Substack Notes Launched(on.substack.com)
on.substack.com
Substack Notes Launched
https://on.substack.com/p/notes
778 comments
They raised a ton of money on a high valuation, spent 25mil to make 1 mil last year and are now scrambling to raise a new crowd sourced round because they don't want to get wiped out in a down round.
This notes thing looks like an attempt to pivot to an advertising based business model and I'm guessing they think they have "influencers" on their platform to bring in a decent audience.
This notes thing looks like an attempt to pivot to an advertising based business model and I'm guessing they think they have "influencers" on their platform to bring in a decent audience.
> This notes thing looks like an attempt to pivot to an advertising based business model
It's not. Substack is very clear about that. https://on.substack.com/p/notes-faq
"The ultimate goal on Substack is to convert casual readers into paying subscribers. Because the Substack network runs on paid subscriptions, writers are rewarded for respecting the trust and attention of their audiences, not exploiting it like with ad-based social media."
"While Notes may look similar to social media feeds, the key difference is in what you don’t see. The Substack network runs on paid subscriptions, not ads. It’s social media with a heart transplant."
It's not. Substack is very clear about that. https://on.substack.com/p/notes-faq
"The ultimate goal on Substack is to convert casual readers into paying subscribers. Because the Substack network runs on paid subscriptions, writers are rewarded for respecting the trust and attention of their audiences, not exploiting it like with ad-based social media."
"While Notes may look similar to social media feeds, the key difference is in what you don’t see. The Substack network runs on paid subscriptions, not ads. It’s social media with a heart transplant."
Because no company would ever lie about their intentions, or at the very least pivot to the exact opposite of their original point without a second thought.
Would they?
Would they?
[deleted]
"Because no company would ever lie about their intentions, or at the very least pivot to the exact opposite of their original point without a second thought."
No business would pivot to a dying monetization model unless it was their last option.
Advertising is not a solution for Substack; but rather a Trojan Horse.
No business would pivot to a dying monetization model unless it was their last option.
Advertising is not a solution for Substack; but rather a Trojan Horse.
As much as I wish this were to true, it’s objectively false. Digital advertising is a healthy industry that powers many profitable companies. Substack is not profitable and torching money even with a 10% claim on wroters’ subscription revenue
Dying monetization model? Is that why Microsoft, Amazon and Apple App Store are splattering their properties with them like a Jackson Pollock painting?
Those are ecosystems that operate a fundamentally different model ("dream scenario").
Aaaah someone disagrees with my point of view so they must be lying!
Clearly not. No company would ever betray their original principles for the opportunity to make more money in the short term
Losing only 24 million sounds like a bargain. Imagine spending 40 billion to pay 1 billion more in interest each year.
I mean consider also: Imagine being in a position where you can spend 40 billion and it doesn't wipe you out.
Imagine spending only 30% of your net worth and getting to experiment with buying and growing one of the most used and talked about sites on the internet.
If I spent 30% of my net worth I could buy a condo in the bay, possibly. Although odds are it would be worth close to that if I needed to sell it.
But many people spend 30% of their net worth trying to start businesses with almost no traction. Musk spent 30% to buy something known internationally.
If I spent 30% of my net worth I could buy a condo in the bay, possibly. Although odds are it would be worth close to that if I needed to sell it.
But many people spend 30% of their net worth trying to start businesses with almost no traction. Musk spent 30% to buy something known internationally.
Imagine spending only 30% of your net worth and getting to experiment with buying and growing one of the most used and talked about sites on the internet.
That sounds like one of the least interesting things I could do with $44bn.
With that sort of money I could fund 1000 Twitter rivals, and after a couple of years combine the successful and interesting ones into a single rival that would actually do something better than Twitter.
That sounds like one of the least interesting things I could do with $44bn.
With that sort of money I could fund 1000 Twitter rivals, and after a couple of years combine the successful and interesting ones into a single rival that would actually do something better than Twitter.
> "That sounds like one of the least interesting things I could do with $44bn."
You could fund The Manhattan Project ($21Bn).
And the Panama Canal ($13Bn).
And the Concorde project ($2.5Bn).
And the Hoover Dam ($0.8Bn).
And an Eiffel Tower, a Statue of Liberty, and a statue of Christ the Redeemer. ($100s of M)
Buy yourself a B52 Stealth Bomber (~$2Bn).
And a Hindenburg ($100M), and a Titanic ($400M).
And still have a couple of billion left over.
You could fund The Manhattan Project ($21Bn).
And the Panama Canal ($13Bn).
And the Concorde project ($2.5Bn).
And the Hoover Dam ($0.8Bn).
And an Eiffel Tower, a Statue of Liberty, and a statue of Christ the Redeemer. ($100s of M)
Buy yourself a B52 Stealth Bomber (~$2Bn).
And a Hindenburg ($100M), and a Titanic ($400M).
And still have a couple of billion left over.
Except you couldn’t really do most of that without government support and approval
Rather missing the point that any of those are more interesting than "a thousand Twitter clones". But even on that point, Musk managed to do a lot with SpaceX and Tesla supercharger network which need various government support and approvals.
I think most of us would do that, but I don't think musk has the desire or time to start a VC studio.
The condo you buy with 30% of your net is going to be worth 30% or more later. That's a good investment.
Musk spent 30% of his net worth on it then immediatly burned 90% of the already questionable value it had.
What Musk did was just bad business.
Musk spent 30% of his net worth on it then immediatly burned 90% of the already questionable value it had.
What Musk did was just bad business.
> then immediatly burned 90% of the already questionable value it had
citation needed
citation needed
BBC has some good sources
Hmmm seems that the most recent number is ~20bn [0][1], at least 5x the >90% number quoted by the parent.
[0]: https://www.bbc.com/news/business-65084254
[1]: https://twitter.com/ZoeSchiffer/status/1639737042828673024
[0]: https://www.bbc.com/news/business-65084254
[1]: https://twitter.com/ZoeSchiffer/status/1639737042828673024
I mean I could buy a very expensive Mercedes and drive it straight into the Bay at high speed.
That doesn’t make it a good idea.
That doesn’t make it a good idea.
Definitely doesn't make it a good idea. But it's still interesting that he's playing with one of the most talked about sites on the internet without really affecting his finances at all. Of all the random things to do with your money, it's not even that bad of an experiment.
He’s just a rich kid pulling the legs off an ant.
I actually find it perverse.
I actually find it perverse.
He's not a kid using his parents money. He's using his own and his personal name/reputation to secure money.
He's not hurting an ant. He fired people and let them go find other jobs which seems pretty fair instead of for example reducing their pay drastically and forcing them to quit, or paying them minimum wage and profit sharing. Which still would have been pretty fair IMO.
Not every ceo or company owners needs to be operating a charity like the previous Twitter CEO was.
It can be done without being an asshole (for example without insulting a handicapped person) https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/elon-musk-gets-involved-...
Note: he did not insult a handicapped person. At no point did he attack his disability. That was a cruel twisting of facts by the media.
Further he was misled by someone feeding him incorrect information and promptly apologized for the confusion. https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1633253950198624257
Further he was misled by someone feeding him incorrect information and promptly apologized for the confusion. https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1633253950198624257
He found out Twitter would need to pay him 100M. That is a big incentive to backpedal.
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It’s wiping him out in slow motion.
They haven't lost it. They paid advanced to writers but they will gather their share in a few years.
The economics on those deals look worse over time -- they're spending over $3 in guaranteed payments per $1 collected on those partner subscriptions, which meant partner subs went from being mildly profitable (gross) in 2020 to a $10mm cash sink in 2021. The good news is that overall the subsidized writers should be making enough for Substack to shut down the incentive payments (~$40mm in subscription revenue to writers vs $16mm in subsidies in 2021), so there's a good chance they can stop the bleeding. Still overvalued by at least 25x, though, and their OPEX is concerning; even if you ignore the $16mm in partner payments, they're still $6mm underwater on $10mm in revenue.
Where is the 1M number from? They take 10% of subscriptions and https://sellcoursesonline.com/substack-statistics says that just the top writers made 20M in 2021. I bet there’s a long tail.
(I don’t think you’re wrong by a factor of 10, just curious where you got your number from.)
(I don’t think you’re wrong by a factor of 10, just curious where you got your number from.)
A lot of the top writers have large guaranteed incomes and related incentive structures. The 20M is not all revenue, some of it is a cost for Substack.
I couldn’t reply sooner because I have noprocast on but my numbers were a bit off, I was repeating what I heard on a tech podcast. According to the numbers they had to release it was a bit higher https://www.axios.com/2023/04/07/substack-gets-writers-to-in...
I remember there was a time when people were excited about medium. Then medium needed some money so they started blocking readers behind login dialog boxes. Then come substack and everyone got excited about it. Sooner or later it will be on same path that medium took.
When will we realise that blogging websites (not personal blogs) are not sustainable in long run.
When will we realise that blogging websites (not personal blogs) are not sustainable in long run.
Imo, a blogging software company really does not need to be valued in the billions or make a ton of money. The tech can be maintained by a relatively small team of people - see all the independent blogging platforms and open source tools.
This is a classic case of VCs corrupting an industry with money that’s really not needed at valuations that really can’t be supported.
This is a classic case of VCs corrupting an industry with money that’s really not needed at valuations that really can’t be supported.
One could argue that social media is technically all "blogging websites"
Advertising works there because of the numbers. People will quickly consume enough bite sized content to drive traditional numbers.
Medium broke the things that made them appealing in an attempt to sweeten the advertising sell, but this made the platform unappealing. It was a self inflicted wound.
Advertising works there because of the numbers. People will quickly consume enough bite sized content to drive traditional numbers.
Medium broke the things that made them appealing in an attempt to sweeten the advertising sell, but this made the platform unappealing. It was a self inflicted wound.
> Advertising works there because of the numbers. People will quickly consume enough bite sized content to drive traditional numbers.
To be more specific, advertising works there because of the feed algorithms. The platforms gather data about user interests and use that to tune what they choose to show the users, favoring things the algorithms suggest will get more "engagement". In turn, they sell ads on those favored items. On top of that, they charge both users and advertisers a premium to be featured on the favored topics.
Take away the algorithms that determine what content and ads to feature, and you get back to the basics of blogging websites. You get happier users, but no advertising money.
To be more specific, advertising works there because of the feed algorithms. The platforms gather data about user interests and use that to tune what they choose to show the users, favoring things the algorithms suggest will get more "engagement". In turn, they sell ads on those favored items. On top of that, they charge both users and advertisers a premium to be featured on the favored topics.
Take away the algorithms that determine what content and ads to feature, and you get back to the basics of blogging websites. You get happier users, but no advertising money.
Medium broke things (by making people login) precisely because they wanted to charge money, because they did not want to use advertising (and AFAIK they still don't).
People will realize that once there's some easy-to-self-host blogging software with support for comments and newsletters.
Easy to self host? We live in a world where Mastodon had to change their signup screen to de-emphasize "pick a server" because people had no idea what that meant.
Their 2021 revenue is $12M. We don't know their 2022 revenue. Your numbers are just wrong.
Source:
https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1783191/000167025423...
Source:
https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1783191/000167025423...
From your source, their 2021 net profit was -$6.5M and their 2020 net profit was $1M. They seem to be mixing the $24.6M in negative cash flow for 2021 with the $1M in net profit in 2020? Doesn’t make any sense.
Valuations in tech haven't been based on profit for 25 years now. It's all revenue and user growth.
Yeah sorry about that, I was just repeating something I heard on a podcast and it looks like they assumed that was top line revenue and took 10% of it.
I’d edit the post but it’s too late to do so.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35534035
I’d edit the post but it’s too late to do so.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35534035
[deleted]
Next on the product roadmap:
- Infinite scrolling feed w/ ads
- Video Substacks
- Infinite scrolling video Substacks w/ ads
- Infinite scrolling feed w/ ads
- Video Substacks
- Infinite scrolling video Substacks w/ ads
Don't forget the chumboxes.
But teh videoz need be shoorts
> They raised a ton of money on a high valuation, spent 25mil to make 1 mil last year and are now scrambling to raise a new crowd sourced round because they don't want to get wiped out in a down round.
Sorry to get off-topic, but is there a read/book to understand funding, VCs, etc., from a holistic POV. I totally didn't expect that consequence of having to raise a crowd sourced round due to initial high valuation.
Sorry to get off-topic, but is there a read/book to understand funding, VCs, etc., from a holistic POV. I totally didn't expect that consequence of having to raise a crowd sourced round due to initial high valuation.
- Their valuation is high because they raised during the recent bubble
- If you raise more money at a lower valuation than your last fundraise, it's highly dilutive. Investors paid $10 for 10% of a $100 valued company last round during the bubble. Vs. given current market conditions, new investors would only pay $10 for 20% of a $50 valued company this round. This second round would dilute existing investors, except...
- If you crowd source the funding, now you can raise at a $100 valuation again (less dilution), because these crowdsourcing investors don't know what they're doing
- If you raise more money at a lower valuation than your last fundraise, it's highly dilutive. Investors paid $10 for 10% of a $100 valued company last round during the bubble. Vs. given current market conditions, new investors would only pay $10 for 20% of a $50 valued company this round. This second round would dilute existing investors, except...
- If you crowd source the funding, now you can raise at a $100 valuation again (less dilution), because these crowdsourcing investors don't know what they're doing
“Venture Deals: Be Smarter Than Your Lawyer And VC” is pretty good. Used it when raising a round of funding.
“The Power Law: Venture Capital And The Making Of The New Future” is also good. It tells the story of the evolution of VC over the last 70 years. It is interesting that funding terms seem to be becoming more and more founder-friendly over decades.
“The Power Law: Venture Capital And The Making Of The New Future” is also good. It tells the story of the evolution of VC over the last 70 years. It is interesting that funding terms seem to be becoming more and more founder-friendly over decades.
"Secrets of Sand Hill Road" by Scott Kupor (Managing Partner @ A16Z).
Was recommended to read this by VC friends to prep for Investment Associate interviews a couple years ago
Was recommended to read this by VC friends to prep for Investment Associate interviews a couple years ago
Having been in/around the game for a good few years, I can assure you it's not nearly as complicated as they try to make it sound.
The game works like this: the VCs want 100% of your company, and you want to give away 0% of your company. (Of course, 90%+ of companies will fail, so it doesn't really matter. But let's pretend we're all in that special 10%.)
If you do end up choosing to play that particular game, then you'll find some common numerical rules of thumb. They usually go like this: Each round should raise 12-18 months of runway, and each round's investors usually get about 20-30% of your company.
On one side of the game, you have the VCs, who basically play this negotiation full-time — and whose comp structure depends on extracting as much equity from you as possible. This is why we get the constant stream of "thought leadership" from VC bloggers, because they're trying to distinguish themselves as offering something more than capital. (And, having distinguished themselves, they can extract more % from you for less $.)
After decades of practice, VCs have plenty of hustles they can run. Some of the classics are the old "participating preferred" play, as well as the usual sound bite about how "it doesn't matter what the exact numbers are."
On the other side of the game, you have the founders, who basically want the maximum amount of money in exchange for the least amount of equity — but also for the least amount of time. Fundraising is a massive distraction, and VCs know it — which is why time always gets used against the founder, with long and drawn-out "fundraising processes" that (by total coincidence, of course) also happen to exhaust the founder and push them towards signing.
The twist is that this game isn't only for 1 round. Once you take your company into this game, you're stuck in it — you'll have to keep fundraising to keep fueling the growth that you've kickstarted using external capital. With the average IPO timeline being 7-10 years, combined with fundraising every 12-18 months, you can expect to play this game 5+ times on the way to IPO.
Sometimes, for a variety of reasons, the founder raises too much $ for too little %. You'd think this is a good move — but, since this is an iterated game, it's not all upside. Decisions in this round set the stage for the next round. If you can't live up to the growth expectations implied by the high valuation, then you're in for a "down round."
VCs have a standard "down round" playbook, too. They'll have their way with the cap table, of course — and it's also not uncommon to see some/all of the founding team shown the door. The press piles on as soon as they hear of it, which drags on employee morale as well as the talent pipeline, both of which then destroy product velocity and market positioning... it's very easy to have a single "down round" be the kiss of death for a company.
So that brings us all the way back around to your question. For this particular company — as well as for many others that raised during the "cheap money" era of the pandemic and pre-pandemic years — it sounds like they're facing this conundrum. Crowdsourcing the next round is a somewhat new way to tackle this situation — new regulations came out a few years ago, and founders sometimes go this route instead of risking the "down round" game with VCs.
You usually only see B2C companies making the crowd-funding play in the first place, since you need the name recognition and customer base to even try to raise money in this way. Because founders can essentially "divide and conquer" their investor base in a scenario where everyone's investing only four or five figures, the common scenario here is that the founder sets the terms to avoid the down round — and then they begin the fundraising. Since they're fundraising from hundreds/thousands of people instead of 5-10 people, it ends up being more of a marketing campaign rather than high-touch sales, which can also play to some founders' strengths.
Anyway, I could keep riffing for a while (and I'm sure others here could do even better). I'll let the other commenters chime in with book recommendations — I'm sure someone's written about these market dynamics in much more detail.
The game works like this: the VCs want 100% of your company, and you want to give away 0% of your company. (Of course, 90%+ of companies will fail, so it doesn't really matter. But let's pretend we're all in that special 10%.)
If you do end up choosing to play that particular game, then you'll find some common numerical rules of thumb. They usually go like this: Each round should raise 12-18 months of runway, and each round's investors usually get about 20-30% of your company.
On one side of the game, you have the VCs, who basically play this negotiation full-time — and whose comp structure depends on extracting as much equity from you as possible. This is why we get the constant stream of "thought leadership" from VC bloggers, because they're trying to distinguish themselves as offering something more than capital. (And, having distinguished themselves, they can extract more % from you for less $.)
After decades of practice, VCs have plenty of hustles they can run. Some of the classics are the old "participating preferred" play, as well as the usual sound bite about how "it doesn't matter what the exact numbers are."
On the other side of the game, you have the founders, who basically want the maximum amount of money in exchange for the least amount of equity — but also for the least amount of time. Fundraising is a massive distraction, and VCs know it — which is why time always gets used against the founder, with long and drawn-out "fundraising processes" that (by total coincidence, of course) also happen to exhaust the founder and push them towards signing.
The twist is that this game isn't only for 1 round. Once you take your company into this game, you're stuck in it — you'll have to keep fundraising to keep fueling the growth that you've kickstarted using external capital. With the average IPO timeline being 7-10 years, combined with fundraising every 12-18 months, you can expect to play this game 5+ times on the way to IPO.
Sometimes, for a variety of reasons, the founder raises too much $ for too little %. You'd think this is a good move — but, since this is an iterated game, it's not all upside. Decisions in this round set the stage for the next round. If you can't live up to the growth expectations implied by the high valuation, then you're in for a "down round."
VCs have a standard "down round" playbook, too. They'll have their way with the cap table, of course — and it's also not uncommon to see some/all of the founding team shown the door. The press piles on as soon as they hear of it, which drags on employee morale as well as the talent pipeline, both of which then destroy product velocity and market positioning... it's very easy to have a single "down round" be the kiss of death for a company.
So that brings us all the way back around to your question. For this particular company — as well as for many others that raised during the "cheap money" era of the pandemic and pre-pandemic years — it sounds like they're facing this conundrum. Crowdsourcing the next round is a somewhat new way to tackle this situation — new regulations came out a few years ago, and founders sometimes go this route instead of risking the "down round" game with VCs.
You usually only see B2C companies making the crowd-funding play in the first place, since you need the name recognition and customer base to even try to raise money in this way. Because founders can essentially "divide and conquer" their investor base in a scenario where everyone's investing only four or five figures, the common scenario here is that the founder sets the terms to avoid the down round — and then they begin the fundraising. Since they're fundraising from hundreds/thousands of people instead of 5-10 people, it ends up being more of a marketing campaign rather than high-touch sales, which can also play to some founders' strengths.
Anyway, I could keep riffing for a while (and I'm sure others here could do even better). I'll let the other commenters chime in with book recommendations — I'm sure someone's written about these market dynamics in much more detail.
In my experience the reality is much more nuanced:
- VCs don’t want founders to own 0% of their company because founders need to be motivated to work hard to make it a success
- % of dilution usually goes down very significantly over funding rounds
- there is significant competition between VCs to fund good startups these days, which can translate to founder leverage
- there are early-stage VCs these days, which don’t pressure founders for quick growth
- founders talk to each other and a large portion of founders are serial entrepreneurs. Reputation among founders matters to VCs
- looking over the longer term of decades, typical funding terms are getting much more founder-friendly
- VCs don’t want founders to own 0% of their company because founders need to be motivated to work hard to make it a success
- % of dilution usually goes down very significantly over funding rounds
- there is significant competition between VCs to fund good startups these days, which can translate to founder leverage
- there are early-stage VCs these days, which don’t pressure founders for quick growth
- founders talk to each other and a large portion of founders are serial entrepreneurs. Reputation among founders matters to VCs
- looking over the longer term of decades, typical funding terms are getting much more founder-friendly
> there are early-stage VCs these days, which don’t pressure founders for quick growth
That's really interesting. Do you know how they make that work, exactly?
I feel like that's naturally opposed to the standard incentive structures that VCs have with their LPs. They need to show results in O(years) so they can raise their next fund and keep the overall VC firm going over O(decades). That maps down straightforwardly to the day-to-day pressure VCs put on all their portfolio companies to grow as fast as possible.
Unless early-stage VCs are doing something new with the terms they give their LPs, how could they prioritize anything other than growth?
That's really interesting. Do you know how they make that work, exactly?
I feel like that's naturally opposed to the standard incentive structures that VCs have with their LPs. They need to show results in O(years) so they can raise their next fund and keep the overall VC firm going over O(decades). That maps down straightforwardly to the day-to-day pressure VCs put on all their portfolio companies to grow as fast as possible.
Unless early-stage VCs are doing something new with the terms they give their LPs, how could they prioritize anything other than growth?
Down the grapevine at least, a couple Micro VCs ik provide a pipeline for CorpDev teams at larger companies and early stage VCs (Series A-C check signers like Unusual Ventures) to choose pre-vetted companies. Mind you this seems to be more Enterprise/B2B Micro VC oriented.
If the startup is showing good growth metrics, they'd point them to friends at later stage funds. If they aren't, they'd give intros and help get the startup aquihired.
If the startup is showing good growth metrics, they'd point them to friends at later stage funds. If they aren't, they'd give intros and help get the startup aquihired.
> The twist is that this game isn't only for 1 round. Once you take your company into this game, you're stuck in it — you'll have to keep fundraising to keep fueling the growth that you've kickstarted using external capital.
Why? What stops you from raising a $15m series A and only burning it conservatively until you hit neutral profitability. Investors only have 15-25% of your cap table and can't strong-arm you.
Why? What stops you from raising a $15m series A and only burning it conservatively until you hit neutral profitability. Investors only have 15-25% of your cap table and can't strong-arm you.
