Building humane social media: Interview with Bill Loundy

Bill Loundy is the co-founder and CEO of Readup, “the world’s first ethical social media platform.” Learn more about Bill, including the books that have changed his life,

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.



KB: Where are you right now?

BL: Joshua Tree, California. I live in a solar-powered RV on the back of a yellow F-250 pickup truck. I’ve been nomadic for a few years and I love it.

KB: What are you trying to build right now with Readup?

BL: Readup is the world’s first ethical social media platform. Or sometimes I say, the world's first humane social media platform. We help people focus their time and attention on reading. We are fundamentally opposed to the status quo media business model. Companies like Facebook and Twitter, for example, prevent you from being able to focus on a good, long story. Instead, they want you scrolling through your feed, voting on headlines, seeing ads. They clearly don’t care about the impact that this has on your brain and life. 

KB: What inspired you to start building Readup?

Frustration. Five years ago I called up my best friend to complain about Facebook and Reddit and pitch him on an idea. What if it wasn’t possible to comment on articles and stories you haven’t actually read? And what if there was an entire community of readers where everyone actually read the stuff they were commenting on? Initially, we had more modest ambitions to promote civil discourse online rather than to create an entire social platform from scratch. Now we’re the world’s first humane social media platform. 

KB: Say more about this word, "humane."

BL: This makes me think of the new documentary, The Social Dilemma. It basically argues that social media as it exists today is destroying individuals and it's destroying society. So, what do we have to do to fix social media? It's a really complex problem. It involves things like surveillance and privacy. Today the single business model that all social media platforms use is to get people addicted to the feed, gather as much data as possible to deepen that addiction, and then get them to buy stuff within it. Optimizing for that is what these companies were built to do. So what do we mean by being an ethical or humane company? Pretty simple: Readup isn’t going to be free. You’ll have to pay. But, in exchange, we’ll treat you like a human, a customer, with dignity and respect. Readup solves all of the problems that make social media platforms today so destructive: things like echo chambers, trolling, black-box algorithms. And instead of the feed, everything is anchored on reading.

“Readup solves all of the problems that make social media platforms today so destructive: things like echo chambers, trolling, black-box algorithms. And instead of the feed, everything is anchored on reading.”

KB: So, the main difference with your approach is...

BL: You pay and you're the customer. Rather than you get it for free, and you're the product.

KB: Social media is addictive because it's designed to be that way. So, how can you get people to use this app, Readup, when it's fundamentally not designed in a way that you know it would be successful, considering how human brain chemistry works?

BL: Totally. And my answer to this question is borderline spiritual. I have faith in people. I have faith in humanity. It's the same thing as if you asked a question like, "How do you get people to go to the gym?" You have to want it. At this point there's so much of an understanding that certain digital screen based behaviors are mind numbing, they are entertainment, versus something that is actually work. Our proposition on Readup is different. We are telling you 1) that you have to pay us and 2) it's for the privilege of working hard, on reading.

KB: Yes. And reading is work! 

BL: There are people out there who want to read and who want good information about the world. I think it has a lot to do with intention. We aren't trying to sneakily lure you in with quick, cheap tricks. We think that our users should take the initiative and the intention to build a reading habit into your life, and if you want to do that, Readup is a great place to do it.

KB: Zooming out to the media industry broadly, it feels to me like the experience of reading the news online right now is that if you "miss something" there will be some dire, mortal consequence. Like if we miss a news update we could die. And it makes checking the feed addictive.

BL: Exactly. I try to avoid reading anything that isn’t at least a few weeks old. And I love really old stuff that stands the test of time. I still pay attention to current events, but at a slower pace. 

Take the California wildfires for instance. The headlines are impossible to ignore, but I don’t have the time to read about every single catastrophe. I’m okay with that because last year I read an excellent article about the people who try to put these huge fires out and I’m still thinking about it a year later.

Another example: I care that RBG just passed away, but I’ll wait a month or two and Readup will show me the best, most-read articles. And, honestly, I might not even have time to read those. That says something too.

“ I won’t read any news that isn’t at least a week old. ”

KB: I know that you have a yoga practice yourself, and in another life, you were a yoga instructor. Can you talk a little about your current routine?

BL: Right now my current yoga practice is that I wake up as early as I possibly can without an alarm clock, usually between 5:30 or 6 am while it's still dark out, and I go for a super long walk to find an empty, private place, and I blast music and do solo ecstatic dancing for like 45 minutes to an hour. If I don't sweat and get that out I go a little crazy.

KB: Give me your definition of meditation.

BL: Focus. Single-pointed focus. Meditation happens when the entire body and mind are completely engaged in one single thing, without any distractions. 

KB: And do you think reading through Readup can also be a form of meditation?

BL: Oh yeah. That’s exactly the point. Ads and distractions destroy the reading meditation in the exact same way that phone calls or text messages will destroy your seated meditation. In trying to pioneer a healthy form of screen time, we have to aim really high. Believe it or not, I usually don’t compare Readup to Facebook or whatever. I compare it to going for a walk in the woods, looking at a tree, having a great conversation with a loved one. 

Some things in life are just plain good. Reading is one of those things.