, but Meta’s loss is Cara’s gain. An artist-run, anti-AI social platform, Cara has grown from 40,000 to 650,000 users within the last week, catapulting it to the top of the App Store charts.
Instagram is a necessity for many artists, who use the platform to promote their work and solicit paying clients. But Meta is using public posts to train its generative AI systems, and only European users can opt out, since they’re protected by GDPR laws. Generative AI has become so front-and-center on Meta’s apps that artists reached their breaking point
People talking about pixelfed are missing a key point: Cara is super easy to find and join. You go, type your email or login with your google account and that's it. You don't even have to remember a password. Nobody wants to find a server, apply to join, hope to get accepted, then somehow find all other artists like you.
Also, it looks good. Like, really good. That's a thing that grab the attention of artists.
This right here. I tried to join Mastodon today.
Download the most recommended app, Moshidon
Open app and get asked which instance i want to join. There are no suggestions.
Do a search for instances and pick one, go to the website and register with email and password. Requires email confirmation. Still waiting on the email confirmation link, 4 hrs later and 2 resends.
Literally haven't been able to sign up yet.
Even if it had worked, the workflow would have been to change back to the app, type out the instance then re-login.
I'm not sure how anyone expects anyone other than the most hardcore to sign up for these services. Maybe that's the point but if the point is to grow the user sign up process to significant overall
Biggest problems I have had with Mastodon are the fact that:
I definitely see the appeal of a find the site, sign up, and you're done services over the fediverse join an instance and pray service.
If you just used the Official app, they have a simplified sign-up procedure. Dug your own grave there.
They're just gonna have to leave whenever Cara makes some dumb decision. It's the capitalist app cycle.
Hopefully in a couple of cycles’ time, we’ll be ready for them
Whether it's "capitalist" or not doesn't matter. You could have government owned/created apps that make dumb decisions as well.
At least with capitalism you have the option to go somewhere else when a dumb decision is made.
It's still a centralized system
That's the thing, nobody cares. Its even better to be centralised because there's someone you can sue for damages if that's the case.
Pixelfed isn’t even in the App Store and isn’t geared towards artists. Cara has specific features for artists including finding jobs
Fuck a buncha Google SSO though. Hopefully that's not the only option
It's not