You would have had to mislead them right? Why would they give $15m to use slowly when they can give $15m to a company that will use it quick, assuming both companies are using it in a +EV way?
I don't have a resource for you (and will probably read whatever you get linked), but one intuitive way to think about it is that VCs/investors (and most of the startup ecosystem) are generally focused on "growth", not "performance".
You can be a stable, profitable, money-making machine with 90+% margins and amazing reviews, but unless you're doubling something (users, engagement, profits, etc) every single year, you go to the back of the potential-investment line.
A high initial valuation might be great for performance relative to other companies (or whatever reasonable metric you want to insert here), but it also makes it way more difficult to show "growth" YOY compared to a lower initial valuation.
You can be a stable, profitable, money-making machine with 90+% margins and amazing reviews, but unless you're doubling something (users, engagement, profits, etc) every single year, you go to the back of the potential-investment line.
A high initial valuation might be great for performance relative to other companies (or whatever reasonable metric you want to insert here), but it also makes it way more difficult to show "growth" YOY compared to a lower initial valuation.
Why would a company like that want VC money? They can go to a bank if their numbers are that good and keep their equity for themselves.
Venture Deals by Bred Feld is the best book on the matter
What did they spend their $25 million on? What's the tech they have that costs this much to build? Their hard problems are a building a CMS or are otherwise solved by using fastly and sendgrid?
Just to mention one thing that isn't user facing (and therefore not so obvious): Social media companies dealing with user-generated content have to build their own enforcement mechanisms (abuse, copyright infringement, etc.), which is at least an order of magnitude harder than the user facing content engine itself.
They threw money at some big name early adopters.
>This notes thing looks like an attempt to pivot to an advertising based business model
The announcement for the feature on twitter[1] literally emphasizes the lack of ads, pointing out subs are their revenue source, so that would be some 4D enshittification chess.
[1] https://twitter.com/hamishmckenzie/status/164362995302659686...
The announcement for the feature on twitter[1] literally emphasizes the lack of ads, pointing out subs are their revenue source, so that would be some 4D enshittification chess.
[1] https://twitter.com/hamishmckenzie/status/164362995302659686...
> announcement for the feature on twitter literally emphasizes the lack of ads
Guessing that’s now how they’ll pitch it to an acquirer once it takes off.
Guessing that’s now how they’ll pitch it to an acquirer once it takes off.
ZIRP picking off its victims one by one
You are not a victim in any real sense if they cut you a fat cheque first then take away the toys.
Only victims are the pension funds and sovereign funds and HNIs who fund VCs. Everyone else made money. Founders made money at every raise, employees made money with fat salaries, users “made” money with fat discounts.
They got to make more than 0.00% return for the last 10 years, their only mistake (for those that made it) was thinking the party would last forever and trees would grow all the way to the sky.
[deleted]
They really needed this to exist about 6 months ago or whenever it was that Musk bought Twitter. There was a mass exodus then to Mastodon, and if they’d have brought this out then I reckon they would have done a good job of immediately dethroning Twitter as I reckon lots of journalists and writers would have jumped on board. Now they’re going to have to do it the long hard way and try and build the audience organically. I reckon they might be able to do it, but it’ll take them at least a few years because they missed the golden goose.
was there a "mass exodus"? What percentage of people actually left twitter forever to another system and stayed there? What percentage of audience or "influencers"?
Disclaimer - I'm not on Twitter, but my impression is that a few folks made a large amount of noise for leaving but most people shrugged. Other networks mat have seen a temporary large percentage Increase, but a) how much of that stuck and b) a large percentage increase of tiny absolute. Umber can be misleading.
Basically, every 4 years, half of America threatens to move to Canada, but here I am in Toronto and I ain't seeing it :->
Disclaimer - I'm not on Twitter, but my impression is that a few folks made a large amount of noise for leaving but most people shrugged. Other networks mat have seen a temporary large percentage Increase, but a) how much of that stuck and b) a large percentage increase of tiny absolute. Umber can be misleading.
Basically, every 4 years, half of America threatens to move to Canada, but here I am in Toronto and I ain't seeing it :->
Fairly high profile people like Neil Gaiman created mastodon accounts so I think there definitely was the potential for something else to take over if that something else was user friendly enough. Mastodon was never going to be it but there were no other real options.
Still seems to be tweeting on Twitter: https://twitter.com/neilhimself
Many people double-post right now. Though since twitter effectively killed it's API that basically gutted a bunch of tools that would automate that for you. Though maybe you could post to twitter and have a tool that is just plain webscraping your home timeline and reposting....
It looks like neil does quite a bit of boosting (retweeting) on masto: https://mastodon.social/@neilhimself
It looks like neil does quite a bit of boosting (retweeting) on masto: https://mastodon.social/@neilhimself
> Fairly high profile people like Neil Gaiman
Who?
I have to say, that doesn't sound remotely convincing to the 220M+ daily users of Twitter who continue to use the platform since there was no 'mass exodus'.
It was more like a leaf falling out of a tree.
Who?
I have to say, that doesn't sound remotely convincing to the 220M+ daily users of Twitter who continue to use the platform since there was no 'mass exodus'.
It was more like a leaf falling out of a tree.
Neil Gaiman had 3M+ followers on Twitter, it is a pretty high profile account.
Anyway, I think it's more relevant that many accounts are now also syndicating to Mastodon, which makes it a viable alternative for consuming users.
It's far from being an exodus, but they are averaging 200k new users per week, which seems pretty good.
Anyway, I think it's more relevant that many accounts are now also syndicating to Mastodon, which makes it a viable alternative for consuming users.
It's far from being an exodus, but they are averaging 200k new users per week, which seems pretty good.
Right, but that's where absolute and relative come into play.
200k new users per week is... what, 0.05% - 0.1% of Twitter active user base?
Not saying one day it might not snowball, but it's been 6 months and I wouldn't call Mastodon an existential threat to Twitter just yet. I am tremendously enjoying and schadenfreuding the twitter melodrama, but even most people making fun of twitter/musk/socialnetworks, seem to be doing it on twitter.
200k new users per week is... what, 0.05% - 0.1% of Twitter active user base?
Not saying one day it might not snowball, but it's been 6 months and I wouldn't call Mastodon an existential threat to Twitter just yet. I am tremendously enjoying and schadenfreuding the twitter melodrama, but even most people making fun of twitter/musk/socialnetworks, seem to be doing it on twitter.
My mastodon timeline has been growing pretty rapidly over the last year. With obvious ratcheting up happening whenever elon steps on yet another rake. 'Let that sink in' nearly doubled the amount of posts per day, 'hardcore mode' another, 'api shutdown' another...
With so many sites designed to track activity (and per-user activity) on Twitter, I'd lean towards "no mass exodus" simply from the fact that I haven't seen any gotcha graphs/charts/data literally showing it.
However, anecdotally, my relatively static "following" count dropped from ~1k to ~600 over the course of the back-to-back Elon/Mastodon/Trump/etc events that were supposed to prompt mass exoduses. That could be 40% of the accounts I follow blocking me or getting banned, but deleting their accounts seems more likely in this instance.
However, anecdotally, my relatively static "following" count dropped from ~1k to ~600 over the course of the back-to-back Elon/Mastodon/Trump/etc events that were supposed to prompt mass exoduses. That could be 40% of the accounts I follow blocking me or getting banned, but deleting their accounts seems more likely in this instance.
I mean I kept my twitter account, I just don't use it nearly as much. When he killed the API it killed the only way I could use twitter and stay sane (tweetbot). Now I can go days without opening twitter dot com. Mostly only visiting it through links referencing specific tweets. So follower/following count might not mean much. I'm still following everyone I followed it's just that if they post I'm not actually seeing it.
nemo44x(1)
There was no mass exodus. The sports and celebrity people are still on twitter. Nobody cares about rando journalists and techies, who are a vanishingly small part of the platform.
Hard disagree with this. The majority don’t care about twitter, the only people who absolutely adore it are journalists and techies which is why it was such a big deal in the news and on forums and everyone in the real world just went about their business. The celebrities are only there for marketing and connecting with the journalists.
I follow mostly techies, very few went to mastodon, and among them were none of the ones I cared about.
Seems like the people doing the most things in my field have no time for drama and are busy doing stuff, while the ones that actually accomplish little have the time and energy for this.
Seems like the people doing the most things in my field have no time for drama and are busy doing stuff, while the ones that actually accomplish little have the time and energy for this.
Counterpoint: most of the Cloud Native crowd I follow moved to Hachyderm.
> Seems like the people doing the most things in my field have no time for drama and are busy doing stuff,
Standing up for ethics isn't performative drama. I made my exit very quietly because I didn't have time for the drama of a petulant tyrant. I care that the tech I consume is open source or at the very least is guided by some principal of any good kind.
> Seems like the people doing the most things in my field have no time for drama and are busy doing stuff,
Standing up for ethics isn't performative drama. I made my exit very quietly because I didn't have time for the drama of a petulant tyrant. I care that the tech I consume is open source or at the very least is guided by some principal of any good kind.
Sure.
People spent months and a tremendous amount of energy discussing the state of a site that is a glorified animated wall of text, but it's not drama.
Sometimes I wish I could teleport this community to were I lived in Mali and force you to stay there for 6 months to re-calibrate your sense of what's important.
People spent months and a tremendous amount of energy discussing the state of a site that is a glorified animated wall of text, but it's not drama.
Sometimes I wish I could teleport this community to were I lived in Mali and force you to stay there for 6 months to re-calibrate your sense of what's important.
Most people didn't. Some small group of people spent tremendous amount of energy. I think both of you agree on that point.
Same thing with iOS devs, everyone I followed on Twitter is now on Mastodon.
Most of the Python developers I followed are on Mastodon. "Techies" has lots of sub-cultures, so it could be C# or React developers are stuck on Twitter, for example, so if you are in those groups it might seem nobody has left.
>>×The majority don’t care about twitter
Exactly. Exactly.
Good luck to Substack, though. I'm rooting for them in this scenario.
Exactly. Exactly.
Good luck to Substack, though. I'm rooting for them in this scenario.
Actually, I'll take that back...
https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZTR35o66A/
https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZTR35o66A/
Substack has attracted so many shrill rightwing kooks (Greenwald being the canary in that particular coalmine) that when I see someone has a substack I roll my eyes.
So here's to them being a more pretentious rumble/truth/parler/etc...
So here's to them being a more pretentious rumble/truth/parler/etc...
I don't follow that much of the sports world, but the celebrities are definitely shifting more towards Instagram. I feel like Twitter is rapidly distilling down to LinkedIn type hustle-culture influencers.
On the other hand, it shows they still have some level of influence that people think there was as mass exodus.
This project was probably started at that time, if I had to guess.
While it would have helped jumpstart Notes, I disagree. A lot of content creators have their feet in both puddles, waiting it out - and with this and the non-stop Musk antics and tantrums, we are looking at an actual stampede away from that hellhole.
This kind of feeling almost always turns out wrong. No one can predict when the big moment happens or if it already happened. Substack has benefited from the the Streisand effect. Also known as what ticked off Elon musk.
And there will be many moments in the future, when Elon musk will have upset more of its users. And substock will be there to benefit just like Mastodon is benefiting every day.
And there will be many moments in the future, when Elon musk will have upset more of its users. And substock will be there to benefit just like Mastodon is benefiting every day.
Elon showing the number of impressions a tweet or reply actually got was an eye-opener for me. Probably about 1-2% of "Followers" -- not just mine but most people's.
Twitter has been completely worthless anyway for promoting my Substack channel. In their Dashboard, it doesn't even show up in the top five referers.
Twitter has been completely worthless anyway for promoting my Substack channel. In their Dashboard, it doesn't even show up in the top five referers.
> Twitter has been completely worthless anyway for promoting my Substack channel. In their Dashboard, it doesn't even show up in the top five referers.
It's always been very difficult to get people to leave Twitter. This is why their ad business is worth so little. Advertisers pay for clicks, and Twitter just doesn't deliver them very well.
It's always been very difficult to get people to leave Twitter. This is why their ad business is worth so little. Advertisers pay for clicks, and Twitter just doesn't deliver them very well.
Google is in the enviable position of advertising X to a queue of X-seeking people. For almost all X.
Most other advert platforms try to say “hey mate over here, stop your trail of thought and look at this…”
TV and radio says “ha gotcha now let me force this ad down your throat”
Most other advert platforms try to say “hey mate over here, stop your trail of thought and look at this…”
TV and radio says “ha gotcha now let me force this ad down your throat”
[deleted]
Maybe they should people purchase things within twitter.
Same.
Most of my readers come from HN, reddit or substack itself. Now it's mostly Python so it makes sense a tech oriented medias will be reading more about it.
Still, the ban on substack by twitter means that, while a #python tweet gets some view, the same with an article to substack tanks bit time.
Most of my readers come from HN, reddit or substack itself. Now it's mostly Python so it makes sense a tech oriented medias will be reading more about it.
Still, the ban on substack by twitter means that, while a #python tweet gets some view, the same with an article to substack tanks bit time.
I'm curious how you're dealing with Reddit: some of the mods don't even respond to a direct message; they just say "read the guidelines." And then their auto-mod deletes your post.
I have a very old account that has been mostly posting quality content. I also take great care of writing content that I wish I would I read myself.
So when I post it, it's congruent.
Basically, either you find a way to cheat, or you climb the ladder. I'm terrible at cheating.
So when I post it, it's congruent.
Basically, either you find a way to cheat, or you climb the ladder. I'm terrible at cheating.
If you post the entirety of the content to Reddit itself and just leave the link in your profile, you can often get away with it
I’m curious, what works better than Twitter for this kind of use case? Mastodon is better than Twitter for me, but it still is very slow.
I'm not on Mastodon. So that works?
Actually, this site is usually the best, and Facebook (the latter might reflect my audience).
Reddit subs tend to censor any attempt at self-promotion, which you can't blame them for, I guess. And StackExchange is the absolute worst. The level of asshole-ness there has to be seen to be believed.
Actually, this site is usually the best, and Facebook (the latter might reflect my audience).
Reddit subs tend to censor any attempt at self-promotion, which you can't blame them for, I guess. And StackExchange is the absolute worst. The level of asshole-ness there has to be seen to be believed.
Is it really asshole-ness?
YC/Reddit/SE being good/bad/worse for self-promotion seems to be 100% in line with the intended use of these sites.
YC/Reddit/SE being good/bad/worse for self-promotion seems to be 100% in line with the intended use of these sites.
I'm hardly the first person to single out SE / SO for trashing.
Maybe I'm just "good at tweeting" but my average top-level tweets have at least as many views as I have followers. The "bad" ones are maybe around 15-25%.
However, if I link to an external article or something, the percentage of people who actually click on it is relatively tiny.
However, if I link to an external article or something, the percentage of people who actually click on it is relatively tiny.
You must be good, TBD, but when I look at other people's tweets, they also have way fewer views than followers.
We've had the same experience, Twitter has led to almost no incremental readers. Even our most popular posts don't get much of an audience there.
It is as if people have lives
I kind of see this as the whole "Substack is trying to become Twitter before Twitter becomes Substack" kind of race. Twitter added long tweets and subscriptions, if you could do markdown formatting and inline images in your long tweets - why would Substack authors stay on Substack when they could post basically the same thing to Twitter and have more audience (or potential audience) exposure.
If Substack sees the above as an existential risk - which it might be if Twitter executes well, then Substack is replying by trying to do the reverse to Twitter.
If Substack sees the above as an existential risk - which it might be if Twitter executes well, then Substack is replying by trying to do the reverse to Twitter.
> ”why would Substack authors stay on Substack when they could post basically the same thing to Twitter and have more audience (or potential audience) exposure.”
Because they wouldn’t have the followers’ email addresses, which is a big advantage to Substack.
Because they wouldn’t have the followers’ email addresses, which is a big advantage to Substack.
The point for me is that, at this moment, it has people that interest me without rage-baiting emotionally manipulative engagement farming bullshit.
That's all I want out of these platforms. I don't care about decentralization or who owns it. I just want to read interesting stuff and not get pissed off in the process.
That's all I want out of these platforms. I don't care about decentralization or who owns it. I just want to read interesting stuff and not get pissed off in the process.
Being a place for people to land as they leave Twitter seems a reasonable thing to pursue.
One can post a note without having a newletter, and you can "see notes" from a user without subscribing.
One can post a note without having a newletter, and you can "see notes" from a user without subscribing.
"a Twitter clone with no upside to writers"
Notes linking to Substack Newsletters should convert better. Notes are networked "post summaries" that represent an improvement over the traditional blog homepage format. I see a play that could improve what they're cloning while also benefiting their core offering.
It has potential but the likeness of the clone is a bit off-putting for me.
Notes linking to Substack Newsletters should convert better. Notes are networked "post summaries" that represent an improvement over the traditional blog homepage format. I see a play that could improve what they're cloning while also benefiting their core offering.
It has potential but the likeness of the clone is a bit off-putting for me.
Your post clarified my thinking on this. If I think of Notes as a Twitter clone then I'm upset because, like the parent poster, I want a much narrower subscription-base for long form content than I do short form content. However, if I think of this as merely a short form update from accounts I follow then it's fine.
That said, Substack showing writers adjacent to your subscriptions in Notes makes if feel more Twitter-like in a way that I'm not sure I like.
That said, Substack showing writers adjacent to your subscriptions in Notes makes if feel more Twitter-like in a way that I'm not sure I like.
"However, if I think of this as merely a short form update from accounts I follow then it's fine."
Substack will need to decide if they view Notes as a search engine with an RSS feed or a standalone social network.
Edit: I don't think their positioning is obvious yet.
Substack will need to decide if they view Notes as a search engine with an RSS feed or a standalone social network.
Edit: I don't think their positioning is obvious yet.
>I really don’t understand the point of this.
it certainly seemed to me like there was a good portion of twitter that was just people promoting their substack newsletters, and most of the people they interact with are doing the same. it makes perfect sense for substack to try to bring that under their roof.
it certainly seemed to me like there was a good portion of twitter that was just people promoting their substack newsletters, and most of the people they interact with are doing the same. it makes perfect sense for substack to try to bring that under their roof.
As a reader, I like it. It might nudge me to subscribe to a few more newsletters even if I don’t plan to read all emails, just to see Notes from that author.
Sure, I won’t subscribe to hundreds of newsletters, but a few dozen might create a good feed.
Sure, I won’t subscribe to hundreds of newsletters, but a few dozen might create a good feed.
If you follow any artists or writers or similar on Twitter you'll note that the biggest reason most of them cite for being there is because they have a conversational community that feeds into support for their art.
Substack has a perfectly good mechanism for publishing (paid and unpaid) to support people, but that conversation is missing. It's a pretty obvious move if you are engaged with the overlapping users of Twitter and Substack, and has potential to peel a lot of people out of Twitter if they're primarily there to follow their favorite authors, showrunners, etc.
Substack has a perfectly good mechanism for publishing (paid and unpaid) to support people, but that conversation is missing. It's a pretty obvious move if you are engaged with the overlapping users of Twitter and Substack, and has potential to peel a lot of people out of Twitter if they're primarily there to follow their favorite authors, showrunners, etc.
>I don’t want to subscribe to hundreds of newsletters to see tweet (sorry, notes).
There's an option to just subscribe to notes and not newsletters on desktop, apparently, under the three-dots menu:
https://substack.com/profile/34072171-katie-substack/note/c-...
That UX is awful, but I'm sure they'll work it out in the coming weeks.
There's an option to just subscribe to notes and not newsletters on desktop, apparently, under the three-dots menu:
https://substack.com/profile/34072171-katie-substack/note/c-...
That UX is awful, but I'm sure they'll work it out in the coming weeks.
I wondered the same. This support page kind of answers the question: https://support.substack.com/hc/en-us/articles/1474365194203...
The phrasing is weird though: “You’ll then start seeing more of their notes in the Home tab.”
More? Not all? Odd.
The phrasing is weird though: “You’ll then start seeing more of their notes in the Home tab.”
More? Not all? Odd.
I don't like it either. I use Substack (and previously Medium) when I want to read long-form content instead of tweets. If I wanted tweets, I'd use Twitter.
But Substack Notes allows for greater potential monetization (ick): TikTok style content, algorithmic recommendations, and ads. Especially ads.
But Substack Notes allows for greater potential monetization (ick): TikTok style content, algorithmic recommendations, and ads. Especially ads.
The upside to writers would be traffic to their articles. Once you get to the article, you can have the usual subscribe overlay.
I think it does add some confusion to the product if notes become more popular than articles / comment sections on articles.
I think it does add some confusion to the product if notes become more popular than articles / comment sections on articles.
What if Substack just eats Twitter's lunch? Would you see the point then?
Sure. But it won’t happen.
I've just checked it out and it's much closer to a Twitter clone than I anticipated. Now it's clear why Elon made the drastic decision to mess with substack links on Twitter. The site is clean and simple.
I'm very disappointed in Musk for essentially ruining one of the world's great information platforms. Mastodon was just not the thing people were looking for. I hope this takes off.
I'm very disappointed in Musk for essentially ruining one of the world's great information platforms. Mastodon was just not the thing people were looking for. I hope this takes off.
I hope it doesn't. Because it essentially sets us up for a repeat. If Mastodon was 'just not the thing people were looking for' then at least it solves the problems that both Twitter and Substack have, which is that they are not federated. Better to fix Mastodon than to waste another decade on something that will ultimately blow up and with the way Substack has - in my head at least - been associated negatively with crap content it will probably be sooner rather than later.
Unfortunately, this perspective seems very head-in-a-bubble to me. It's a tiny tiny number of people who think the problem with Twitter and Substack is that they aren't federated. Federation isn't a feature people broadly care about. If it makes the platform work better, great! But I don't think that's the case for Mastodon or any other federated platform I've come across. It's the opposite, they make concessions on the experience in order to support federation. That would be ok if those sacrifices were for functionality people really want, but federation just ... isn't that.
I disagree. Federation is a feature people want, but they don't know about the concept.
When I show people that I can talk to Signal, WhatsApp, and Signal through a single app, they're pretty impressed. I wouldn't expect most people to set up a Matrix bridging system like I did, same with most Mastodon servers, but it's a feature people do generally want.
With Mastodon, most people first ask "but how do I follow people on Twitter", which often leads to pointing at bridges that may stop working at any point and have no official status, and often get blocked on small servers because of the overwhelming wave of moderation spam they cause.
Phone manufacturers back in the day used to have quite commonly used "social hub" apps that would combine various social media sources into a single UI, but they were all tied to their own brand that either got too difficult to maintain or lost the phone wars (HTC and Blackberry had quite well-received integrations if I recall).
The past years we've been stuck with a locked in ecosystem for so long that the mere idea of two different apps interoperating has become inconceivable to the mainstream.
I hope the DMA, which will force messenger apps to interoperate, will bring back the knowledge that it's possible to do so at the very least.
