VERO

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At a time when platform behemoths like Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat and Twitter are all raising the ire of their respective communities, you’d think alternative options like Vero (or Ello, or… whatever came before that) would be appealing. But the problem with social media is that it needs people, it needs critical mass, and Vero hasn’t quite achieved that yet. And if we’re to be honest, it’s unlikely it ever will: this is a functional social media app which lets you share links, videos, images and more with friends, but it’s also going to have an entry fee once its userbase exceeds 1 million. Given how utterly flooded Facebook is with ads nowadays, an entry fee sounds vaguely attractive given Vevo’s anti-ad sentiment. And while incentivising early adopters by having a capped period of free sign-ups is wise, the problem is my friends aren’t doing it. And millions of others’ friends aren’t doing it. And while there may be friend networks that are doing it in their droves, it increasingly feels like social media success stories need to offer something that hasn’t been offered before. That’s what Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat and Instagram did. Vero doesn’t.