Metamorphic Early Access Sign Ups: The road to a better online life
(Previously published on the Metamorphic blog.)
Hello and welcome everyone to Metamorphic! This week marks the launch of our public-facing domain and sign ups for our upcoming Early Access period.
I felt I should kick things off with a brief explanation about what Metamorphic is (and isn’t), why I felt the need to make it, and what you can expect.
What is (and isn’t) Metamorphic?
Metamorphic is a better way to connect and share online with the people in your life. It is an online web service built by a little company called Moss Piglet and is designed in response to the current surveillance economy.
Metamorphic is not a social network (media) clone. All of the features in Metamorphic are carefully chosen to enable easy connecting and sharing without enabling the dark patterns present on other platforms. Some features may feel familiar to you while others will most likely feel quite strange at first.
But, I think if you give us a chance, you’ll find your mind and time opening up to your actual life as you begin to connect and share with people here.
Why make Metamorphic?
To be honest, it felt crazy (and still does) to embark on this journey toward making a better, safer, alternative for people online. The current landscape is dominated by powerful corporations with virtually unlimited resources.
But, it was also this reality that inspired me to move forward with Metamorphic. I believed that there would never be anything quite like Metamorphic if I didn’t make it a reality.
There are other privacy-respecting and secure alternatives out there, Threema for instance, who are doing a remarkable job (as far as I can tell). But, Metamorphic is not just about privacy and security. We are creating features with fundamentally different behaviors and goals than simply connecting and sharing with people. We want Metamorphic to essentially get out of your way while still keeping you safe.
Besides if you are always wrapped up in your screen then you aren’t actually out there living a full and realized life, the kind of life that then in-turn enables you to share more interesting and fulfilling things.
So, while there are incredible services out there that I use, like Signal, I did not believe there was anything quite like Metamorphic, nor would there ever be, if I didn’t get to work on it. And Metamorphic is exactly what I would trust and want for my family.
What can you expect?
You should expect a completely different (yet sometimes still familiar) experience on Metamorphic. You should expect certain features and behaviors that you may be accustomed to on other platforms to be missing. These are all intentional choices to deliver a service that respects and attempts to empower your autonomy.
You should also expect to pay for Metamorphic. This is perhaps the biggest shock as we are not abusing you and your data in any way. Because of this non-abusive business model, we have to actually pay and support our company and service with the payment from your subscription.
During our Early Access phase, you should expect that there may still be some kinks in the system and some of our features may not yet be available. Early Access is essentially a beta period, where we are still polishing up features and the service for a public launch (showtime). But, by taking part in our Early Access you will also get to start using the service sooner, help support Metamorphic, and be able to share feedback and possibly influence current and future features.
In general, you should expect new features to be delivered when they are ready and you should expect to have your voice heard. You should also expect some delay in support response-time until I can hire a full-time support person. But, you can also expect to receive support directly from me in the meantime (you’ll see support links when signed in to your account).
You can also learn more about what you can expect at our hassle-free and customer-rights pages.
Thank you for being here. I really do hope you join me on this journey to a better online life.
— Mark