When I show people that I can talk to Signal, WhatsApp, and Signal through a single app, they're pretty impressed. I wouldn't expect most people to set up a Matrix bridging system like I did, same with most Mastodon servers, but it's a feature people do generally want.
With Mastodon, most people first ask "but how do I follow people on Twitter", which often leads to pointing at bridges that may stop working at any point and have no official status, and often get blocked on small servers because of the overwhelming wave of moderation spam they cause.
Phone manufacturers back in the day used to have quite commonly used "social hub" apps that would combine various social media sources into a single UI, but they were all tied to their own brand that either got too difficult to maintain or lost the phone wars (HTC and Blackberry had quite well-received integrations if I recall).
The past years we've been stuck with a locked in ecosystem for so long that the mere idea of two different apps interoperating has become inconceivable to the mainstream.
I hope the DMA, which will force messenger apps to interoperate, will bring back the knowledge that it's possible to do so at the very least.
> I disagree. Federation is a feature people want, but they don't know about the concept.
I think they want it, but by an order of magnitude more, they want simple UX. Everything else is a distant second. UX is the foundation upon which everything else is built. Without an excellent UX, the audience will forever remain niche. I tried to just sign up to Mastodon, and it was a clusterfuck of proportions so unbelievable that I can't believe it has as many users as it does - and it only has a couple million users.
I think they want it, but by an order of magnitude more, they want simple UX. Everything else is a distant second. UX is the foundation upon which everything else is built. Without an excellent UX, the audience will forever remain niche. I tried to just sign up to Mastodon, and it was a clusterfuck of proportions so unbelievable that I can't believe it has as many users as it does - and it only has a couple million users.
Federation is someone doing a cool card trick at a cocktail party. Does it look cool? Yes. Is anyone going to go out and buy a deck of cards the next morning and learn how to do it? No.
Federation is the core of the internet and that has taken off, so sure they do. Email and phone numbers took off, isolated ISPs all died out.
We're getting some form of federation of messengers and other technology companies deemed "gatekeepers" by the EU. Companies serving large user bases won't have a choice, so there's no need to go out am buy anything.
We're getting some form of federation of messengers and other technology companies deemed "gatekeepers" by the EU. Companies serving large user bases won't have a choice, so there's no need to go out am buy anything.
I think this has "because" and "despite" flipped. The internet took off despite federation, because it let people do things they couldn't otherwise do.
But reinventing something that everyone can already do (eg. tweeting) with federation is not a winning game.
But reinventing something that everyone can already do (eg. tweeting) with federation is not a winning game.
> Better to fix Mastodon
Is that possible? Seems kind of difficult due to its nature, but I admit I'm just a very casual user of it and don't know much.
Signed up for the Substack thing. Seems worth a look - it's very similar to Twitter.
Is that possible? Seems kind of difficult due to its nature, but I admit I'm just a very casual user of it and don't know much.
Signed up for the Substack thing. Seems worth a look - it's very similar to Twitter.
What do you consider difficult about it?
Mastodon is never going to take off. I’ve been building SaaS applications for 15 years. I don’t think you understand the very low level of complexity required for mass adoption. Let’s just look at the signup process for a few minutes, using the UX convention of actions.
Twitter:
1. Search for Twitter.
2. Click on the first link.
3. Click sign up.
Mastodon:
1. Search for Mastodon.
2. Click the first link: mastodon.social.
3. Click create account.
4. Message modal pops up alerting the user that it is currently impossible to sign up to mastodon.social. But don’t worry, you can sign up on another server by clicking “Find another server.” At this point I’m confused. Why are there different servers? Will my friends be on the other server? Do we need to sign up on the same server? No explanation. I click the link.
5. Long page of options. No indication of quality or why I should choose one server over another. Now I am in choice paralysis. I click the first option (which has an anime figure on it). Surely - surely - the first option is the best option. The suggested option by whoever is running this application.
6. I land on a Korean language portal and I am done. I’m never coming back. Mastodon is dead to me. Forever.
You might think this is hyperbole, but I promise you it is not. I’ve been in charge of A/B testing and UX centric development for web applications just like this for a very long time. Mastodon’s sign up process is easily one of the worst I have ever seen. Not a single UX person has been involved in the creation of this protocol.
Twitter:
1. Search for Twitter.
2. Click on the first link.
3. Click sign up.
Mastodon:
1. Search for Mastodon.
2. Click the first link: mastodon.social.
3. Click create account.
4. Message modal pops up alerting the user that it is currently impossible to sign up to mastodon.social. But don’t worry, you can sign up on another server by clicking “Find another server.” At this point I’m confused. Why are there different servers? Will my friends be on the other server? Do we need to sign up on the same server? No explanation. I click the link.
5. Long page of options. No indication of quality or why I should choose one server over another. Now I am in choice paralysis. I click the first option (which has an anime figure on it). Surely - surely - the first option is the best option. The suggested option by whoever is running this application.
6. I land on a Korean language portal and I am done. I’m never coming back. Mastodon is dead to me. Forever.
You might think this is hyperbole, but I promise you it is not. I’ve been in charge of A/B testing and UX centric development for web applications just like this for a very long time. Mastodon’s sign up process is easily one of the worst I have ever seen. Not a single UX person has been involved in the creation of this protocol.
Excellent illustration of the awful onboarding experience.
No one wants to waste their time connecting a constellation, they want to get to content as fast as possible.
No one wants to waste their time connecting a constellation, they want to get to content as fast as possible.
Bluesky is building AT, what mastodon should have been. That will kill Twitter in a way that’s at least new.
Not sure how to solve the HOA problem though…
Not sure how to solve the HOA problem though…
Do not trust any Jack Dorsey product anymore as the next alternative again
It’s a protocol, not a product.
The fact Mastodon sites don't even load without JS is absurd, a huge not-talked-about barrier to entry (globally), and a betrayal of its "protocol-first" talking points.
Until that changes Mastodon isn't trying to be a serious player.
Until that changes Mastodon isn't trying to be a serious player.
Brutaldon is an alternative FOSS client for Mastodon that does not use JavaScript:
- Brutaldon: https://brutaldon.org
- Source: https://gitlab.com/brutaldon/brutaldon
Because Mastodon has an open API, you don't need to use the official Mastodon web client. Twitter upset a lot of users when it limited access to its API because many alternative Twitter clients were rendered useless.
- Brutaldon: https://brutaldon.org
- Source: https://gitlab.com/brutaldon/brutaldon
Because Mastodon has an open API, you don't need to use the official Mastodon web client. Twitter upset a lot of users when it limited access to its API because many alternative Twitter clients were rendered useless.
Huge? Globally? How many poeple do you reckon have JS disabled?
Does Twitter load without JavaScript? I do not think the tiny number of uber-nerds who disable JavaScript have any effect on Mastadon.
I disable Javascript on occasion to save power.
Twitter definitely does not load without loading several megabytes of Javascript. Nitter.net is a quick and easy substitute that loads instantly without it, though some video playback still requires Javascript (HLS video).
Twitter definitely does not load without loading several megabytes of Javascript. Nitter.net is a quick and easy substitute that loads instantly without it, though some video playback still requires Javascript (HLS video).
How much power have you quantified saving by disabling JavaScript over the course of a week?
I can't do any objective measurements but there's a clear impact in battery life while browsing with Javascript disabled. The entire web becomes snappier and loading times instantly drop.
Doing so also breaks all web applications (and web applications posing as websites, i.e. React rendering) so it's not something I turn on permanently. I usually only disable JS when my phone is running low and I'm not near a charger, or when I'm trying to read something and the terrible website hijacks scrolls/taps/somehow makes my phone run hot doing stuff in the background.
Doing so also breaks all web applications (and web applications posing as websites, i.e. React rendering) so it's not something I turn on permanently. I usually only disable JS when my phone is running low and I'm not near a charger, or when I'm trying to read something and the terrible website hijacks scrolls/taps/somehow makes my phone run hot doing stuff in the background.
How is twitter ruined? My personal experience on the site has not changed much.
- People I follow have left. Most have moved to Mastodon so I can still follow them there. It's a constant trickle but some day the weight will be higher on Mastodon's side of the balance.
- Ads range from obnoxious to downright scams. I know some people used to block ad senders as a matter of routine, but I didn't, most of the time they were valid and I was happy to support the site via their ads. After Musk, most ads vanished and for a while all I saw was Nintendo and SpaceX (!?) ads. Now there's many ads, but I block 95% of them because I REALLY do not want to ever again see the kind of shit they're pushing.
- Search, and content outside of my carefully curated list of follows in my chronological timeline, has become complete hell. I used to be happy to search for "stuff that's happening" in Twitter rather than google or news sites, but now the stuff that comes out is not only irrelevant, but often disgusting.
I still use the site but in a very specific and controlled manner. In that way, the experience is still good (bugs aside). I suspect at some point Musk will force some algorithmic crap down my throat and that will be the end.
- Ads range from obnoxious to downright scams. I know some people used to block ad senders as a matter of routine, but I didn't, most of the time they were valid and I was happy to support the site via their ads. After Musk, most ads vanished and for a while all I saw was Nintendo and SpaceX (!?) ads. Now there's many ads, but I block 95% of them because I REALLY do not want to ever again see the kind of shit they're pushing.
- Search, and content outside of my carefully curated list of follows in my chronological timeline, has become complete hell. I used to be happy to search for "stuff that's happening" in Twitter rather than google or news sites, but now the stuff that comes out is not only irrelevant, but often disgusting.
I still use the site but in a very specific and controlled manner. In that way, the experience is still good (bugs aside). I suspect at some point Musk will force some algorithmic crap down my throat and that will be the end.
Yeah to me it's less that it's dead and more that it's clearly not sustainable without a new business model. Blue is a total flop, and you can tell from the ads they're running now that their ad revenue must be way down. And they needed to grow revenue significantly after the acquisition because of the debt structuring, but it seems like a certainty they've done the opposite.
So it's not that it's dead today, but how long can they make it like this?
So it's not that it's dead today, but how long can they make it like this?
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He keeps pushing the ‘for you’ page over the regular following tab that just shows tweets of people you follow
The content moderation is basically nil now so tons of racist content is propagated throughout the network.
Various technical bugs plaguing things - videos not playing, images not appearing, etc
The verification system has been destroyed which has allowed fake accounts to run rampant
The API has been wrecked, causing third party apps to stop working and massive amounts of research being done to be halted
The content moderation is basically nil now so tons of racist content is propagated throughout the network.
Various technical bugs plaguing things - videos not playing, images not appearing, etc
The verification system has been destroyed which has allowed fake accounts to run rampant
The API has been wrecked, causing third party apps to stop working and massive amounts of research being done to be halted
All the data shows that racist content is down significantly following the purchase.
That's very much not the case https://www.euronews.com/2023/03/20/antisemitism-higher-than...
Look at the details of that report. They're measuring by _number_ of tweets rather than impressions. Hate speech impressions are down. i.e. if you want hate speech you have to go out of your way to find it using bots. Normal users are seeing them less after the purchase.
It's really tiring to counter so much misinformation about this that flies about.
It's not just a one-time drop either, the impressions continues to go down. https://twitter.com/TwitterSafety/status/1613335965996810241
It's really tiring to counter so much misinformation about this that flies about.
It's not just a one-time drop either, the impressions continues to go down. https://twitter.com/TwitterSafety/status/1613335965996810241
Here's the report, the claim had no misinformation. https://beamdisinfo.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/Antisemit...
Hate speech IS up. The claim was "hate speech is up". Impressions being down matters to the impact of the speech, but the claim stands - hate speech is up. You can claim it doesn't matter (and I might agree with you, since impressions are down, people know what to expect now, and the increase is significant but not huge at this point), but you can't honestly say the claim "hate speech is up" is misinformation.
Edit: Actually, I had the claim backwards - YOU said it was DOWN, and you were wrong (according to the report). So to correct myself - the person refuting your claim was right, and spread no misinformation.
Hate speech IS up. The claim was "hate speech is up". Impressions being down matters to the impact of the speech, but the claim stands - hate speech is up. You can claim it doesn't matter (and I might agree with you, since impressions are down, people know what to expect now, and the increase is significant but not huge at this point), but you can't honestly say the claim "hate speech is up" is misinformation.
Edit: Actually, I had the claim backwards - YOU said it was DOWN, and you were wrong (according to the report). So to correct myself - the person refuting your claim was right, and spread no misinformation.
I'll retract my opinion that "hate speech is down" as it's apparently difficult to measure but I am going to continue to say that "hate speech is up" is at the very least "highly misleading" as it gives the impression that the platform is worse for minorities than it was pre-acquisition. The reverse is the truth, given the lower impressions of hate speech, it effectively means that those that would verbally attack minorities are being highly squelched versus the situation before the acquisition. That's all around a good thing.
The visibility of hate speech on twitter is down.
The visibility of hate speech on twitter is down.
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Counter anecdote: my personal experience is that the site is less entertaining. I've encountered technical bugs more, such as replies not loading without refreshing multiple times. The "for you" page doesn't show me anything I want to see. The checkmark thing remains super confusing to me. The quality of the ads I've been served have noticeably decreased/gotten more skuzzy.
> The quality of the ads I've been served have noticeably decreased/gotten more skuzzy.
This is my experience as well, and is the thing the higher ups at Twitter should be really concerned about. Low rent.
This is my experience as well, and is the thing the higher ups at Twitter should be really concerned about. Low rent.
Many people have left, including myself, due to imperious, chaotic, and plain mean mismanagement. Thus making it vastly less interesting and more trollish.
Musk killed the APIs that enabled third party tools like TweetBot. Twitter is close to unusable now.
Same. Except for the new “For You” tab, my feed is almost 100% the same.
It's gutted several communities I'm a part of.
> I'm very disappointed in Musk for essentially ruining one of the world's great information platforms.
I’m happy with the destruction of Twitter. I think it’s a net negative for the world and we’ll be better off without it. This might be the only tech I’ve ever felt like this about (including atomic bombs). I think it amplifies and even creates hate and division.
It will be funny if ten years from now we find out it was a gawker-style takedown with the intent to purposely destroy something in a lasting and permanent way as described in Ryan Holiday’s book about Thiel’s purposeful execution of strategy to destroy gawker, https://www.grahammann.net/book-notes/conspiracy-ryan-holida...
PS- are there any other business/tech “case study” type books out there. I also liked Clifford Stoll’s Cuckoo’s Egg, John Brooks’ Business Adventures, Michael Lewis’ Liar’s Poker, Po Bronson’s Nudist on the Late Shift, and David Kaplan’s Silicon Boys. Looking for more of what I suspect is more common than I can find.
I’m happy with the destruction of Twitter. I think it’s a net negative for the world and we’ll be better off without it. This might be the only tech I’ve ever felt like this about (including atomic bombs). I think it amplifies and even creates hate and division.
It will be funny if ten years from now we find out it was a gawker-style takedown with the intent to purposely destroy something in a lasting and permanent way as described in Ryan Holiday’s book about Thiel’s purposeful execution of strategy to destroy gawker, https://www.grahammann.net/book-notes/conspiracy-ryan-holida...
PS- are there any other business/tech “case study” type books out there. I also liked Clifford Stoll’s Cuckoo’s Egg, John Brooks’ Business Adventures, Michael Lewis’ Liar’s Poker, Po Bronson’s Nudist on the Late Shift, and David Kaplan’s Silicon Boys. Looking for more of what I suspect is more common than I can find.
I really like those "case study" books about our industry, too. Off the top of my head, two more:
- "Hatching Twitter" by Nick Bilton (published in 2014, about the early days of Twitter)
- "Super Pumped" by Mike Isaac (published in 2019, about the early days of Uber)
I've been looking at Substack with the eyes of someone who has lived through the enshitment of Quora, Medium et al, and realized there are never guarantees with any such service. Apparently I owe them money and attention, and they owe me nothing. I will never get long term what I joined a service for, so today I simply do not commit. I never committed to Twitter, and I'm glad. I want to share content, I setup a ghost site. I want to read content, I use RSS and also read what I can for free. That's it.
I’ve seen “Elon ruined twitter”, but everyday I’m getting what I signed up for years back it hasn’t been ruined in any noticeable way. Fine they added the stupid views but who cares
They were messing with Twitter by downloading massive amounts of data from them. Why wouldn't Elon do what he did?
I returned to Twitter recently due to great features like Community Notes. I don't see what people are complaining about.
I returned to Twitter recently due to great features like Community Notes. I don't see what people are complaining about.
>... essentially ruining one of the world's great information platforms
I think it's a good thing in the long run.
Twitter was a gimmick in many ways. Here, throw a few words out into the ether and see who notices.
That simplicity attracted tons of people. Then it became THE place to reach a ton of people, even though it's format for such things is AWFUL for it. It's a TERRIBLE platform for meaningful information dispersal, but it's THE place to be, so you see a bunch of evidence of that.
Twitlonger, people chaining twitter posts, just about any conversation, etc. Worse it eliminated a lot of things that probably shouldn't have died. My personal pet peeve is the death of forums, most specifically for games. Pre twitter you could find old forum posts that were pinned about just about anything you wanted to get into seriously. Dustloop had character guides with a level of info that would justify a thesis on characters in games that were 8 years old and hardly ever played.
That level of information is still found now, but instead it's tied to a hashtag, and then vomited out...never consolidated. Right now i'm looking to mess with a new character in strive, and while the GGST_BE tag is nice for "oh that's neat" kind of tech discoveries, it's fucking awful for actually understanding how to play the character or what's useful from it.
To be fair, that's always the case with a brand new character, but in the old days it was somewhat easier to keep a running tally of what works and what doesn't in a forum discussion, while twitter just doesn't promote that, so picking someone up waaaay after the fact is miserable. Discord is the other spot these things are now heavily discussed (with similar issues to twitter, although the forum feature of discord has helped a bit) and the wiki's are in theory where the data is consolidated but it's just a much higher barrier to entry and thus often you have half completed pages with outdated information.
In short, i'm hoping the slow death of twitter (IF it dies. The number of people saying twitter is abhorrent...on twitter...is a sign to me it's not going anywhere) will finally lead to people realizing that we want a way to quickly spread information among those who want it, but we don't need it to be in this shallow, vapid, character limited style. Sure that works for "oh hey look at where I am today" but it drives me nuts every time i see some essay broken into 45 twitter posts.
RSS feeds are an alternative tech that's honestly quite close to being what most people want, but it lacks the discovery/aggregation effect of things like twitter in most cases (inoreader kind of has something like that), and thus mostly still relies on twitter for content (at least it did until they nuked the API).
I think it's a good thing in the long run.
Twitter was a gimmick in many ways. Here, throw a few words out into the ether and see who notices.
That simplicity attracted tons of people. Then it became THE place to reach a ton of people, even though it's format for such things is AWFUL for it. It's a TERRIBLE platform for meaningful information dispersal, but it's THE place to be, so you see a bunch of evidence of that.
Twitlonger, people chaining twitter posts, just about any conversation, etc. Worse it eliminated a lot of things that probably shouldn't have died. My personal pet peeve is the death of forums, most specifically for games. Pre twitter you could find old forum posts that were pinned about just about anything you wanted to get into seriously. Dustloop had character guides with a level of info that would justify a thesis on characters in games that were 8 years old and hardly ever played.
That level of information is still found now, but instead it's tied to a hashtag, and then vomited out...never consolidated. Right now i'm looking to mess with a new character in strive, and while the GGST_BE tag is nice for "oh that's neat" kind of tech discoveries, it's fucking awful for actually understanding how to play the character or what's useful from it.
To be fair, that's always the case with a brand new character, but in the old days it was somewhat easier to keep a running tally of what works and what doesn't in a forum discussion, while twitter just doesn't promote that, so picking someone up waaaay after the fact is miserable. Discord is the other spot these things are now heavily discussed (with similar issues to twitter, although the forum feature of discord has helped a bit) and the wiki's are in theory where the data is consolidated but it's just a much higher barrier to entry and thus often you have half completed pages with outdated information.
In short, i'm hoping the slow death of twitter (IF it dies. The number of people saying twitter is abhorrent...on twitter...is a sign to me it's not going anywhere) will finally lead to people realizing that we want a way to quickly spread information among those who want it, but we don't need it to be in this shallow, vapid, character limited style. Sure that works for "oh hey look at where I am today" but it drives me nuts every time i see some essay broken into 45 twitter posts.
RSS feeds are an alternative tech that's honestly quite close to being what most people want, but it lacks the discovery/aggregation effect of things like twitter in most cases (inoreader kind of has something like that), and thus mostly still relies on twitter for content (at least it did until they nuked the API).
It wasn't like Twitter's business had a large technical barrier-to-entry. And Musk seems to be pissing away his non-technical barrier-to-entry just about as hard as he can.
Good luck to Substack on eating twitter's lunch!
Edit: That said, I've found mastodon (@[email protected]) to be a much more pleasant interaction compared to twitter, so I'm curious what the landscape looks like in a couple of years.
Good luck to Substack on eating twitter's lunch!
Edit: That said, I've found mastodon (@[email protected]) to be a much more pleasant interaction compared to twitter, so I'm curious what the landscape looks like in a couple of years.
The great shake up has started. Google pissing their pants with AIs abrupt arrival, Twitter dying a death by a million cuts, Facebook in mid-air making their VR play, the tech skyline will look very different in 5 years.
But is twitter really dying? The fields I watch (AI, software engineering, writers), all thought leaders are still there, still posting regularly.
Twitter now has daily outages where parts of it just don’t function and no one knows when we’ll experience a more serious one.
It serves the daily/hourly whims and mood swings of a single person who has proven to be petty, vindictive (to his employees), and devoid of integrity.
That lack of stability in my opinion accumulates.
Sooner or later it will balance out the momentum.
It serves the daily/hourly whims and mood swings of a single person who has proven to be petty, vindictive (to his employees), and devoid of integrity.
That lack of stability in my opinion accumulates.
Sooner or later it will balance out the momentum.
You'll need a citation for this. I've been using it for years and haven't noticed any difference or outages.
At least three times in the last two weeks I was unable to load images or threads or like tweets or post tweets. That’s three separate days where this functionality was unavailable. Using the official Twitter client. I’m in Southern California.
I use Twitter once a day and not every day.
I don’t have a monitoring service so this is the best citation I can offer.
In the last month I have experienced more issues than in the last four or five years if similar use.
I use Twitter once a day and not every day.
I don’t have a monitoring service so this is the best citation I can offer.
In the last month I have experienced more issues than in the last four or five years if similar use.
"‘Sometimes Things Break’: Twitter Outages Are on the Rise" New York Times - https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/28/technology/twitter-outage...
this was the same narrative pushed when most of the tweeps was axed, but the site has been running fine and has only grown in popularity.
Grown in popularity is not really a metric. A normal tuesday and the day half the company's staffers got fired aren't going to be the same in popularity. Doesn't mean one is better. Twitter is definitely more popular for all the mess they've made, yes.
The "narrative" was right. There are actual outages now unlike earlier. It's not like twitter engineers were holding up the servers to the light for there to be outages the moment they're gone. Systems run on their own just fine, until something does go wrong. And if there's nobody there to fix it, something usually small blows up. Enough of these and users start to notice degraded performance and outages.
The "narrative" was right. There are actual outages now unlike earlier. It's not like twitter engineers were holding up the servers to the light for there to be outages the moment they're gone. Systems run on their own just fine, until something does go wrong. And if there's nobody there to fix it, something usually small blows up. Enough of these and users start to notice degraded performance and outages.
All the Apple ecosystem developers left, all the neo-Nazis were unbanned to add subscriber numbers, I see 1-2 ads a day because all the respectable advertisers left due to the Nazis[0], and the For You page now regularly does things like show you tweets from locked accounts, circles you're not in, and people who've blocked you.
Elon seems to have given up; he's just doing jokes now like changing his name to Harry Ballz and replying to fake news from the fake news accounts he unbanned.
[0] https://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-twitter-perpetuati...
Elon seems to have given up; he's just doing jokes now like changing his name to Harry Ballz and replying to fake news from the fake news accounts he unbanned.
[0] https://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-twitter-perpetuati...
Wow, if the McDonald's marketing chief says Elon Musk is a nazi, it must be pretty serious...
It's actually faster now than it's ever been, especially if you're using it from outside of North America.
Search breaks for me all the time, and I need to manually refresh the site at least once a day. Also, I can only scroll on Musk’s twitter profile to his tweets from September.
I think it’s due to more aggressive VPN blocking, but I’m not sure about it.
I think it’s due to more aggressive VPN blocking, but I’m not sure about it.
I'm surprised to see people that can't see this (or are just Musk apologists)
The "Following" tab is showing only a fraction of your timeline tweets. Go to the "For You" tab and see an endless firehose of unrelated stuff together with some of the tweets of people you were following and were supposed to show up on the "For You" tab but didn't.
Not to mention tweets in private circles being shown in the "For you" tab
"twitter is working fine" is a bad take. It looks like it is working fine if you look at it for 30s, that's it.
The "Following" tab is showing only a fraction of your timeline tweets. Go to the "For You" tab and see an endless firehose of unrelated stuff together with some of the tweets of people you were following and were supposed to show up on the "For You" tab but didn't.
Not to mention tweets in private circles being shown in the "For you" tab
"twitter is working fine" is a bad take. It looks like it is working fine if you look at it for 30s, that's it.
In my communities most people are double posting on mastodon and twitter. So much so that I only check twitter every few days for the stragglers.
Mastodon only has about 1.2M active users, so if most of your community is on there, it’s an unusual community.
https://mastodon-analytics.com/
https://mastodon-analytics.com/
Most of the iOS developer community has moved to Mastodon.
They're the reason I joined Twitter originally. The community is what I care about, not the social media platform.
They're the reason I joined Twitter originally. The community is what I care about, not the social media platform.
I mean sure, my mom doesn't have a masto account, she does have a twitter account.
It's down to posters vs reply guys vs rubberneckers. If those 1.2M active users are posters and higher quality reply guys, great.
It's down to posters vs reply guys vs rubberneckers. If those 1.2M active users are posters and higher quality reply guys, great.
I have multiple communities I follow on Twitter and the ones that don't care about the elon stuff, they do now.
Anecdotally it seems so. Further anecdotal, but I think I've seen one ad that was from a company I recognized that wasn't weird dropshipping stuff in the last few months.
It definitely feels less active and the conversation largely dominated by small accounts that are paying the $8.
It definitely feels less active and the conversation largely dominated by small accounts that are paying the $8.
It feels this way to me, too; and just from a user perspective it feels better, too. Although it may not be financially sustainable.
My post will sound like a stupid gotcha but… what’s a thought leader, how do you measure them? Is it possible that the twitter crew skews more toward talking than doing?
> skews more toward talking than doing
Same goes for any sufficiently large population, but the outliers worth following still seem to be there too.
Same goes for any sufficiently large population, but the outliers worth following still seem to be there too.
Maybe their audiences are smaller. People that depend on their large reach on Twitter are going to be much slower to move on than those without audiences.
That's fine and valuable, but it doesn't sound like much of a moat. Those thought leaders used something else before Twitter - even if it takes a while, it's not a crazy idea that they'd eventually move somewhere else if the grass is greener.
What is this "something else" that you refer to? In fact, this kind of short-form, global conversation wasn't happening before Twitter, at least not on their scale.
I'm not really sure what a "thought leader" is, but it sounds like someone that would feel at home on LinkedIn.
Is it really a conversation, though? I rarely see “thought leaders” actually engage with their audience in a meaningful way.
I'm sure MySpace thought the same thing about their never-before-seen accomplishments. I suspect very few people knew what "something else" was in that case, either.
You should look up global search volumes and Google share of it. There’s no dent
Kodak had pretty strong film sales when the first digital cameras hit the market as well.
Yeah but that doesn’t mean anything. Kodak saw a train coming, did a study that told them that they had to do something, but then sat on the tracks.
Fuji, who was also big in the chemical film business, came out just fine.
Fuji, who was also big in the chemical film business, came out just fine.
> Kodak saw a train coming, did a study that told them that they had to do something, but then sat on the tracks.
Replace "Kodak" with "Google" and that's the exact impression I get from friends who work there
Replace "Kodak" with "Google" and that's the exact impression I get from friends who work there
I just resigned from Google. There’s no future with current leadership. I was a at high level (6), with an incredibly broad scope of responsibility, making an absurd amount of money. But life is too short to spend my days propping up a dying monopoly when there’s bigger game to chase.
It’s also institutionally arrogant, they really think they are the best, Jeff Dean and Urs are Gods, and no other company can do what Google does. OpenAI just destroyed that myth, yet on the inside they haven’t woken up to the change.
It’s also institutionally arrogant, they really think they are the best, Jeff Dean and Urs are Gods, and no other company can do what Google does. OpenAI just destroyed that myth, yet on the inside they haven’t woken up to the change.
Hey, myself and an ex-microsoft dev (like 2007-2008, not recent), with some VP experience have teamed up. We're working on memory solutions for AI, as well as creating better agents, workflows, etc... In the early days it'll mostly be a GUI over langchain/autogpt/babyAGI, eventually it might morph to creating our own in-house brain-like database, something beyond vectors (or built on top of them w/ a better ranking/indexing based on frequency/recency). Hit me up, if you'd consider partnering up.
Sounds like fun. Do you have a specific end product in mind or are you just in the experimentation stage?
Curious what "absurd levels of money" means, even if you could just vaguely gesture at it
levels.fyi
I take it you don’t work at Google?
bad analogies are bad
> There’s no dent
By the time there is a dent, it's too late.
By the time there is a dent, it's too late.
Sounds great but you’ll have to provide some logic because I don’t automatically follow your extremely confident opinion…
The fear of investors and, to some extent, Google, is that LLMs will supplant traditional search and by the time enough people are catching on to affect metrics the momentum will be too great to stop. My experience with LLMs has not led me to believe that is all that likely but opinions differ there.
We need search to be able to fact check the LLMs, but this might become extremely difficult once all the content is written by them…
Just like how it is hard to fact-check Wikipedia now that it's used a reference. A thought came to me - perhaps it's Wikipedia that should be worried that it'll be supplanted by LLMs.
[citation needed]
The phenomenon they're referring to is when something spurious is posted on Wikipedia with no or poor citations, then used as the source for a "reputable" article (without citations), then the article is cited by Wikipedia, making the spurious information look more trustworthy.
1) that hardly ever happens, it hasn’t caused any widespread issues in the decades Wikipedia has existed.
2) All sources are cited so they can be easily verified by the reader.
2) All sources are cited so they can be easily verified by the reader.
The user experience with ChatGPT is pretty good. No ads, no spam results. There are downsides too of course: the hallucinations, and the way the ChatGPT site wants me to log back on now and then.
I was very happy with Google but recently on my iPhone the Google website started nagging me to log in every time I do a search. This is a poor experience, add to that the ad results that have gotten harder and harder over time to distinguish from real results.
I was very happy with Google but recently on my iPhone the Google website started nagging me to log in every time I do a search. This is a poor experience, add to that the ad results that have gotten harder and harder over time to distinguish from real results.
I’ve found it amusing but haven’t gotten that much practical use out of it. I still make multiple Google searches every day.
People here are praying very hard for Twitter to fail. Nearly any social media post nowadays has 50-100 comments predicting Twitter's failure and ranting about Musk. He is living rent-free in many heads now.
Its utterly ludicrous how so many intelligent and rational people are becoming un-hinged whenever Twitter/Musk is mentioned.
Its utterly ludicrous how so many intelligent and rational people are becoming un-hinged whenever Twitter/Musk is mentioned.
Any publicity is good publicity it seems like. People don’t get that hating is not the opposite of love, it’s indifference. Mute and forget.
I just sent the second part of this to my friend WRT his ex-wife…
Hate is just confused admiration
I actually think the "living rent free in heads" peaked awhile ago. At this point it's just clear in a more pedestrian way that things aren't going well over there.
Apparently the people that have Musk living rent free in their heads are living rent free in your head.
Mental subletting.
It reminds me of the Trump thing, it seems people really lose all rationality when they are faced with a man who publically doesn't care and does whatever he wants and is successful at it. I wonder if we will one day have a psychological name for this. It must be related to something in the human brain that touches on social repression and decades of instilled moral codes like "Don't say this, nobody will like you" and then when somebody does it anyway, you feel like it's an invader from a different tribe or a tribe member violating the fabric of what holds together the tribe. When really, he's not doing much different at all and they'd privately do the same exact jokes as a kid like "Twitter is Titter! haha! Like titties get it?" I bet lots of people had such a dumb thought but repressed it and when a supposed adult and major social figure acts like that, it evokes anger that the tribe is in danger.
"and is successful at it."
Overpaying, creating a mass exodus, destabilizing the platform, and losing tons of advertisers is "successful?"
Overpaying, creating a mass exodus, destabilizing the platform, and losing tons of advertisers is "successful?"
The Twitter thing is still in progress and probably his first project where you could say that he has a problem
I’d argue that one of the reasons Tesla and SpaceX are successful is not just because Elno is a “visionary” (or functional equivalent). It’s because he was/is supported by a cadre of “true believers” (eg that we must disrupt the auto industry in order to do something radical about climate change). Those true believers (like all true believers), are willing to put up with lots of strange behaviour in the name of that belief.
Twitter on the other hand was bought with a management layer that could fairly be characterised as the opposite of true believers in whatever Elon is selling. Hence the implosion.
Twitter on the other hand was bought with a management layer that could fairly be characterised as the opposite of true believers in whatever Elon is selling. Hence the implosion.
What are your thoughts about The Boring Company?
Yeah you're right about this, but it isn't irrational. Human societies have been as successful as they have because of social contracts. The phenomenon you're highlighting here is just society's immune system to protect itself against violators of those contracts.
Trump fomented an attempted insurrection and you are shaking your head about the rationality of the people who are concerned?
It's concerning that you're not.
It's concerning that you're not.
When Chrome launched, it only launched with ~2-3% market share in the first week compared to Firefox. Everyone thought that Chrome wasn't that good and Firefox would be fine. However I knew on day one that Firefox was in serious trouble and I switched browsers immediately. But what I didn't know is that Firefox would do nothing to compete for 10 years.
Chrome launched with an absurd amount of money to burn, though.
And... I don't recall this "everyone" that you are citing. Chrome launched when Google had a ton of good will.
And... I don't recall this "everyone" that you are citing. Chrome launched when Google had a ton of good will.
> Chrome launched with an absurd amount of money to burn
OpenAI has $100bn+ from Microsoft, and millions of paying subscribers.
OpenAI has $100bn+ from Microsoft, and millions of paying subscribers.
$100bn+?
https://www.cnbc.com/2023/04/08/microsofts-complex-bet-on-op...
"Microsoft’s $13 billion bet on OpenAI carries huge potential along with plenty of uncertainty"
https://www.cnbc.com/2023/04/08/microsofts-complex-bet-on-op...
"Microsoft’s $13 billion bet on OpenAI carries huge potential along with plenty of uncertainty"
Yeah, no idea where I got this $100bn number in my head... I guess that does sound pretty ridiculous now that I think about it!
How many of the companies with the largest market cap (top 15) were also in the top 15 20 years ago? Why do you think Google will be an exception to this reality?
I think the answer is network effect. As soon as there appears a properly working easy accessible alternative (not Mastodon), people with will start moving to it. At first it won’t be visible in twitter’s popularity, but when the new service reaches some critical mass of users - the popularity will start falling quickly.
Let’s see if Notes is this alternative.
By the time someone makes a bad argument its too late. We are beyond reason.
1. ChatGPT is very, very new, and habits change slowly
2. For non plus users, chatGPT UX is poor with slow responses, captchas and random logouts
3. All of this will eventually change
There is no more major growth for Google, which is all that matters to Wall Street.
It will go down slowly, but it will go down.
2. For non plus users, chatGPT UX is poor with slow responses, captchas and random logouts
3. All of this will eventually change
There is no more major growth for Google, which is all that matters to Wall Street.
It will go down slowly, but it will go down.
Google wanted to be an Answer Machine before ChatGPT hence "I'm Feeling Lucky" button but road to there is long and hard. I think the biggest Google's problems are SEO spam often coupled with scams and fraud and last but not least, lack of transparency on how exactly they rank their search results.
I don't think we should pretend that google doesn't have the power to crush spam today if it wanted to. They have chosen to let scrappers have top spots in their search results and their reputation is dying as a result.
> For non plus users, chatGPT UX is poor with slow responses, captchas and random logouts
There are tons of free custom UIs to chatGPT by now, all vastly superior to OpenAI’s. No captchas or login screens, just paste your API token once and it gets stored in local storage.
There are tons of free custom UIs to chatGPT by now, all vastly superior to OpenAI’s. No captchas or login screens, just paste your API token once and it gets stored in local storage.
Thanks for mentioning this. I'd assumed this was the case, but I'd been wary of using them because I wasn't sure which of them would be reliable and non-sketchy. Your comment made me take a second look, this time specifically for FOSS custom UIs, and https://chatwithgpt.netlify.app/ seems pretty decent (and is FOSS).
You can also put a hard dollar limit on OpenAI just to be safe.
I used Bing today. I’m denting.
I used bing chat (supposedly using gpt4) and it was far more annoying than openai free chatgpt (supposedly using gpt3.5)
Somehow Microsoft found a way to make it worse?
Somehow Microsoft found a way to make it worse?
I'd pay Microsoft monthly if they'd just give us untethered gpt-4 access, the same from the API, for those of us on the waitlist. I don't care if it wants to marry me, haha - I think being able to maybe full around with the settings could make it play nicer too.
Of course they did. That ought to be their slogan. "Microsoft: finding a way to make it worse since 1975"
Yes, I wonder why is so difficult for people to understand this. Microsoft wants to make your life worse, even when they have good software.
I find it hard to believe that they WANT to make my life worse.
I think that they are simply ok with making my life worse if it makes their life better at all.
I think that they are simply ok with making my life worse if it makes their life better at all.
I have access but don't have a box with Edge running on it nearby to use it. What about it was worse? A few friends tell me that uniting chat with the LLM makes it hallucinate a lot less and makes it easier to check its work, but they only used it a couple times.
Agree, prefer to pay for chatgpt then using Microsoft’s free crapware.
exactly.. its not very usable. They don't even have to innovate anything. just copy ChatGPT interface and display the results.
I tried Edge and bing, God awful. You just feel their desire to take control of your experience of the web.
On the flip site, made me see how much Google own us all.
I use ddg everyday and I hate it. I resort to Google shortly after. Not personalised so I guess I am missing out on decent returns.
Have you tried kagi? I‘m finding it better than ddg and often on paar with G.
+1 for Kagi. It's been my default search engine since Jan '22 and I'm very happy with it. On the rare occasions when I use Bing or Google I'm reminded all over again why I'm happy to pay for search.
I’m having the same experience. Anytime I’m not satisfied with kagi’s results, I try Google and that’s usually worse.
I tried ddg, but i found myself adding !g a lot, so i just switched back.
try Brave’s search service
What's wrong with Edge? I started using it when Chrome started eating my RAM, it's been mostly unobtrusive and unnoticed, like a good browser should be.
I installed it on Mac to use Bing Chat.
It immediately took over my whole screen, in a completely weird way that no native Mac app ever did before (in my experience, though I don't use that many Mac apps).
It immediately took over my whole screen, in a completely weird way that no native Mac app ever did before (in my experience, though I don't use that many Mac apps).
Edge keeps trying to turn on sync-to-Microsoft. I keep saying no. Once, I think it turned it on without asking.
I assume it has more telemetry than Chrome... anyone checked?
I assume it has more telemetry than Chrome... anyone checked?
I wanted to be the default browser, ok.
It wanted to import all my info.. no thanks
there was other nastyness I don’t remember.
Then it showed me so much junk and crappy news on new page, it was pure propaganda.
That was the end of it. I know it’s possible to configure all those things, but the starting experience was soo bad I got away quickly.
Then it showed me so much junk and crappy news on new page, it was pure propaganda.
That was the end of it. I know it’s possible to configure all those things, but the starting experience was soo bad I got away quickly.
It is classic microsoft behavior. They don't create apps, they create traps. The end goal is just to make people slaves of their software. The software they create is just "leverage" so they can trap more and more of you or your business.
It seem to me that Google at first was focused on making the best products but ended up in a very similar place. Absolute power corrupt absolutely.
This is indeed a theme for large software companies, but Microsoft has perfected it over the years. The way they turned open source and web technologies to further their goals is just another reminder. Many companies are now entrapped into Azure-related software that can only survive in a Microsoft world.
Right, I just wanted "new tab" to open about:blank -- doesn't seem possible. You get their news feed on every new tab.
How much better could the memory profile really be if they’re using the same rendering engine?
Can't speak for anyone else, for me I've mostly liked it. But I use a separate password manager (bitwarden) and disable most of the embedded addons (shopping, etc). So it's a bit mixed.
I've been using perplexity.ai for anything that's not a site/company/person name look up.
If I used the preferences of commenters here as a basis to make investments I’d lose all my money pretty quickly.
For almost all technical queries, I've found GPT-4 to be vastly superior.
Most of the time, my search queries are just to find websites. Like I'll search for "[movie] rotten tomatoes" or "[book] wiki".
I've found duckduckgo to be a good enough replacement for Google for such queries.
Most of the time, my search queries are just to find websites. Like I'll search for "[movie] rotten tomatoes" or "[book] wiki".
I've found duckduckgo to be a good enough replacement for Google for such queries.
Arthur or Harvey?
I was able to use Google twice today so was able to offset your dent.
Boomer. The kids use reddit and tiktok.
The original redditors are the boomers of HN. The crowd has changed quite a bit though. Still lots of good stuff on there.
I actually just switched all our default search engines to Bing yesterday. Google is showing "Sponsors" that link directly to a full screen page with tons of warnings telling you to call some 800 number so you can get scammed. And that's after nearly downloading a fake Blender install a few weeks ago. I'm done with it.
I just switched to Bing about three months ago -- I haven't noticed any difference, to be honest.
People like to be predictors of doom before the hard evidence comes out.
you should look at all the blockbuster stores and Netflix's share of it. There's no dent. ~ Someone in 1997.
You should look at all CD sales and minidisk’s share of it. There’s no dent.
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> You should look up global search volumes and Google share of it. There’s no dent.
"You should look up global search volumes and Yahoo's share of it. There’s no dent" was once a valid statement. Same for Altavista, MySpace, etc. You can go from on top to the bottom very fast in this realm.
"You should look up global search volumes and Yahoo's share of it. There’s no dent" was once a valid statement. Same for Altavista, MySpace, etc. You can go from on top to the bottom very fast in this realm.
Key difference is Google pays a FUCKTON of money to be default search provider. The US Department of Justice is going after this.
Once Google can’t pay-to-play in Safari and iOS they are in very deep shit. This is the classic thing with monopolies: eventually the “innovation” is just leveraging market power to deepen the moat by burning cash.
This is what happens when the CFO runs the damn company. Sundar has no vision, at all, and Ruth’s vision is the same boring Wall Street play book that put a hundred tech companies in the ground.
Once Google can’t pay-to-play in Safari and iOS they are in very deep shit. This is the classic thing with monopolies: eventually the “innovation” is just leveraging market power to deepen the moat by burning cash.
This is what happens when the CFO runs the damn company. Sundar has no vision, at all, and Ruth’s vision is the same boring Wall Street play book that put a hundred tech companies in the ground.
> Key difference is Google pays a FUCKTON of money to be default search provider.
Yahoo used to pay for that, and to package the Yahoo Toolbar pretty much everywhere. I remember when it used to try to install itself with MySQL. I'm sure it helps, for a while, until it suddenly doesn't.
Yahoo used to pay for that, and to package the Yahoo Toolbar pretty much everywhere. I remember when it used to try to install itself with MySQL. I'm sure it helps, for a while, until it suddenly doesn't.
People have no idea how quickly the house of cards can collapse. It’s a very dangerous path to juice profits by paying to be a default. Basically a self-made Ponzi scheme.
Same could be said when iPhone came out. Now look where Android is. The fact that something happened to others means nothing. Could go either way.
edit: typo
edit: typo
Well, it means it could go either way. Which with respect to Google and search is quite a novelty, as Google has been on top for 20 years, without a serious competitor for most of that time.
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If AI assisted search gets larger it might be to Google what Google was to AltaVista
Google controls distribution on Web through Google Chrome. How would AI assisted search even reach casual web users? Word of mouth is not enough.
I switched to edge on all my devices (in hopes of getting early access to Bing Chat), and honestly there's a lot more features and it performs better, so they won't get anything from me except whatever they can milk from gmail. I haven't searched using them in over a year, used to use Brave Search, and You.com for awhile.
I don't think Facebook really belongs in this conversation. As much as the VR stuff is silly their core business is still doing very well
A lot of "legacy" companies had businesses that were doing very well but missed the boat one or more times as new things arrived. Microsoft is a good example. Windows and Office was absolutely, positively printing money. They whiffed on mobile so hard it was comical. Going back further in time, IBM got mauled in the PC business over time, even though mainframes and PCs were keeping the lights on for decades.
I disagree with the assertion that in 5 years these companies may be heavily disrupted but these darlings that preyed on the fact the incumbents were ossified, large and slow are now themselves ossified, large and slow. The cycle continues on.
In the particular case of Twitter they're being actively driven into the ground by a guy who seems determined to wake up each day and not go to bed until he's made some very poor decisions so who knows, maybe they will crash and burn quickly.
I disagree with the assertion that in 5 years these companies may be heavily disrupted but these darlings that preyed on the fact the incumbents were ossified, large and slow are now themselves ossified, large and slow. The cycle continues on.
In the particular case of Twitter they're being actively driven into the ground by a guy who seems determined to wake up each day and not go to bed until he's made some very poor decisions so who knows, maybe they will crash and burn quickly.
Indeed. Really makes you respect the repositioning Microsoft has achieved with their cloud and AI businesses.
Google’s core businesses are doing just fine too.
Twitter has suffered financially but I’ve seen little evidence that they’ve lost substantial numbers of users — Twitter posts are still in news articles and sites like HN as if it’s still serving it’s original purpose despite the noise.
Twitter has suffered financially but I’ve seen little evidence that they’ve lost substantial numbers of users — Twitter posts are still in news articles and sites like HN as if it’s still serving it’s original purpose despite the noise.
people treat facebook as if it were like their myspace, something dumb they did in their youth that's not longer relevant and is dying
reality is pretty different, fb business is doing great despite all their missteps
reality is pretty different, fb business is doing great despite all their missteps
I use Facebook more than ever these days but oddly for none of things I used to use it for. It's now got some obscure technical community groups that are too niche and too small for reddit or discord. Facebook Marketplace has replaced craigslist. My friend feed is totally incidental to my use of Facebook.
Personally in my circle I still use Facebook messenger service - my extended family has a group chat and some of my friend groups still use messenger chats (I'd say post pandemic discord is used more then messenger now) my parents use messenger to video chat with their grandkids. It's essentially become skype. The actual facebook.com friend feed etc. is essentially dead for me at least.
And so is googles, Facebook are spending more than $10B a year on VR. For context that is more than Nvidia's quite large R&D budget, which they have ramped up on consistently over years. Facebook has gone from 0 to 10B real fast.
Relatively happy to see it... though I do tend to lean towards the free speech side of the coin, and kind of miss the relative wild west that was IRC in the 90's. I feel like centralized social media is a blessing and a curse. What's old is new again.
> wild west that was IRC in the 90's.
There was tons of /kick and /ban there too...
There was tons of /kick and /ban there too...
Yeah, but generally that was on a channel by channel basis.
> I feel like centralized social media is a blessing and a curse.
This is what makes Mastadon interesting. I'm not using it, but a lot of people I pay attention to are.
This is what makes Mastadon interesting. I'm not using it, but a lot of people I pay attention to are.
“Free speech” is a term that’s been completely abused and used in bad faith.
Is your assertion that I'm using it in bad faith?
No, but rather that Musk has been using it in bad faith (I’m assuming “I support free speech” was meant to qualify the criticism of Twitter under Musk’s leadership).
Yeah, Musk's definition of supporting free speech wasn't much to speak of... better than the old guard, but really weird in ways too. For me, short of threats or calls for violence I'm pretty open to whatever... As long as you're able to as an individual block/filter. Though the NSFW content on Twitter can be pretty bad and wouldn't mind being able to selectively filter that as a user too.
I don’t think it is better than “the old guard” at all. I would agree with this piece (which contains examples to make the point), that all he’s done is boost ideas he likes hearing and suppress ones he doesn’t in nakedly partisan fashion: https://apple.news/ANuPT612pRca2DdolgCyu1g
And it does neatly summarize what I meant about the term “free speech” being abused: “ For them, free speech is when they can say what they want, and when you can say what they want.”
And it does neatly summarize what I meant about the term “free speech” being abused: “ For them, free speech is when they can say what they want, and when you can say what they want.”
I'm guessing you also don't participate in more conservative circles either... The before and after is a stark contrast to say the least. I don't always agree with conservatives, but do follow a lot of anti establishment libertarians and conservatives.
Discord attacking Twitch too
And patient Apple waiting it all out to see whose lunch to eat next.
What do you think those 16-core Neural Processing Units that ship in every Mac are for? They're not waiting to see, they're waiting for everyone to discover their lunch has already been eaten.
How do you get around privacy concerns for using the big AI models? Run your own. How do you get around the compute requirements for training? Push to the leaf nodes. How do you solve for personalizing AIs? Have personal AI models running locally... And wouldn't it be nice if there was some dedicated hardware those AI models could inhabit...
How do you get around privacy concerns for using the big AI models? Run your own. How do you get around the compute requirements for training? Push to the leaf nodes. How do you solve for personalizing AIs? Have personal AI models running locally... And wouldn't it be nice if there was some dedicated hardware those AI models could inhabit...
With umptillion gigs of shared memory, too. Really the only reason I'm entertaining moving up from an mba to an mbp, but I haven't convinced myself it's worth the splurge yet.
[deleted]
So are you going to take large short positions on Google and Facebook?
I won’t be predictive or prescriptive about the markets. But it’s clear that tech giants will soon have to fall or evolve.
I'm loving Mastodon myself (@[email protected]) but I worry that the UI stumbling blocks caused by the multi-server system and the far-poorer discoverability than what we're used to from Twitter will keep it from growing well -- twitter's algorithmic feed and relevant-to-the-user trending topics and features like that help make twitter feel lively even for a new user even with just a handful of follows. I don't know that Twitter would be as successful today as it is now without those features.
I think "is X the next Twitter" is the wrong question to ask.
When I started working at Twitter (now years ago) my relatives asked me if they should join. And after thinking about it, my honest answer was "no". The only person who needs to be on Twitter is somebody who wants to feel like they're part of a global conversation. Most people just don't and won't.
Twitter is only successful because it started in an era where that was a novel and appealing idea, and because it developed a critical mass of users. Both traditional participants in that conversation (journalists, politicians, media personalities, etc) and new ones (like dril) came on board. It is now gradually losing that critical mass.
These days there are just too many options tuned to too many sets of needs. Mastodon will get a chunk of those people, as will existing social media properties. But I don't think we'll ever again see a global groupchat at the scale of Twitter. Assuming Musk persists in running it into the ground, I think in a decade's time Twitter will be in that bucket with MySpace or SixDegrees, one of those early-internet things that people remember with varying degrees of fondness but would never go back to using.
When I started working at Twitter (now years ago) my relatives asked me if they should join. And after thinking about it, my honest answer was "no". The only person who needs to be on Twitter is somebody who wants to feel like they're part of a global conversation. Most people just don't and won't.
Twitter is only successful because it started in an era where that was a novel and appealing idea, and because it developed a critical mass of users. Both traditional participants in that conversation (journalists, politicians, media personalities, etc) and new ones (like dril) came on board. It is now gradually losing that critical mass.
These days there are just too many options tuned to too many sets of needs. Mastodon will get a chunk of those people, as will existing social media properties. But I don't think we'll ever again see a global groupchat at the scale of Twitter. Assuming Musk persists in running it into the ground, I think in a decade's time Twitter will be in that bucket with MySpace or SixDegrees, one of those early-internet things that people remember with varying degrees of fondness but would never go back to using.
Everyone I talked to who worked at or joined Twitter early on talks about how they felt like they were part of a global conversation but it was always really puzzling to me. I read Twitter occasionally in the early days but most of my friends were on IRC or GChat, with a lot being offline, and my networks migrated but never got onto Twitter. Twitter never really felt that relevant to me and over time it felt like it only got more not less insular. I lurked on it the way I lurked on tons of IRC channels. Once IRC began to fade, early Reddit (from the founding) was where I found the community I was looking for.
My feeling as an outsider is that Twitter was useful and valuable ("high engagement") for the folks who enjoyed the culture that built up on the platform, but for everyone else it was always a bit insular and self-important. Since Twitter's founding, more and more online communities and spaces have sprung up, so if Twitter does indeed decline in usage its regulars will diffuse into the many other alternatives that have sprung up.
That's my $0.02 at least as someone who's watched from the sidelines for a couple decades.
My feeling as an outsider is that Twitter was useful and valuable ("high engagement") for the folks who enjoyed the culture that built up on the platform, but for everyone else it was always a bit insular and self-important. Since Twitter's founding, more and more online communities and spaces have sprung up, so if Twitter does indeed decline in usage its regulars will diffuse into the many other alternatives that have sprung up.
That's my $0.02 at least as someone who's watched from the sidelines for a couple decades.
I mean, every platform develops its culture and attracts the people who enjoy that culture. If it's not for you, nothing wrong with that.
But I think "insular" is a funny word to use here, in that it being one giant space meant that self-segregation was a much harder choice to make than on, say, HN or a given subreddit. The thing that always kept me using it was the great variety of voices there. Some of my favorite people to follow were not the ones saying much, but the ones with excellent editorial judgment about who to retweet, exposing me to so many different perspectives.
But I think "insular" is a funny word to use here, in that it being one giant space meant that self-segregation was a much harder choice to make than on, say, HN or a given subreddit. The thing that always kept me using it was the great variety of voices there. Some of my favorite people to follow were not the ones saying much, but the ones with excellent editorial judgment about who to retweet, exposing me to so many different perspectives.
Twitter is indeed a place with a lot of interests and topics but after the initial period it built up a pretty unique culture. As you say, it's just an aspect of platforms. But there was something unique about how Twitter folks really felt like their network was the "global conversation" that I never felt elsewhere, even though it felt just as self-selecting as the other networks.
Early Reddit definitely attracted a pretty interesting, insular bunch but there was never any feeling that Redditors were creating a similar global network. I was on IRC channels that had Americans, Europeans, Indians, Singaporeans, and Hong Kongers but we all knew we were weird. There was always something unique about Twitter users that made them think of their space as a global village, and I think the large presence of journalists and MSM friendliness was a big part of that.
Twitter also managed to create a product that its sticky users loved in a way that I'm not sure any other network managed. Redditors loved Reddit but not nearly as much as Twitter users liked Twitter. Whatever it was I hope product folks study it closely.
Early Reddit definitely attracted a pretty interesting, insular bunch but there was never any feeling that Redditors were creating a similar global network. I was on IRC channels that had Americans, Europeans, Indians, Singaporeans, and Hong Kongers but we all knew we were weird. There was always something unique about Twitter users that made them think of their space as a global village, and I think the large presence of journalists and MSM friendliness was a big part of that.
Twitter also managed to create a product that its sticky users loved in a way that I'm not sure any other network managed. Redditors loved Reddit but not nearly as much as Twitter users liked Twitter. Whatever it was I hope product folks study it closely.
Sorry, I'm not getting what you're not getting. IRC channels and subreddits are defined around special interests. There is a thing that unifies people. Sometimes that topic can have a well-distributed membership, but there is always a selection bias that comes from the chosen topic bias.
Twitter is unique in that it had both wide international reach and no topic structure. Reddit is an engine for shutting you off from 99.9% of the Reddit discussion. Twitter, for better and for worse, didn't and couldn't do that.
As you say, the journalists were definitely part of that. To the extent a global conversation existed previously, it was among journalists and the people they covered, like major politicians, NGO heads, and the like. Twitter expanded and disintermediated that. Suddenly you could hear from all those media subjects directly. And even more unusually, you could try to join in, speaking directly to people previously unreachable, maybe even getting replies. One major motivator for people joining Twitter was exactly that, as the Waiting for Bieber art piece demonstrated: https://www.trendhunter.com/trends/waiting-for-bieber
The only platform with anything like that reach was email. And although email has global reach, it isn't a global stage like Twitter was. No other platform has that, and I doubt one ever will.
Twitter is unique in that it had both wide international reach and no topic structure. Reddit is an engine for shutting you off from 99.9% of the Reddit discussion. Twitter, for better and for worse, didn't and couldn't do that.
As you say, the journalists were definitely part of that. To the extent a global conversation existed previously, it was among journalists and the people they covered, like major politicians, NGO heads, and the like. Twitter expanded and disintermediated that. Suddenly you could hear from all those media subjects directly. And even more unusually, you could try to join in, speaking directly to people previously unreachable, maybe even getting replies. One major motivator for people joining Twitter was exactly that, as the Waiting for Bieber art piece demonstrated: https://www.trendhunter.com/trends/waiting-for-bieber
The only platform with anything like that reach was email. And although email has global reach, it isn't a global stage like Twitter was. No other platform has that, and I doubt one ever will.
I’m with you on this. I suspect with hindsight the Twitter story will have “self importance” and traditional cultural factors like journalism and political institutional buy-in as major factors behind its apparent significance. Its friendliness mainstream media and news, where it was perfect for news that hashtag trending could be monitored.
Did any other platform ever get so much attention from mainstream media?
Did any other platform ever get so much attention from mainstream media?
I think Twitter's popularity and endurance suggests that there is interest in that global groupchat.
What's unclear to me is whether or not there is enough money in it to make it worth maintaining/moderating.
What's unclear to me is whether or not there is enough money in it to make it worth maintaining/moderating.
I'm not saying there's no interest in global groupchat. I'm saying that after Twitter dies, there will be insufficient critical mass in any one spot to have a global groupchat.
TBH, I really like Facebook's groups in terms of UX and maintainer level. I don't like FB themselves though, and their warnings are sometimes just at a level of insane.
Keep thinking I'd like to create an easy button for FB groups like self-hosted community setups. Then you can control/host your own interest group... add in live group chats (that FB used to have for groups) and just have a centralized auth and search that are opt-in.
Keep thinking I'd like to create an easy button for FB groups like self-hosted community setups. Then you can control/host your own interest group... add in live group chats (that FB used to have for groups) and just have a centralized auth and search that are opt-in.
nemo44x(1)
> that help make twitter feel lively
But also that help make twitter feel like a constant outrage factory that impacts negatively on a lot of people's mental health. I got off of twitter a year ago (deleted my account after 14 years,even) and I'm really appreciating mastodon's less addictive, less "lively"ness.
But also that help make twitter feel like a constant outrage factory that impacts negatively on a lot of people's mental health. I got off of twitter a year ago (deleted my account after 14 years,even) and I'm really appreciating mastodon's less addictive, less "lively"ness.
Imho it was the quote tweets that were the big problem, those were mostly for directing lynch mobs.
I just find the "follows of follows" or "include some frequently-favorited users" that twitter does for the algorithmic view is useful for expanding and finding more interesting content.
I just find the "follows of follows" or "include some frequently-favorited users" that twitter does for the algorithmic view is useful for expanding and finding more interesting content.
500M humans are not in Twitter looking to have pleasant, cordial, thoughtful interactions and consume high quality content in a highly moderated environment.
Actually that's exactly what we don't want.
So Substack will be successful in its own niche, doesn't need to eat Twitter's lunch for that.
The problem is at the current valuation of $650M and bleeding $25M per year, they will have to come up with a plan to generate revenue pretty soon, most likely in the form of ads and generally that's incompatible with high quality content.
Now if Substack's fan base put their wallets where their mouth is and pay say $30 per month, then maybe Substack wouldn't need ads, but we know that's not going to happen, not even at $5 per month.
Actually that's exactly what we don't want.
So Substack will be successful in its own niche, doesn't need to eat Twitter's lunch for that.
The problem is at the current valuation of $650M and bleeding $25M per year, they will have to come up with a plan to generate revenue pretty soon, most likely in the form of ads and generally that's incompatible with high quality content.
Now if Substack's fan base put their wallets where their mouth is and pay say $30 per month, then maybe Substack wouldn't need ads, but we know that's not going to happen, not even at $5 per month.
In what sense do you think Twitter‘s business doesn’t have a large technical barrier to entry? Perhaps having a low-volume version makes it a lot easier and skipping all the ads stuff reduces the work.
Many many senses. First, it's already been built. Now people now how to build it. In fact, many of the people that actually built it have left the company and could presumably help to build it again.
Second, the toolchain has matured in absolutely huge ways. AWS exists. Twitter had to build their own cloud to meet scaling needs. Languages have matured or been purpose-written to enable building/scaling these types of systems. A huge portion of the N+1s and hidden footguns have been cleaned out of the thousands and thousands of open source libraries that you can glue together to get the system up and running.
Third, Silicon Valley engineers as a whole have spent the last decade-plus building all sorts of Twitter-adjacent Web 2.0 projects, so there's an incredibly deep pool of people that have extremely relevant experience, even if they never stepped foot inside the Twitter building.
Fourth, Twitter (and companies very similar) have been publishing literal engineering designs and post-mortems for public consumption on their engineering blogs. Even if you have no idea what HTML is, your path to self-education and building your own Twitter clone has never been shorter or better paved. They've even published huge chunks of their own work as open source projects.
And on and on and on and on. And here's the thing about growing to Twitter-scale: it doesn't happen all at once. You can build the low-volume version and just follow approximately the same technical scaling path that Twitter itself followed, except you'll be able to skip a whole bunch of mistakes.
Second, the toolchain has matured in absolutely huge ways. AWS exists. Twitter had to build their own cloud to meet scaling needs. Languages have matured or been purpose-written to enable building/scaling these types of systems. A huge portion of the N+1s and hidden footguns have been cleaned out of the thousands and thousands of open source libraries that you can glue together to get the system up and running.
Third, Silicon Valley engineers as a whole have spent the last decade-plus building all sorts of Twitter-adjacent Web 2.0 projects, so there's an incredibly deep pool of people that have extremely relevant experience, even if they never stepped foot inside the Twitter building.
Fourth, Twitter (and companies very similar) have been publishing literal engineering designs and post-mortems for public consumption on their engineering blogs. Even if you have no idea what HTML is, your path to self-education and building your own Twitter clone has never been shorter or better paved. They've even published huge chunks of their own work as open source projects.
And on and on and on and on. And here's the thing about growing to Twitter-scale: it doesn't happen all at once. You can build the low-volume version and just follow approximately the same technical scaling path that Twitter itself followed, except you'll be able to skip a whole bunch of mistakes.
Twitter used to go down a lot. In some sense, struggling under load is a nice problem to have (as you want the users) though.
I find I’m not super convinced that ‘aws exists’ or whatever solves the problems Twitter had. Though I guess a bunch of the problems with eg distributing a notification to millions of followers or super-deep reply chains or football games or new years or whatever can be punted on until you have significant numbers of users which fits ‘low barrier to entry’.
I find I’m not super convinced that ‘aws exists’ or whatever solves the problems Twitter had. Though I guess a bunch of the problems with eg distributing a notification to millions of followers or super-deep reply chains or football games or new years or whatever can be punted on until you have significant numbers of users which fits ‘low barrier to entry’.
Seriously? I think "AWS exists" is self-evident enough to almost be a tautology. It's a hugely successful business whose business is making tools that make it easier/faster/cheaper to build and scale software and internet products. If that doesn't prove how much easier it is now to build the technology of Twitter, I'm genuinely curious if you could present a hypothetical set of facts that would actually be convincing to you.
ETA: I want to be careful to say that it's not "lol easy peasy" to build Twitter, but that the question "How likely would an investor be to pass on your Twitter clone startup because they thought the technology couldn't be built by your team with their investment?" is laughable, possibly even if the founding team is non-technical. With $5m, anyone competent enough to even file a YC application could hire a good enough technical consultancy to get a Twitter clone that scales to millions of users.
ETA: I want to be careful to say that it's not "lol easy peasy" to build Twitter, but that the question "How likely would an investor be to pass on your Twitter clone startup because they thought the technology couldn't be built by your team with their investment?" is laughable, possibly even if the founding team is non-technical. With $5m, anyone competent enough to even file a YC application could hire a good enough technical consultancy to get a Twitter clone that scales to millions of users.
Twitter's moat was and is network effect and having a critical mass of humans interacting through them. It was never about tech as such.
But Musk seems, knowingly or unknowingly, to be systematically pissing off Twitter's users. The blue tick shenanigans and conflating it with paid membership, pissing off advertisers, the bots problem that was never addressed, promoting himself at the cost of business, his covert/overt approval of extreme right wing tweets, so on and so forth.
There's only so much crap users can tolerate. A bunch of users have left for Mastodon, and a few more are doing so after he banned Substack links. Once a good chunk of core and influential content creators leave Twitter it'll get overwhelmed with bots and advertisers and will set of a negative spiral.
But Musk seems, knowingly or unknowingly, to be systematically pissing off Twitter's users. The blue tick shenanigans and conflating it with paid membership, pissing off advertisers, the bots problem that was never addressed, promoting himself at the cost of business, his covert/overt approval of extreme right wing tweets, so on and so forth.
There's only so much crap users can tolerate. A bunch of users have left for Mastodon, and a few more are doing so after he banned Substack links. Once a good chunk of core and influential content creators leave Twitter it'll get overwhelmed with bots and advertisers and will set of a negative spiral.
Just by not showing random posts which the algorithm decides I should see on my timeline itself makes Mastodon leagues better than Twitter.
I've been interacting with only couple of people whom I follow and vice versa for past several months I've been on Mastodon and I feel great about it. I'm convinced that federated instances are the solution to the social media problems just by strong focus on the theme and inherent limit to scaling without any pressure from VCs.
P.S. Please consider donating to your Mastodon instance.
I've been interacting with only couple of people whom I follow and vice versa for past several months I've been on Mastodon and I feel great about it. I'm convinced that federated instances are the solution to the social media problems just by strong focus on the theme and inherent limit to scaling without any pressure from VCs.
P.S. Please consider donating to your Mastodon instance.
without a UX that abstracts away the siloed nature of federated instances, it really is a massive hindrance to network effects and will prevent Mastodon from ever growing beyond a small niche
>without a UX that abstracts away the siloed nature of federated instances
Can you be more specific? Only thing I found missing was "Quote Posts" and almost everyone seems to agree that it was the right decision to make.
> will prevent Mastodon from ever growing beyond a small niche
And its not a good thing? "There's an instance for everything" is fast becoming an reality, Let those instances be small as its managed by volunteers;
There's no need for everything to grow into a democracy destroying scale, Especially Social Media platforms.
Can you be more specific? Only thing I found missing was "Quote Posts" and almost everyone seems to agree that it was the right decision to make.
> will prevent Mastodon from ever growing beyond a small niche
And its not a good thing? "There's an instance for everything" is fast becoming an reality, Let those instances be small as its managed by volunteers;
There's no need for everything to grow into a democracy destroying scale, Especially Social Media platforms.
that posters cannot reach an audience beyond their own server. the point of a microblogging platform is to create and consume content, but who wants to publish to a platform that doesn’t have the largest potential reach? and if the best content creators aren’t on the platform, why would the consumers be?
Have you considered that not everyone wants to be an influencer on Social Media?
Some might just want to have a social interaction with like minded people, I'm one of them and Mastodon has been perfect for it.
I have a 14 year old Twitter account, Apart from the first few years when Twitter was actually like Mastodon with friends fooling around I never felt happy browsing Twitter; It has become an algorithm enforced narcissism universe with everyone trying to sell something or themselves.
Some might just want to have a social interaction with like minded people, I'm one of them and Mastodon has been perfect for it.
I have a 14 year old Twitter account, Apart from the first few years when Twitter was actually like Mastodon with friends fooling around I never felt happy browsing Twitter; It has become an algorithm enforced narcissism universe with everyone trying to sell something or themselves.
Network effects are real and good luck reaching to the point where I’d need to switch when most of my follows had switched and abandon the network
> And Musk seems to be pissing away his non-technical barrier-to-entry just about as hard as he can.
He's completely pissed it away. The skills at finessing the demands of different regulatory regimes were some of the first he got rid of, no doubt deriding it as "wokism". Now he's got fines racking up for publishing Nazi shit in Germany, privacy breaches in the EU, and is globally censoring anything that Hindu extremists don't like.
Turns out that the main problem in social media is the social bit, not whether you can convince a man-child that your code works.
He's completely pissed it away. The skills at finessing the demands of different regulatory regimes were some of the first he got rid of, no doubt deriding it as "wokism". Now he's got fines racking up for publishing Nazi shit in Germany, privacy breaches in the EU, and is globally censoring anything that Hindu extremists don't like.
Turns out that the main problem in social media is the social bit, not whether you can convince a man-child that your code works.
But if we look at the "mainstream" usage, like English-language thought leaders, they are still there, still posting regularly. Like for example in the AI field, all relevant people are on twitter.
It's true that they are still there, but I think loyalty is really soft. Musk seems to make some antagonizing change at least once a month that results in defections, the whole Substack thing being the latest. I follow Rex Chapman who seems to be one of those people that just does not want to have to rebuild his following somewhere else. He just recently signed up at Spoutible.
In my communities, niche though they are, most people have shifted to masto and have been crossposting to twitter. The replies on masto in general seem more engaged and thoughtful.
Discoverability there is, of course, harder. At least initially, but just like twitter once I see someone making interesting replies, or someone in my follows boosts them, I tend to follow them faster (and drop them faster if their smart reply was a fluke).
Discoverability there is, of course, harder. At least initially, but just like twitter once I see someone making interesting replies, or someone in my follows boosts them, I tend to follow them faster (and drop them faster if their smart reply was a fluke).
What’s “mainstream”? Why is English “mainstream” while other languages are not?
Twitter’s second largest market is Japan, with Saudi Arabia ranking fourth, Brazil, Turkey, India, Indonesia, and Mexico all in the top 10[1]. While a lot of people prefer to Tweet in English, I can confirm that Twitter has a healthy amount of content in other languages if you want to go find it.
[1] https://www.newsweek.com/countries-most-people-twitter-socia...
Twitter’s second largest market is Japan, with Saudi Arabia ranking fourth, Brazil, Turkey, India, Indonesia, and Mexico all in the top 10[1]. While a lot of people prefer to Tweet in English, I can confirm that Twitter has a healthy amount of content in other languages if you want to go find it.
[1] https://www.newsweek.com/countries-most-people-twitter-socia...
I see plenty of AI thought leaders posting on LinkedIn.
Newsfeed based systems like this lead to lousy consequences. Trolling, toxicity, witch hunts, tribalism, racism. Distraction. Disconnection between people and having to be a slave to some algorithm to get noticed. I’m really sad to see substack do this
Twitter's barrier wasn't that it was technically hard - it was that it was free and had critical mass. There still isn't much of a reason to move away from it, except for those who want to signal their disdain for Musk's political views
Musk is the least of my concerns, I can ignore his account if I cared that much. I can't really ignore that a lot of higher quality accounts have been interacting less because Twitter has become a technical mess, fucking up their timelines and notifications. This sort of loss is quiet, and slow. You only really notice it when it's too late, when your feed is nothing but mindless ads and random accounts you never followed shilling the latest thing on amazon.
The only reason most larger accounts are still "active" is because nobody wants to have to rebuild elsewhere without strong commitment from platform owners - and outside of Tumblr, nobody has really done that. Except maybe now with Substack, we'll see.
The only reason most larger accounts are still "active" is because nobody wants to have to rebuild elsewhere without strong commitment from platform owners - and outside of Tumblr, nobody has really done that. Except maybe now with Substack, we'll see.
Indeed. Twitter recently killed off the apps and RSS feeds used by twitter power users. Those users who were likely to post widely viewed content on twitter or those who would embed tweets in news articles.
Very few people produce on any platform. Musk has the value relationship exactly backwards. The creators do get value from twitter, but they generate the bulk of the business value Twitter has and they can easily move to other platforms.
Very few people produce on any platform. Musk has the value relationship exactly backwards. The creators do get value from twitter, but they generate the bulk of the business value Twitter has and they can easily move to other platforms.
> Musk is the least of my concerns, I can ignore his account if I cared that much.
You really can't tho. Even if you block him, he'll still routinely show up in your timeline when people tweet a jpg of his tweets. Even if you somehow ignore all that, he'll still do random shit like change the Twitter logo to a dog to make sure you don't forget it's his playground, and you're just an NPC in his main character existence.
You really can't tho. Even if you block him, he'll still routinely show up in your timeline when people tweet a jpg of his tweets. Even if you somehow ignore all that, he'll still do random shit like change the Twitter logo to a dog to make sure you don't forget it's his playground, and you're just an NPC in his main character existence.
You can't actually block Musk's account these days. If you do, his tweets will still be automatically put in your feed.
That wasn't just any dog, that was doge the now mascot and namesake of the cryptocurrency dogecoin of which Musk has been known to pump with memes.
I should have known there was some shallow meaning behind it.
What's the deep meaning behind any company's logo? Start with Google, then Facebook and move on.
He's being sued for pumping it too, which makes 4/3 a weird time to run a late April Fool's joke about it.
Haven't see any meaninfull problems.
A bit less spam and crap.
Pretty easy to attract spambots, just mention "metamask instagram account hijack unban sugar daddy glock". There's a lot of other-language spam too, some of it from state actors trying to hide news in the search results.
You are ignoring the whole Verification process. It was the only platform where users could have interactions with prominent people in a variety of fields and know the interaction was legitimate. That mattered! Killing the verification system chased away many blue checks, who happened to generate a huge amount of traffic for the site.
Musks politics on their own didn’t create problems. However, Musk’s tolerance for hate speech sure as hell did. There aren’t many major advertisers were willing to risk having their ad show up next to hard core hate speech.
Musks politics on their own didn’t create problems. However, Musk’s tolerance for hate speech sure as hell did. There aren’t many major advertisers were willing to risk having their ad show up next to hard core hate speech.
As somebody who used to do anti-abuse engineering for Twitter, maybe I'm biased here. But I don't think his politics are separable from his tolerance for hate speech. I think they're closely related.
The tricky part here is, as you point to, not wanting to see people abused is turning out to be good business. That's why Twitter came around on hate speech, harassment, and the like. Claiming to be the "free speech wing of the free speech" party sounds great, and it's appealing certain types of people. But at the end of the day, a place has to choose. Either you keep the people who want to shout racial epithets or you keep the people who they're shouting at plus the ones who don't want to be around that. It's the that nazi bar Twitter thread, but at scale: https://www.upworthy.com/bartender-explains-why-he-swiftly-k...
But back to politics. Racial resentment waxes and wanes in American history. Most of us know it went into decline after the civil war, during the Reconstruction. Many don't hear, though, that there was an upswing, known as the Nadir [1] that peaked in the early 1900s with events like the Tulsa Massacre [2]. This period includes the only time an American government was violently overthrown [3]. It waned and we eventually got the Civil Rights Movement, sometimes known as the Second Reconstruction.
We're now in a period that some call the Second Nadir. Racial resentment has increased, and the US's political parties have sharply diverged on levels of racial resentment. One of the biggest political divides is around being "woke", which noted liberal Ron DeSantis defines as "the belief there are systemic injustices in American society and the need to address them." The agreement with that also sharply diverges by party. And Musk has very much chosen a side, repeatedly rejecting "wokeism".
Most people can dodge or ignore questions of systemic issues; it's bigger than their choices. But Musk just spent $44 billion to buy control of a major system for conversation. In Twitter's CEO seat, there are a lot of switches to flip, and few of them have a "neutral" position. E.g., You have to pick between the Nazis or the people they like to harass. Same deal for the people who hate black people, women, Mexicans, trans people, queer people, et cetera, ad nauseam. The "woke" move is pretty clear here: you decide you want your platform to be a reasonably humane and inclusive space. The anti-"woke" move is also clear: you gut the anti-abuse efforts and turn the terrible people loose (perhaps occasionally nuking a few accounts when they cause too much bad press). All in the name of freedom, of course.
The problem for Musk is that's terrible for business. Even if you don't care at all about systemic injustice, most people find distasteful the ugliness that drives ethnic cleansing campaigns, digital and otherwise. The US consumer economy is diverse enough that businesses can no longer focus exclusively on the (shrinking) white audience; they want all the eyeballs. He's supposedly a business genius, so we'll see which breaks first: Twitter's financials or his anti-"woke" politics.
[1] known as the Nadir: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nadir_of_American_race_relatio...
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulsa_race_massacre
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilmington_insurrection_of_189...
The tricky part here is, as you point to, not wanting to see people abused is turning out to be good business. That's why Twitter came around on hate speech, harassment, and the like. Claiming to be the "free speech wing of the free speech" party sounds great, and it's appealing certain types of people. But at the end of the day, a place has to choose. Either you keep the people who want to shout racial epithets or you keep the people who they're shouting at plus the ones who don't want to be around that. It's the that nazi bar Twitter thread, but at scale: https://www.upworthy.com/bartender-explains-why-he-swiftly-k...
But back to politics. Racial resentment waxes and wanes in American history. Most of us know it went into decline after the civil war, during the Reconstruction. Many don't hear, though, that there was an upswing, known as the Nadir [1] that peaked in the early 1900s with events like the Tulsa Massacre [2]. This period includes the only time an American government was violently overthrown [3]. It waned and we eventually got the Civil Rights Movement, sometimes known as the Second Reconstruction.
We're now in a period that some call the Second Nadir. Racial resentment has increased, and the US's political parties have sharply diverged on levels of racial resentment. One of the biggest political divides is around being "woke", which noted liberal Ron DeSantis defines as "the belief there are systemic injustices in American society and the need to address them." The agreement with that also sharply diverges by party. And Musk has very much chosen a side, repeatedly rejecting "wokeism".
Most people can dodge or ignore questions of systemic issues; it's bigger than their choices. But Musk just spent $44 billion to buy control of a major system for conversation. In Twitter's CEO seat, there are a lot of switches to flip, and few of them have a "neutral" position. E.g., You have to pick between the Nazis or the people they like to harass. Same deal for the people who hate black people, women, Mexicans, trans people, queer people, et cetera, ad nauseam. The "woke" move is pretty clear here: you decide you want your platform to be a reasonably humane and inclusive space. The anti-"woke" move is also clear: you gut the anti-abuse efforts and turn the terrible people loose (perhaps occasionally nuking a few accounts when they cause too much bad press). All in the name of freedom, of course.
The problem for Musk is that's terrible for business. Even if you don't care at all about systemic injustice, most people find distasteful the ugliness that drives ethnic cleansing campaigns, digital and otherwise. The US consumer economy is diverse enough that businesses can no longer focus exclusively on the (shrinking) white audience; they want all the eyeballs. He's supposedly a business genius, so we'll see which breaks first: Twitter's financials or his anti-"woke" politics.
[1] known as the Nadir: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nadir_of_American_race_relatio...
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulsa_race_massacre
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilmington_insurrection_of_189...
> which noted liberal Ron DeSantis defines as "the belief there are systemic injustices in American society and the need to address them."
That's not a quote from Ron DeSantis. From [0]:
> Ryan Newman, DeSantis’s general counsel, said the term referred to “the belief there are systemic injustices in American society and the need to address them.”
[0] https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/12/05/desantis-...
That's not a quote from Ron DeSantis. From [0]:
> Ryan Newman, DeSantis’s general counsel, said the term referred to “the belief there are systemic injustices in American society and the need to address them.”
[0] https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/12/05/desantis-...
Technically true. But Newman said it on the stand, under oath, an a case where DeSantis was being sued for firing a "woke" prosecutor. So I think that's as close to an official answer as we're going to get from DeSantis.
> Technically true.
There's no technically true - there's what you wrote, which was untrue, and what I wrote, which was true. Technically is entirely unnecessary in that assessment, especially when you go on to admit that DeSantis hasn't actually given an answer.
There's no technically true - there's what you wrote, which was untrue, and what I wrote, which was true. Technically is entirely unnecessary in that assessment, especially when you go on to admit that DeSantis hasn't actually given an answer.
I get your point. But politicians are not lone individuals; they are effectively teams. They have all sorts of people thinking and speaking for them. This is about a topic where most of the anti-"woke" crowd will absolutely never given an answer, because to answer accurately about it gives the game away. For example, consider the example of Bethany Mandel, a person who wrote a whole anti-"woke" book, who somehow can't define it when asked: https://www.forbes.com/sites/danidiplacido/2023/03/16/anti-w...
But if we're being extremely precise, something you are apparently very excited about, you'll note that I didn't say that Ron DeSantis said those words. I said that DeSantis "defined" it that way. Given that this was one of his closest legal advisors speaking under oath to a judge, I think it is entirely correct to say that this is their true definition of "woke".
But if we're being extremely precise, something you are apparently very excited about, you'll note that I didn't say that Ron DeSantis said those words. I said that DeSantis "defined" it that way. Given that this was one of his closest legal advisors speaking under oath to a judge, I think it is entirely correct to say that this is their true definition of "woke".
I’m going to remain “excited” for, what is for most people, the most basic level of truth, by attributing quotes to the correct people, yes, which somehow you seem to think is “extreme precision”. The only question for me is whether the somehow is because of your obvious dislike of DeSantis or whether it’s a general attitude.
As to whether the “anti-woke crowd” will never give an answer, I’ve seen plenty of answers given. (Cherry) Picking out one person who panicked[0] on television isn’t going to invalidate the many other times answers have been given. Again, I prefer the truth of the matter to fallacy.
[0] https://www.newsweek.com/define-woke-bethany-mandel-conserva...
As to whether the “anti-woke crowd” will never give an answer, I’ve seen plenty of answers given. (Cherry) Picking out one person who panicked[0] on television isn’t going to invalidate the many other times answers have been given. Again, I prefer the truth of the matter to fallacy.
[0] https://www.newsweek.com/define-woke-bethany-mandel-conserva...
She didn't just panic on TV. She failed to define it in the book, too. If that's panic, I guess she panicked for 18 months given she "spent a year and a half researching, writing, and editing"? Sounds exhausting. And here, in the article defending herself, she had plenty of time for one-sided boo-hooing and why-is-the-mean-liberal-hurting-my-children nonsense, but I don't see her defining it there either. (I guess she panicked again!) Something I note you conspicuously failed to do here, despite how you totally saw it defined by your Canadian girlfriend.
The reason anti-woke people generally avoid defining it is because once they do, they look at best ridiculous. Merriam-Webster has it as, "aware of and actively attentive to important societal facts and issues (especially issues of racial and social justice)". Wikipedia has it as "being conscious of racial discrimination in society and other forms of oppression and injustice". That is not far off the Team DeSantis definition. But to people outside the far-right epistemic bubble, that just doesn't sound particularly bad. So to keep fundraising (and book sales) up, no useful definition must be given.
It's the same style of smear you see from the Civil Rights era, where MLK and the Freedom Riders were decried as communists. Were they? That wasn't the point. The point was to get people mad at vague and shadowy things. It was and is to activate tacitly racist whites against a boogeyman that is socially acceptable to froth about. So it's the literal truth that "anti-woke" means anti-"being conscious of racial discrimination".
The reason anti-woke people generally avoid defining it is because once they do, they look at best ridiculous. Merriam-Webster has it as, "aware of and actively attentive to important societal facts and issues (especially issues of racial and social justice)". Wikipedia has it as "being conscious of racial discrimination in society and other forms of oppression and injustice". That is not far off the Team DeSantis definition. But to people outside the far-right epistemic bubble, that just doesn't sound particularly bad. So to keep fundraising (and book sales) up, no useful definition must be given.
It's the same style of smear you see from the Civil Rights era, where MLK and the Freedom Riders were decried as communists. Were they? That wasn't the point. The point was to get people mad at vague and shadowy things. It was and is to activate tacitly racist whites against a boogeyman that is socially acceptable to froth about. So it's the literal truth that "anti-woke" means anti-"being conscious of racial discrimination".
> Something I note you conspicuously failed to do here, despite how you totally saw it defined by your Canadian girlfriend.
What are you babbling about?
What are you babbling about?
The irony of someone claiming I'm lying in a thread where they've been shown to be so divorced from the idea of what truth is (which is edifying in itself) that they think stating the actual truth is somehow a technicality.
Here's one of my Canadian girlfriends defining woke, that I saw just the other day.
https://www.instagram.com/reel/Cp2650xsuES/
Already you have chosen a path of such tribalism that if anyone opposes anything you say - no matter how wrong you clearly are - means that you have to cast childish aspersions that are easily countered. Perhaps it's time to, shall we say wake up to yourself.
Here's one of my Canadian girlfriends defining woke, that I saw just the other day.
https://www.instagram.com/reel/Cp2650xsuES/
Already you have chosen a path of such tribalism that if anyone opposes anything you say - no matter how wrong you clearly are - means that you have to cast childish aspersions that are easily countered. Perhaps it's time to, shall we say wake up to yourself.
> You have to pick between the Nazis or the people they like to harass.
Nice rhetoric, but no you still do not get to censor people.
> The US consumer economy is diverse enough that businesses can no longer focus exclusively on the (shrinking) white audience
On your "woke", "humane", "inclusive spaces", I hope that celebrating the "shrinking" of the black population of any country on Earth would put you in the category of the terrible people... Double standards etc.
Nice rhetoric, but no you still do not get to censor people.
> The US consumer economy is diverse enough that businesses can no longer focus exclusively on the (shrinking) white audience
On your "woke", "humane", "inclusive spaces", I hope that celebrating the "shrinking" of the black population of any country on Earth would put you in the category of the terrible people... Double standards etc.
That isn't rhetoric. It's an inescapable fact of running a platform. You have to choose. If you choose the maximalist free speech position, you get the Nazis. You lose the speech of the people they harass, because a lot of them will either leave or stay and shut up. So the maximalist no-moderation position also ends up with a lot of speech suppressed. Plus, as a business reality, a platform that is smaller and with much lower ad revenue.
> hope that celebrating the "shrinking"
I'm not celebrating it. Again, it's just a business reality. In the Jim Crow era, businesses could ignore the non-white market, even be hostile to it. See, e.g., the Negro Motorist's Green Book. But most national-scale businesses can no longer do that, because the non-white market is much larger, as is the chunk of the white market that is reluctant to associate with open bigotry. And that part, I'm happy to celebrate.
> hope that celebrating the "shrinking"
I'm not celebrating it. Again, it's just a business reality. In the Jim Crow era, businesses could ignore the non-white market, even be hostile to it. See, e.g., the Negro Motorist's Green Book. But most national-scale businesses can no longer do that, because the non-white market is much larger, as is the chunk of the white market that is reluctant to associate with open bigotry. And that part, I'm happy to celebrate.
Twitter has ample restrictions on harassing people. You are talking about censoring views, not harassment/insults. You core argument, that anyone is taking a "maximalist free speech" allowing people to harass others, is a lie.
> Twitter has ample restrictions on harassing people.
Twitter has never had adequate restrictions on harassment. The were approaching it asymptotically for a while, but that's now in retreat.
> You are talking about censoring views, not harassment/insults.
Yes, I am also talking about censoring views. For example, views like, "the [ethnic group] must be exterminated to ensure white survival" do not belong on Twitter. For many reasons including both that they help shift the Overton Window toward genocide [1], and because it's really bad for Twitter as a business to have that shit running rampant.
> You core argument, that anyone is taking a "maximalist free speech" allowing people to harass others, is a lie.
Nope. It's sincerely held, so at the very worse I could be wrong. But I'm not.
Some free-speech absolutists are absolutely pro-harassment. Every banned jackass has a deep believe that their free speech trumps absolutely everything else.
A good chunk of the rest are just indifferent to harassment, generally because they're comfortable white men who do not normally experience harassment as a means of social control. Many in this group may be inclined to use it themselves when one of the lesser orders is out of line, but they probably wouldn't recognize it as harassment when they do it. See e.g., Manne's "Down Girl" for more.
And the remainder just haven't thought it through. They fail to see it as balanced with other rights, like freedom of association or freedom from harm. Typically, this is the adolescent (or frozen adolescent) view, where they don't have a theory of rights much beyond "YOU'RE NOT MY DAD YOU CAN'T MAKE ME". Which is, y'know, a start on an ethical understanding, but they haven't yet gotten to things like Rawls's Veil.
Regardless, anybody who takes a maximalist position on free speech, by which I mean an expressed or implied view that it trumps all other rights, is in effect pro harassment. Because any sort of platform that tries to follow it, as Twitter did in its early years, will be absolutely full of it.
[1] https://www.adl.org/sites/default/files/documents/pyramid-of...
Twitter has never had adequate restrictions on harassment. The were approaching it asymptotically for a while, but that's now in retreat.
> You are talking about censoring views, not harassment/insults.
Yes, I am also talking about censoring views. For example, views like, "the [ethnic group] must be exterminated to ensure white survival" do not belong on Twitter. For many reasons including both that they help shift the Overton Window toward genocide [1], and because it's really bad for Twitter as a business to have that shit running rampant.
> You core argument, that anyone is taking a "maximalist free speech" allowing people to harass others, is a lie.
Nope. It's sincerely held, so at the very worse I could be wrong. But I'm not.
Some free-speech absolutists are absolutely pro-harassment. Every banned jackass has a deep believe that their free speech trumps absolutely everything else.
A good chunk of the rest are just indifferent to harassment, generally because they're comfortable white men who do not normally experience harassment as a means of social control. Many in this group may be inclined to use it themselves when one of the lesser orders is out of line, but they probably wouldn't recognize it as harassment when they do it. See e.g., Manne's "Down Girl" for more.
And the remainder just haven't thought it through. They fail to see it as balanced with other rights, like freedom of association or freedom from harm. Typically, this is the adolescent (or frozen adolescent) view, where they don't have a theory of rights much beyond "YOU'RE NOT MY DAD YOU CAN'T MAKE ME". Which is, y'know, a start on an ethical understanding, but they haven't yet gotten to things like Rawls's Veil.
Regardless, anybody who takes a maximalist position on free speech, by which I mean an expressed or implied view that it trumps all other rights, is in effect pro harassment. Because any sort of platform that tries to follow it, as Twitter did in its early years, will be absolutely full of it.
[1] https://www.adl.org/sites/default/files/documents/pyramid-of...
> "the [ethnic group] must be exterminated to ensure white survival"
Nice example of speech that is currently not allowed on Twitter.
> [1] https://www.adl.org/sites/default/files/documents/pyramid-of...
An insane slippery slope, from "Non-inclusive Language" straight to genocide! This is laughable...
> they're comfortable white men
What a weird thing to say. You're not like the other comfortable white men, that's what you mean right?
> Typically, this is the adolescent (or frozen adolescent) view, where they don't have a theory of rights much beyond "YOU'RE NOT MY DAD YOU CAN'T MAKE ME".
Belittling people does not make you superior. It makes you sound full of fear and resentment, which by the way is still not justification for pro-censorship positions.
> Regardless, anybody who takes a maximalist position on free speech, by which I mean an expressed or implied view that it trumps all other rights, is in effect pro harassment.
Yes, and anyone who is pro-cars, is in effect pro-car accidents!
Nice example of speech that is currently not allowed on Twitter.
> [1] https://www.adl.org/sites/default/files/documents/pyramid-of...
An insane slippery slope, from "Non-inclusive Language" straight to genocide! This is laughable...
> they're comfortable white men
What a weird thing to say. You're not like the other comfortable white men, that's what you mean right?
> Typically, this is the adolescent (or frozen adolescent) view, where they don't have a theory of rights much beyond "YOU'RE NOT MY DAD YOU CAN'T MAKE ME".
Belittling people does not make you superior. It makes you sound full of fear and resentment, which by the way is still not justification for pro-censorship positions.
> Regardless, anybody who takes a maximalist position on free speech, by which I mean an expressed or implied view that it trumps all other rights, is in effect pro harassment.
Yes, and anyone who is pro-cars, is in effect pro-car accidents!
> Nice example of speech that is currently not allowed on Twitter.
It is an example of speech that free-speech absolutism would permit. And example of the sort of view that I would not permit on a platform I am running. And yes, Twitter and most platforms ban it for good reason.
> An insane slippery slope, from "Non-inclusive Language" straight to genocide! This is laughable...
A great example of the way free-speech absolutists don't engage with the consequences of their views. Which is why I'm done here.
It is an example of speech that free-speech absolutism would permit. And example of the sort of view that I would not permit on a platform I am running. And yes, Twitter and most platforms ban it for good reason.
> An insane slippery slope, from "Non-inclusive Language" straight to genocide! This is laughable...
A great example of the way free-speech absolutists don't engage with the consequences of their views. Which is why I'm done here.
> And yes, Twitter and most platforms ban it for good reason.
Thanks for pointing out that you are wrong in pretending that Twitter is governed by this "free-speech absolutism" strawman.
> A great example of the way free-speech absolutists don't engage with the consequences of their views.
Calling normal people nazis doesn't mean normal people are nazis, it just means that you have a serious problem. It might also indicate, depending on how much control you want to exert on said normal people, that you are a totalitarian.
> Which is why I'm done here.
Cool! This was always allowed. At least, on platforms with freedom of expression.
Thanks for pointing out that you are wrong in pretending that Twitter is governed by this "free-speech absolutism" strawman.
> A great example of the way free-speech absolutists don't engage with the consequences of their views.
Calling normal people nazis doesn't mean normal people are nazis, it just means that you have a serious problem. It might also indicate, depending on how much control you want to exert on said normal people, that you are a totalitarian.
> Which is why I'm done here.
Cool! This was always allowed. At least, on platforms with freedom of expression.
Don't confuse tolerance for free speech with the dubious concept of hate speech and its selective application.
Ah yes, that's why he banned all those journalists who spent time reporting on the lawsuits against him, because he's all for free speech.
Nah, the dude is for his brand of free speech, which is you can hate the people he hates and you can do what he likes and you can stay on his website.
Nah, the dude is for his brand of free speech, which is you can hate the people he hates and you can do what he likes and you can stay on his website.
Interesting how you provided a direct counter example and your comment got flagged for it. I thought the free speech absolutist crowd wouldn’t mind someone disagreeing with them
Wow. This is a totally legitimate, reasonable comment and you got flagged for it.
I've actually never seen that on HN before -- every flagged comment I've ever looked at turned out to be full of abusive language and attacks.
It makes me sad that multiple HN'ers flagged this. :(
I've actually never seen that on HN before -- every flagged comment I've ever looked at turned out to be full of abusive language and attacks.
It makes me sad that multiple HN'ers flagged this. :(
> There still isn't much of a reason to move away from it, except for those who want to signal their disdain for Musk's political views
Most of the people I follow have moved off it. They use Twitter largely for announcements when they've put out something new but all their casual, unfiltered thoughts are going in Mastodon. Every time I check in on Twitter now it seems the noxious behavior to signal ratio gets worse.
Most of the people I follow have moved off it. They use Twitter largely for announcements when they've put out something new but all their casual, unfiltered thoughts are going in Mastodon. Every time I check in on Twitter now it seems the noxious behavior to signal ratio gets worse.
In the artistic/creative space, a crapload of the best artists on twitter are trans. Musk is a loud and proud transphobe, and has implemented his politics into Twitter's moderation.
You don't have to be LGBTQ to see how important trans people are to Twitter's health. Many are still there because business is business, but many trans people and their allies have left because the new owner seems to hate them on a deeply personal level, and they have the professional wiggle room to ditch that promotional space.
Edit: W00t deep negatives for affirming that trans people exist and for stating the obvious that Musk hates them.
You don't have to be LGBTQ to see how important trans people are to Twitter's health. Many are still there because business is business, but many trans people and their allies have left because the new owner seems to hate them on a deeply personal level, and they have the professional wiggle room to ditch that promotional space.
Edit: W00t deep negatives for affirming that trans people exist and for stating the obvious that Musk hates them.
> W00t deep negatives for affirming that trans people exist and for stating the obvious that Musk hates them.
People aren't downvoting your post for trans affirmation or that Elon doesn't like trans people. They're downvoting it because you are inflating the value of the trans population on Twitter as integral to Twitter itself. I would not be surprised if there is a higher percentage of trans people using Twitter relative to the general population, but I find it unlikely that they make up a significant enough portion of its users to even move the needle if they all migrated away to Tumblr, Mastodon, or another social network.
People aren't downvoting your post for trans affirmation or that Elon doesn't like trans people. They're downvoting it because you are inflating the value of the trans population on Twitter as integral to Twitter itself. I would not be surprised if there is a higher percentage of trans people using Twitter relative to the general population, but I find it unlikely that they make up a significant enough portion of its users to even move the needle if they all migrated away to Tumblr, Mastodon, or another social network.
I'd say it's probably more of a canary effect. They'll just be the first ones targeted by the type of general obnoxiousness that Musk's moderation pivot fosters. Everyone else will be put off by it too, albeit less severely, and there will be a bit of a positive feedback loop if the value of the platform (stuff from people you follow) is progressively diminished as people you follow leave because people they followed left because. . .
>There still isn't much of a reason to move away from it, except for those who want to signal their disdain for Musk's political views
There ISN'T? Ever since Musk stepped in it's riddled with bugs and changes for the worse. As an example very recently and as of now Twitter Circles are broken and tweets that should be private only for a select few are visible to anyone in the "For You" tab. This is MASSIVE and probably even a breach of GDPR.
There ISN'T? Ever since Musk stepped in it's riddled with bugs and changes for the worse. As an example very recently and as of now Twitter Circles are broken and tweets that should be private only for a select few are visible to anyone in the "For You" tab. This is MASSIVE and probably even a breach of GDPR.
It was always riddled with bugs, I'm not sure why people are blaming that on Musk as that is surely the least applicable of any of the criticisms that get thrown his way. Are people's memories that short that they thought it was a bug free experience up till a few months ago?
> Are people's memories that short that they thought it was a bug free experience up till a few months ago?
Hilarious how people here have tolerated all garbage and bugs from pre-Musk Twitter takeover for years and now they all complain about them now.
It is selective memory based on the current villain of the year to hate. Twitter has always been an outrage capital with a strong network effect. It is just that for the 220M+ daily active users, it is better than the sea of worse alternatives out there.
Many HNers here won’t admit it, but the reality is that network effects are real hence the difficulty in creating a viable alternative, No anecdote, short term hype or subjective responses such as ‘for me it is’ refutes that.
Hilarious how people here have tolerated all garbage and bugs from pre-Musk Twitter takeover for years and now they all complain about them now.
It is selective memory based on the current villain of the year to hate. Twitter has always been an outrage capital with a strong network effect. It is just that for the 220M+ daily active users, it is better than the sea of worse alternatives out there.
Many HNers here won’t admit it, but the reality is that network effects are real hence the difficulty in creating a viable alternative, No anecdote, short term hype or subjective responses such as ‘for me it is’ refutes that.
I honestly think people were resigned to the previous poor level of the app/website, and of course you are right, they now can use it and any regressions that have been actually introduced as a stick to beat an ideological opponent with.
Even a cursory search of HN brings up absurd bugs[1]:
> Slightly related but very interesting: the 2010 Twitter bug where simply tweeting "Accept [username]" would automatically force them to follow you.
From what Musk has told us since he took over, and others it sounds like an unholy mess behind the scenes. From [2]:
> In Tuesday's hearing, which ran for more than two hours, Zatko painted a portrait of a company plagued by widespread security issues and unable to control the data it collects. Calm and measured, he stuck closely to his expertise, unpacking technical details of Twitter's systems with real-world examples of how information held by the company could be misused.
> "It's not far-fetched to say that an employee inside the company could take over the accounts of all of the senators in this room," he warned.
From [3], a Twitter engineer on the work ethic:
> “If you’re not feeling it, you can take a few days off,” he was recorded saying. “People have taken months off.”
> “I basically went to work like four hours a week last quarter,” he added. “And it’s just how it works in our company.”
Which tells me a lot. And should we forget about this doozy from Dorsey's days in charge?[4]
> Oh, and while he was in charge, there was no backup of Twitter’s database.
I could go on for a long time but it's clear that people are being selective with their memories.
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16942844
[2] https://www.npr.org/2022/09/13/1122671582/twitter-whistleblo...
[3] https://nypost.com/2022/05/17/twitter-engineer-says-commie-s...
[4] https://fortune.com/2015/09/30/jack-dorsey-twitter-ceo-fired...
Even a cursory search of HN brings up absurd bugs[1]:
> Slightly related but very interesting: the 2010 Twitter bug where simply tweeting "Accept [username]" would automatically force them to follow you.
From what Musk has told us since he took over, and others it sounds like an unholy mess behind the scenes. From [2]:
> In Tuesday's hearing, which ran for more than two hours, Zatko painted a portrait of a company plagued by widespread security issues and unable to control the data it collects. Calm and measured, he stuck closely to his expertise, unpacking technical details of Twitter's systems with real-world examples of how information held by the company could be misused.
> "It's not far-fetched to say that an employee inside the company could take over the accounts of all of the senators in this room," he warned.
From [3], a Twitter engineer on the work ethic:
> “If you’re not feeling it, you can take a few days off,” he was recorded saying. “People have taken months off.”
> “I basically went to work like four hours a week last quarter,” he added. “And it’s just how it works in our company.”
Which tells me a lot. And should we forget about this doozy from Dorsey's days in charge?[4]
> Oh, and while he was in charge, there was no backup of Twitter’s database.
I could go on for a long time but it's clear that people are being selective with their memories.
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16942844
[2] https://www.npr.org/2022/09/13/1122671582/twitter-whistleblo...
[3] https://nypost.com/2022/05/17/twitter-engineer-says-commie-s...
[4] https://fortune.com/2015/09/30/jack-dorsey-twitter-ceo-fired...
It had a lot of performance and loading bugs, but it never showed me private tweets.
Is your contention that now you've been shown a more serious bug than you'd experienced previously that it's an indication that there were not similar or worse bugs in existence before the takeover?
Even if I myself hadn't experienced more serious bugs than those prior to the takeover, it'd still seem a stretch.
Even if I myself hadn't experienced more serious bugs than those prior to the takeover, it'd still seem a stretch.
I mean, yeah, bugs that get you in legal trouble are the worst kind.
Their traditional largest issue is their terrible ad targeting but that's not gotten better.
Their traditional largest issue is their terrible ad targeting but that's not gotten better.
Private tweets aren't private, they're limited audience. If you're saying something defamatory behind "private" tweets then, I hate to break it to you, it's still defamation. You might get some mitigation from limiting the audience but that's it.
Hm? I'm talking about private info leaks. GDPR fines are quite severe, you know.
Like this one[1] from 2018?
> Twitter has told an undisclosed number of users their private messages may have been leaked to third-parties for more than a year.
> The software “bug”, which has since been fixed, involved direct messages between users and businesses that offer customer services via Twitter.
> "The issue has persisted since May 2017," Twitter said.
[1] https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-45609633
> Twitter has told an undisclosed number of users their private messages may have been leaked to third-parties for more than a year.
> The software “bug”, which has since been fixed, involved direct messages between users and businesses that offer customer services via Twitter.
> "The issue has persisted since May 2017," Twitter said.
[1] https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-45609633
Strange lack of detail there. What was the actual point of exposure? I wonder if that was a latent security issue that wasn't actually exploited.
They did have problems like state actors getting spies hired and leaking data directly of course.
They did have problems like state actors getting spies hired and leaking data directly of course.
I would hazard that they weren’t in a position to know or be sure, given the whistleblower’s revelations, but also that they wouldn’t be publicising random bugs from their bug tracker without reason.
I honestly don't care about his political views in my choice of social media (and I'm not aware of any views he holds that I would find extremely objectionable in any case).
I care about being able to choose between "For You" and "Following". I don't want an algorithmically curated feed which includes things I have consciously chosen not to look at. And I don't want people who follow me not to be able to see things I link to because of a pissing contest between tech companies.
I care about being able to choose between "For You" and "Following". I don't want an algorithmically curated feed which includes things I have consciously chosen not to look at. And I don't want people who follow me not to be able to see things I link to because of a pissing contest between tech companies.
[deleted]
There still isn't much of a reason to move away from it, except for those who want to signal their disdain for Musk's political views
This says so much more about you than about anyone leaving Twitter.
I'm a person of colour. Do I have not have a reason to leave a web site that platforms people who espouse the belief that my children are a disease that needs to be eradicated with fire?[1] Of course I do, and you know that. I do not have a "disdain for Musk's political views," to put it like that is to suggest that white supremacy is a view no different than believing in universal healthcare.
Your rhetoric is a shallow and obvious attempt to invalidate and dismiss other people's concerns.
And while you have a right to your beliefs, no matter how much they lack empathy, no matter how much they are divorced from a belief that other people are not NPCs and are truly entitled to their own world views...
This type of talk is not in the best traditions of Hacker News, a site that yes, has a far more Libertarian slant than I personally hold, but also yes, attempts to hold its discussions and debates to a higher standard than you display in this comment.
———
[1] Other people of colour take a different view on whether to use Twitter, and that's the entire point of not dismissing other people's views. They have their own strategies for making the world a better place, and I don't have to dismiss their choices as posturing, I can respectfully make different choices for myself.
This says so much more about you than about anyone leaving Twitter.
I'm a person of colour. Do I have not have a reason to leave a web site that platforms people who espouse the belief that my children are a disease that needs to be eradicated with fire?[1] Of course I do, and you know that. I do not have a "disdain for Musk's political views," to put it like that is to suggest that white supremacy is a view no different than believing in universal healthcare.
Your rhetoric is a shallow and obvious attempt to invalidate and dismiss other people's concerns.
And while you have a right to your beliefs, no matter how much they lack empathy, no matter how much they are divorced from a belief that other people are not NPCs and are truly entitled to their own world views...
This type of talk is not in the best traditions of Hacker News, a site that yes, has a far more Libertarian slant than I personally hold, but also yes, attempts to hold its discussions and debates to a higher standard than you display in this comment.
———
[1] Other people of colour take a different view on whether to use Twitter, and that's the entire point of not dismissing other people's views. They have their own strategies for making the world a better place, and I don't have to dismiss their choices as posturing, I can respectfully make different choices for myself.
I am a person of colour too. And I don't get what is wrong with what the person you replied to said.
I mean, if you wish to signal your disdain for Musk's political views, you can leave Twitter. How is that an "attempt to invalidate and dismiss people's concerns" ?
And radical "woke" folks have been tweeting about killing and murdering white people on twitter for ages without much blowback. I always found it strange that was tolerated in the woke twitter days.
If Twitter fails - which it may definitely do - it will be because Musk screwed up and fired a lot of good engineering folk and got rid of power user features - which has made a lot of creators angry. But "racism" is un-likely to be the primary driving cause. It has always existed on Twitter.
I mean, if you wish to signal your disdain for Musk's political views, you can leave Twitter. How is that an "attempt to invalidate and dismiss people's concerns" ?
And radical "woke" folks have been tweeting about killing and murdering white people on twitter for ages without much blowback. I always found it strange that was tolerated in the woke twitter days.
If Twitter fails - which it may definitely do - it will be because Musk screwed up and fired a lot of good engineering folk and got rid of power user features - which has made a lot of creators angry. But "racism" is un-likely to be the primary driving cause. It has always existed on Twitter.
You are arguing that people should share your disdain for Musk's political views. You are not arguing against the claim that this is the only really strong reason why people would want to leave.
Second, libertarian ideals around free speech say that fairly engaging people whose views you disagree with is a better way to change minds than deplatforming them. That is because deplatforming them just encourages them to migrate to cesspools like Truth Social, which then become echo chambers for extremist views. Therefore there are reasons to allow offensive people to remain on a platform other than agreement with their offensive views.
Speaking personally, I am firmly of the belief that the obvious political censorship applied to social networks, including by the previous management of Twitter, is one of the CAUSES of the extremism that lead to the Jan 6 insurrection. You might dislike that there are people who think your children are a disease. But surely you'd dislike it rather more if we slid into an authoritarian dictatorship where people like that are the ones in charge. Therefore it is worth looking past your good reasons for taking offense, and asking seriously what is most likely to keep violent extremist networks forming that are in a position to do just that.
Note that multiple countries in Latin America copied the US Constitution's idea of separation of powers. A common pattern is that they wound up as authoritarian regimes after a powerful executive solved gridlock through declaring a state of emergency. It could happen here. In fact, it nearly did.
And finally, I find the comment that you're responding to far more in the best traditions of Hacker News than your reply. Hacker News has a tradition of polite and reasoned discussion of controversial positions between people of diverse points of view. I would rather keep that tradition alive, rather than implying that people who disagree with you are horrible people who might not mind your children being eradicated with fire.
Second, libertarian ideals around free speech say that fairly engaging people whose views you disagree with is a better way to change minds than deplatforming them. That is because deplatforming them just encourages them to migrate to cesspools like Truth Social, which then become echo chambers for extremist views. Therefore there are reasons to allow offensive people to remain on a platform other than agreement with their offensive views.
Speaking personally, I am firmly of the belief that the obvious political censorship applied to social networks, including by the previous management of Twitter, is one of the CAUSES of the extremism that lead to the Jan 6 insurrection. You might dislike that there are people who think your children are a disease. But surely you'd dislike it rather more if we slid into an authoritarian dictatorship where people like that are the ones in charge. Therefore it is worth looking past your good reasons for taking offense, and asking seriously what is most likely to keep violent extremist networks forming that are in a position to do just that.
Note that multiple countries in Latin America copied the US Constitution's idea of separation of powers. A common pattern is that they wound up as authoritarian regimes after a powerful executive solved gridlock through declaring a state of emergency. It could happen here. In fact, it nearly did.
And finally, I find the comment that you're responding to far more in the best traditions of Hacker News than your reply. Hacker News has a tradition of polite and reasoned discussion of controversial positions between people of diverse points of view. I would rather keep that tradition alive, rather than implying that people who disagree with you are horrible people who might not mind your children being eradicated with fire.
Ah yes, legitimizing people rioting in the US capitol because Twitter censors, when they aren't busy drinking bleach!
@freejazz - I understand your point, but there is a similar counter example which I believe is powerful.
The gay community made large strides as a movement to allow a civil discourse and transparent conversations with others who opposed their lifestyles by deciding to be open rather than secret. When people meet face to face, and realize we're all really similar - people tend to soften their views to be "human".
The gay community made large strides as a movement to allow a civil discourse and transparent conversations with others who opposed their lifestyles by deciding to be open rather than secret. When people meet face to face, and realize we're all really similar - people tend to soften their views to be "human".
Who is stopping them? Twitter? Twitter isn't the public square - it's just a website. It's full of advertising money that twitter controls and takes. It might be LIKE a public square, but it's not the public square.
I will never understand people like you interpreting "this is a cause of that" as "legitimizing" that.
It doesn't. I strongly oppose the riot, which is why I want people to take seriously the things that helped cause that.
Similarly I'm not legitimizing gang violence when I say that the War on Drugs helps cause gang violence, I'm explaining why I oppose the War on Drugs.
It doesn't. I strongly oppose the riot, which is why I want people to take seriously the things that helped cause that.
Similarly I'm not legitimizing gang violence when I say that the War on Drugs helps cause gang violence, I'm explaining why I oppose the War on Drugs.
It's legitimizing the notion that it's even a response to the thing you claim it is. I totally dispute that.
Let's look at the things the jan 6 rioters took grievances with: Mike Pence not overturning the election, nancy pelosi's existence, the federal court system which completely rebuked Trump's stolen election narrative, ALL of the media, the LIBERAL media, media in GENERAL, twitter, twitter moderation, george soros, jews, hunter biden, the crack he smoked, his penis, people who were verified on twitter, hollywood, jews, the thought that racism still exists...
if someone tells me the said they did something, and it's because of a ghost, and I accept their reasoning, then I am legitimizing the connection they allege. I dispute this connection. that's what I'm accusing you of legitimizing, their 'rationality'. they might call it rationality, but I don't have to. and maybe that's not what you meant, but I fairly took you to mean it, because you are apparently taking them at their word.
Let's look at the things the jan 6 rioters took grievances with: Mike Pence not overturning the election, nancy pelosi's existence, the federal court system which completely rebuked Trump's stolen election narrative, ALL of the media, the LIBERAL media, media in GENERAL, twitter, twitter moderation, george soros, jews, hunter biden, the crack he smoked, his penis, people who were verified on twitter, hollywood, jews, the thought that racism still exists...
if someone tells me the said they did something, and it's because of a ghost, and I accept their reasoning, then I am legitimizing the connection they allege. I dispute this connection. that's what I'm accusing you of legitimizing, their 'rationality'. they might call it rationality, but I don't have to. and maybe that's not what you meant, but I fairly took you to mean it, because you are apparently taking them at their word.
> Let's look at the things the jan 6 rioters took grievances with: [...] hunter biden, the crack he smoked, his penis, [...]
His laptop.
His laptop.
Meh. You still seem like you're so fixed on making your point that you're entirely missing mine.
My point is that the way that they were censored made it easier for them to find a likeminded echo chamber that helped them become radicalized extremists. And now rather than dealing with obnoxious idiots with a few bad ideas, we've got an armed rabble. Which is far worse.
Whether or not this dynamic happened is completely independent of the specific extremist rhetoric that they absorbed. But having been on the receiving end of a liberal conspiracy to censor information which might be supportive of Trump, it was easier for them to take everything that Trump said to its illogical extremes. And it was easy to discount all information coming from any source which denied the existence of the conspiracy that they experienced.
The result is that they were convinced that powerful liberal forces had subverted democracy and were trying to shut down the truth that Trump presented. This made Trump's lies about a stolen election very believable to them. And they got fired up enough about such conspiracy theories that it came to seem reasonable to them to ensure that the TRUE will of the American people prevail, even if that required undoing electoral fraud by tying down representatives with zipties and making them recognize Trump as President. And executing those at the heart of enabling this fraud to destroy democracy.
If we don't like this outcome then it is on us to decide how to handle such extremists. My position is that it is best to undo the conditions that encourage the creation of extremism. An alternative position is to fight fire with fire, to become as extreme in opposing the extremists as they are in fighting for what they believe.
However I fear that the alternative position, as emotionally satisfying as it might be, is a recipe to turn political polarization into political unrest and potentially into a civil war down the road. Enough other countries have gone down that road to project what it would be likely to happen then. And it isn't pretty.
Everything that I've said is part of an argument about how to best respond to the potential for extremism. None of it legitimizes extremism or extremist positions.
My point is that the way that they were censored made it easier for them to find a likeminded echo chamber that helped them become radicalized extremists. And now rather than dealing with obnoxious idiots with a few bad ideas, we've got an armed rabble. Which is far worse.
Whether or not this dynamic happened is completely independent of the specific extremist rhetoric that they absorbed. But having been on the receiving end of a liberal conspiracy to censor information which might be supportive of Trump, it was easier for them to take everything that Trump said to its illogical extremes. And it was easy to discount all information coming from any source which denied the existence of the conspiracy that they experienced.
The result is that they were convinced that powerful liberal forces had subverted democracy and were trying to shut down the truth that Trump presented. This made Trump's lies about a stolen election very believable to them. And they got fired up enough about such conspiracy theories that it came to seem reasonable to them to ensure that the TRUE will of the American people prevail, even if that required undoing electoral fraud by tying down representatives with zipties and making them recognize Trump as President. And executing those at the heart of enabling this fraud to destroy democracy.
If we don't like this outcome then it is on us to decide how to handle such extremists. My position is that it is best to undo the conditions that encourage the creation of extremism. An alternative position is to fight fire with fire, to become as extreme in opposing the extremists as they are in fighting for what they believe.
However I fear that the alternative position, as emotionally satisfying as it might be, is a recipe to turn political polarization into political unrest and potentially into a civil war down the road. Enough other countries have gone down that road to project what it would be likely to happen then. And it isn't pretty.
Everything that I've said is part of an argument about how to best respond to the potential for extremism. None of it legitimizes extremism or extremist positions.
"But having been on the receiving end of a liberal conspiracy to censor information which might be supportive of Trump, it was easier for them to take everything that Trump said to its illogical extremes."
Yeah... this is what I'm talking about when I say legitimizing. And hiding it in everything else you wrote doesn't make me not see your point. Clearly the opposite is going on.
Yeah... this is what I'm talking about when I say legitimizing. And hiding it in everything else you wrote doesn't make me not see your point. Clearly the opposite is going on.
You seem to be assuming bad faith. And then seize on anything you object to as a gotcha to disregard everything else.
That's a dishonest and unproductive approach to conversation. So I'm not going to bother with you for much longer.
But I'll address the point you objected to. In 2020, a whole infrastructure was created across multiple organizations to fight misinformation. Their method was to pick topics, create fact checks, and then proactively hunt down and block misinformation and those who posted it. The existence of this infrastructure and its intended goals can be confirmed from a variety of sources, across the political spectrum.
As soon as it was created, it became a natural target for anyone who wished to manipulate things for political purposes. And it was quickly so used. For example see https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2021/06/the-lab-leak-theory-... for how Peter Damask managed to use it to suppress the lab leak story for about a year.
Now, as you'll undoubtably agree, Trump is a propaganda machine for whom lying is as natural as breathing. As a result the fact checking machine developed a knee-jerk response of fighting back against anything Trump had to say. But a stopped clock is still right 2x a day. And when Trump was actually right (eg kids don't spread COVID, Hunter Biden's laptop), the fact checking engine still classified his claims as misinformation, and still worked to suppress it.
But the problem is that when you tell people something that they can verify to be a lie, they will see EVERYTHING you see as a potential lie. And now it doesn't matter how often you tell them that X is a lie - they won't believe you. Which becomes a real problem when X actually is a lie.
Which brings us to our current situation. Somewhere around 40% of the USA currently believes that the 2020 election was stolen, and also have learned to distrust all of the news sources that could properly inform them. Obviously primary responsibility for this situation rests with Trump. But he wouldn't have succeeded so well without actions taken by groups including social media and mainstream media organizations that made his lies seem more plausible to his target audience. And it is those actions that I object to - exactly because they have helped fuel a politics-over-truth narrative on BOTH sides that I fear will lead to a really bad outcome in the end.
That's a dishonest and unproductive approach to conversation. So I'm not going to bother with you for much longer.
But I'll address the point you objected to. In 2020, a whole infrastructure was created across multiple organizations to fight misinformation. Their method was to pick topics, create fact checks, and then proactively hunt down and block misinformation and those who posted it. The existence of this infrastructure and its intended goals can be confirmed from a variety of sources, across the political spectrum.
As soon as it was created, it became a natural target for anyone who wished to manipulate things for political purposes. And it was quickly so used. For example see https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2021/06/the-lab-leak-theory-... for how Peter Damask managed to use it to suppress the lab leak story for about a year.
Now, as you'll undoubtably agree, Trump is a propaganda machine for whom lying is as natural as breathing. As a result the fact checking machine developed a knee-jerk response of fighting back against anything Trump had to say. But a stopped clock is still right 2x a day. And when Trump was actually right (eg kids don't spread COVID, Hunter Biden's laptop), the fact checking engine still classified his claims as misinformation, and still worked to suppress it.
But the problem is that when you tell people something that they can verify to be a lie, they will see EVERYTHING you see as a potential lie. And now it doesn't matter how often you tell them that X is a lie - they won't believe you. Which becomes a real problem when X actually is a lie.
Which brings us to our current situation. Somewhere around 40% of the USA currently believes that the 2020 election was stolen, and also have learned to distrust all of the news sources that could properly inform them. Obviously primary responsibility for this situation rests with Trump. But he wouldn't have succeeded so well without actions taken by groups including social media and mainstream media organizations that made his lies seem more plausible to his target audience. And it is those actions that I object to - exactly because they have helped fuel a politics-over-truth narrative on BOTH sides that I fear will lead to a really bad outcome in the end.
"You seem to be assuming bad faith. And then seize on anything you object to as a gotcha to disregard everything else."
How can you take me to assume bad faith, when I quite clearly assume you in good faith meant exactly what you wrote? What about my post indicates I think you are in bad faith? This is literally the exact opposite of what bad faith means.
>In 2020, a whole infrastructure was created across multiple organizations to fight misinformation. Their method was to pick topics, create fact checks, and then proactively hunt down and block misinformation and those who posted it. The existence of this infrastructure and its intended goals can be confirmed from a variety of sources, across the political spectrum.
Weird, I don't see the words "censorship" or "right wing" here... yet it's how you describe it later. This part I agree with, I don't agree with the rest of your characterization and I think it legitimizes what is an otherwise completely made-up grievance phenomenon of not liking it when people disagree with you. The irony of course being, this is exactly what you accused me of doing.
You don't seem to get the point that I'm making, which is that we don't make policy around boogymen. So you can describe the boogeyman phenomena any way you want. It fundamentally does not change the fact that its a boogeyman and we shouldn't be shaping society around feelings of boogeymen. But of course you didn't just disagree with that, you were rude and presumptive and pejorative to me.
How can you take me to assume bad faith, when I quite clearly assume you in good faith meant exactly what you wrote? What about my post indicates I think you are in bad faith? This is literally the exact opposite of what bad faith means.
>In 2020, a whole infrastructure was created across multiple organizations to fight misinformation. Their method was to pick topics, create fact checks, and then proactively hunt down and block misinformation and those who posted it. The existence of this infrastructure and its intended goals can be confirmed from a variety of sources, across the political spectrum.
Weird, I don't see the words "censorship" or "right wing" here... yet it's how you describe it later. This part I agree with, I don't agree with the rest of your characterization and I think it legitimizes what is an otherwise completely made-up grievance phenomenon of not liking it when people disagree with you. The irony of course being, this is exactly what you accused me of doing.
You don't seem to get the point that I'm making, which is that we don't make policy around boogymen. So you can describe the boogeyman phenomena any way you want. It fundamentally does not change the fact that its a boogeyman and we shouldn't be shaping society around feelings of boogeymen. But of course you didn't just disagree with that, you were rude and presumptive and pejorative to me.
I just looked back at this thread and realized I never responded.
The reason why I say you are assuming bad faith is that you continually cherrypicked items to assert that I'm legitimizing extremists that I oppose. And therefore disregard anything that I have to say about strategies to reduce extremism.
To the contrary not only do you continue to assert that I'm "legitimizing" them, you dismiss my concerns as "boogeymen". Which is one of many ways that your complaining that I've been rude and presumptive and pejorative to you looks to me like the pot calling the kettle black.
Now to the facts. You agree with the fact that there was an infrastructure created across multiple organizations to fight misinformation. But here are key points that I think you are not considering.
First, those organizations overwhelmingly lean left. For example look at https://www.vox.com/2015/9/29/9411117/silicon-valley-politic.... They do not fit perfectly within the Democratic party, but they generally have an overwhelming preference for Democrats over Republicans.
Second, the infrastructure created to fight misinformation WAS a method of censorship. Whether it is reducing reach (eg by shadowbanning), blocking links, or deplatforming people, all of the available tools are tools of censorship. Just intended for a good purpose.
Third, its actions were not politically neutral. Obviously, if mostly left-wing people censor mostly right wing misinformation, this puts a thumb on the ideological scale. Likewise most of the mistakes will show the same bias. We more easily notice what is wrong with what we politically oppose than what we politically support.
Fourth, not all involved acted in good faith. This is clearly seen in the Twitter Files. Political activists on the left and right immediately recognized that there was a useful tool to manipulate here. Given existing ideological biases, political activists on the left were more successful in doing so. The whole Hamilton 68 debacle demonstrates how easily a left-wing disinformation narrative was able to get widely reported and had tremendous influence despite the fact that Twitter internally knew it to be disinformation.
And now we get to the most important point to me. Media like the NY Times like to think of themselves as a neutral arbiter of truth. By their own actions, they aren't. And to the extent that they have an obvious and demonstrable bias, they SHOULD be distrusted by those that they are biased against.
It is true that the main alternatives are objectively less trustworthy. But NOBODY can be trusted here. And that is a problem.
The reason why I say you are assuming bad faith is that you continually cherrypicked items to assert that I'm legitimizing extremists that I oppose. And therefore disregard anything that I have to say about strategies to reduce extremism.
To the contrary not only do you continue to assert that I'm "legitimizing" them, you dismiss my concerns as "boogeymen". Which is one of many ways that your complaining that I've been rude and presumptive and pejorative to you looks to me like the pot calling the kettle black.
Now to the facts. You agree with the fact that there was an infrastructure created across multiple organizations to fight misinformation. But here are key points that I think you are not considering.
First, those organizations overwhelmingly lean left. For example look at https://www.vox.com/2015/9/29/9411117/silicon-valley-politic.... They do not fit perfectly within the Democratic party, but they generally have an overwhelming preference for Democrats over Republicans.
Second, the infrastructure created to fight misinformation WAS a method of censorship. Whether it is reducing reach (eg by shadowbanning), blocking links, or deplatforming people, all of the available tools are tools of censorship. Just intended for a good purpose.
Third, its actions were not politically neutral. Obviously, if mostly left-wing people censor mostly right wing misinformation, this puts a thumb on the ideological scale. Likewise most of the mistakes will show the same bias. We more easily notice what is wrong with what we politically oppose than what we politically support.
Fourth, not all involved acted in good faith. This is clearly seen in the Twitter Files. Political activists on the left and right immediately recognized that there was a useful tool to manipulate here. Given existing ideological biases, political activists on the left were more successful in doing so. The whole Hamilton 68 debacle demonstrates how easily a left-wing disinformation narrative was able to get widely reported and had tremendous influence despite the fact that Twitter internally knew it to be disinformation.
And now we get to the most important point to me. Media like the NY Times like to think of themselves as a neutral arbiter of truth. By their own actions, they aren't. And to the extent that they have an obvious and demonstrable bias, they SHOULD be distrusted by those that they are biased against.
It is true that the main alternatives are objectively less trustworthy. But NOBODY can be trusted here. And that is a problem.
@a4isms We probably just have very different streams, based on who we follow and what they retweet, etc. I follow a very small amount of strictly business / technology / economy as technical topics and cull if they strayed from that (as it was my intended use). I don't see the more broad universe of content many see on Twitter due to that curation.
While relying on unchecked assumptions about what those views are. EDS = Elon Derangement Syndrome.
Well, he is definitely upsetting some (many) people. But, at the same time, he is getting the new set of people as users. In the last few years, I would not touch Twitter with a ten-foot pole. Mostly because, I could no longer assess the provenance of the posts and the authenticity of their rankings. Is this post popular/important or is this post was put into my stream by Twitter/other entities in order to influence me? I don't like being manipulated so brazenly.
Now, with the new management, I find myself going to Twitter more and more often. I disagree with many posts and I do not like many posts, but now, I could have some assurance that I am getting an authentic information.
Now, with the new management, I find myself going to Twitter more and more often. I disagree with many posts and I do not like many posts, but now, I could have some assurance that I am getting an authentic information.
> Mostly because, I could no longer assess the provenance of the posts and the authenticity of their rankings.
How are you doing that now?
> Is this post popular/important or is this post was put into my stream by Twitter/other entities in order to influence me? I don't like being manipulated so brazenly.
Bad news: Musk is doing plenty of that. https://www.theverge.com/2023/2/14/23600358/elon-musk-tweets...
How are you doing that now?
> Is this post popular/important or is this post was put into my stream by Twitter/other entities in order to influence me? I don't like being manipulated so brazenly.
Bad news: Musk is doing plenty of that. https://www.theverge.com/2023/2/14/23600358/elon-musk-tweets...
I'm curious why you think Twitter is suddenly authentic and non-manipulative? If anything, it seems worse -- less news more hate.
It feels like a wasteland. But then the tech accounts all left for mastodon. All I am left with is weird cycle rage cringe. That I try so desperately to not interact with.
Over on Japanese Twitter, the sudden shift in the kinds of post getting recommended pre- and post- Musk layoffs were undeniable. No longer were political posts the recommendations, but rather cultural posts such as those concerning games, anime, and manga among others.
Most of the Japanese user base welcomed the change, amazed at just how much manipulation Twitter Japan was (or is) doing behind the scenes.
Most of the Japanese user base welcomed the change, amazed at just how much manipulation Twitter Japan was (or is) doing behind the scenes.
Twitter had de facto commissars in every region that coordinated with their contacts at various activist networks to ensure everyone was coordinated. Musk broke that wheel.
Twitter in the USA is noticeably better too. A few people left but no one cares. So many more interesting voices have been raised.
Twitter in the USA is noticeably better too. A few people left but no one cares. So many more interesting voices have been raised.
I deleted my Twitter account long before Musk took over it because Twitter has always been a outrage capital.
I’m not sure why it is now fashionable to see many techies here scream about it now after tolerating the years of garbage that has proliferated on the site. It is likely has something to do with the layoffs which can cause many to become highly emotional of all their reasoning.
The network effect of 220M+ users do not care and are still sitting on the platform as predicted with the alternatives failing to challenge Twitter and failing to surpass Twitter at all.
I’m not sure why it is now fashionable to see many techies here scream about it now after tolerating the years of garbage that has proliferated on the site. It is likely has something to do with the layoffs which can cause many to become highly emotional of all their reasoning.
The network effect of 220M+ users do not care and are still sitting on the platform as predicted with the alternatives failing to challenge Twitter and failing to surpass Twitter at all.
>It is likely has something to do with the layoffs which can cause many to become highly emotional of all their reasoning.
It's just the pendulum finally swinging the other way (as was foretold) and the people concerned becoming appalled with the realization they now have to drink their own kool-aid.
It's not unlike what happened when journalists, who told people who lost their jobs to go and "learn to code", were told to go and "learn to code" when they in turn lost their jobs.
Basically, these people can dish out but can't take.
Any smart bystander who witnesses these things would do well to take away the need for prudence in one's statements and desires. The pendulum swings with absolute apathy.
It's just the pendulum finally swinging the other way (as was foretold) and the people concerned becoming appalled with the realization they now have to drink their own kool-aid.
It's not unlike what happened when journalists, who told people who lost their jobs to go and "learn to code", were told to go and "learn to code" when they in turn lost their jobs.
Basically, these people can dish out but can't take.
Any smart bystander who witnesses these things would do well to take away the need for prudence in one's statements and desires. The pendulum swings with absolute apathy.
> but now, I could have some assurance that I am getting an authentic information
How ? And how is this different than before ?
How ? And how is this different than before ?
I've fallen back to mostly just using the Recent (Following) tab, which means I miss a lot, but at least it's mostly relevant. I'll often search on a topic that I see on my youtube channels that I want to dig into.
My biggest complaint, is that even paying for it, you still see (a lot og) ads... I'd be happier paying for it, and getting no ads than the blue checkmark. Also, the UX on the post delay/edit with blue is annoying as hell.
My biggest complaint, is that even paying for it, you still see (a lot og) ads... I'd be happier paying for it, and getting no ads than the blue checkmark. Also, the UX on the post delay/edit with blue is annoying as hell.
In what way is Elon Musk not brazenly manipulating Twitter? It's certainly a different flavor of manipulation, but his management certainly isn't a great counterexample.
That would make sense, if you had your pants and shirt on backward.
Musk has introduced several high profile changes to corrupt "the authenticity of their rankings" - what on earth are you talking about regarding "authentic information" given the person running the place is a known and repeated liar, whose lied directly about his management decisions regarding the property you've mostly recently started liking?
Seriously, what?
Musk has introduced several high profile changes to corrupt "the authenticity of their rankings" - what on earth are you talking about regarding "authentic information" given the person running the place is a known and repeated liar, whose lied directly about his management decisions regarding the property you've mostly recently started liking?
Seriously, what?
Could you please stop posting in the flamewar style to HN? You've unfortunately been doing it repeatedly. It's not what this site is for, and destroys what it is for.
If you wouldn't mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and taking the intended spirit of the site more to heart, we'd be grateful.
Personal attacks and swipes are particularly unwelcome, so please make sure to edit those out of your comments if any do make it in.
If you wouldn't mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and taking the intended spirit of the site more to heart, we'd be grateful.
Personal attacks and swipes are particularly unwelcome, so please make sure to edit those out of your comments if any do make it in.
Please refrain from directly attacking other HN users - it does not contribute to discussion. The guidelines can be found here: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
As for the content of your post, users who have subscribed to Twitter Blue are more likely to be engaged with and invested in the platform, leading to wanting it to succeed. The additional verification markers for businesses also helps.
As for the content of your post, users who have subscribed to Twitter Blue are more likely to be engaged with and invested in the platform, leading to wanting it to succeed. The additional verification markers for businesses also helps.
> users who have subscribed to Twitter Blue are more likely to be engaged with and invested in the platform, leading to wanting it to succeed
Superfans are less credible/trustworthy, not more.
Superfans are less credible/trustworthy, not more.
Agree to disagree then. If I had the money to subscribe, then I'm monetarily invested in the content and the platform as whole - otherwise I have the market power to withdraw my subscription and make that known to the service.
This is hilarious, Elon Musk himself spreads random nonsense such as the rumours about Nancy Pelosi's husband's lover.
Looking at Notes, I get why Elon is so mad about it. They totally ripped off the Twitter UI.
I follow Ed Zitron's Substack, and he is also a prolific Tweeter. He seems to be using Notes the same way he uses Twitter, for shitposting. I'm not sure that's really in line with the tone of Substack.
I follow Ed Zitron's Substack, and he is also a prolific Tweeter. He seems to be using Notes the same way he uses Twitter, for shitposting. I'm not sure that's really in line with the tone of Substack.
And it s not like twitter has some kind of optimal design. The heart button in the middle is bad for my fingers! the left sidebar is useless and search sucks. Both of these services should try to make good work instead of copying each other
I actually thought that a newsfeed would be a good fit for substack, but looking at this i dont think i m going to use it. It should be simpler, a timeline of things i ve subscribed, with some threaded, sane comments. The medium shapes the message, and twitter's medium is just not a good fit for substack's message
I actually thought that a newsfeed would be a good fit for substack, but looking at this i dont think i m going to use it. It should be simpler, a timeline of things i ve subscribed, with some threaded, sane comments. The medium shapes the message, and twitter's medium is just not a good fit for substack's message
> they totally ripped off the Twitter UI
I wasn't aware of any IP protection of Twitter's UI, which in one form or another has been done 100's of times.
I wasn't aware of any IP protection of Twitter's UI, which in one form or another has been done 100's of times.
I didn't claim there was IP infringement. IG & lots of other companies stole the stories format from Snap. Makes it easier for users who recognize the ui, but it's still got to be galling.
>IG & lots of other companies stole the stores from Snap.
I've been saying it since Twitter launched, but Twitter was/is just some folks stealing Facebook's status update.
I've been saying it since Twitter launched, but Twitter was/is just some folks stealing Facebook's status update.
I remember both MySpace and Facebook status updates actually being a copy of Twitter style updates. I don't think Facebook even had status updates as we know it today when Twitter released.
Why? It's just a UI for something where there aren't many alternative ways to present it. Timeline, follower, following. That's it. The rest is styling and that is even less relevant.
GitLab initially copied GitHub’s UI, virtually identically, and the CEO advertised GitLab in every thread that involved GH for over a year. It didn’t seem that many people on HN cared, because GitLab was “open source” and ethics didn’t apply.
Why would you use this twitter clone when the original has way more interesting content?
May be I'm old, but I love long form content and twitter took that away. People write long tweet threads instead of thinking things through and writing it in long form. This gives rise to tons of twitter thread collapsing tools/startups that push the concatenation of these tweets to Notion or whatever. This seems utterly silly to me. It almost looks like tech for the sake of tech. It's unfortunate that substack is going in the same direction. Are there no better problems to solve using tech?
Substack is great for subscription long form content already. It is reliant on Twitter on creating a network for information distribution and curation, though. I don't think Substack is attempting to be more like Twitter - I think Substack needs something like Twitter to sustain the long-form subscription content and this is a defensive move to make sure that Twitter's ongoing collapse doesn't take them out, too.
You still don't see many people using long tweets which is good. I used to despise seeing tweet threads starting with [1/20] for years but Twitter integrating their Threader acquisition via "reader mode" which turns multi-tweet threads into a single page like a blog post really helped solved the UI issue with that (blue feature) but I still tend to avoid threads.
Compare the two homepages without cookies [1][2]. The rounded buttons in orange instead of Twitter-blue. The footer nagbar. The similar navigation menu.
Following the whole banning-saga my impression was that Notes was a genuine extension of the Substack platform, but it being a frontend clone explains why such a tantrum was thrown by Musk.
[1] https://twitter.com/
[2] https://substack.com/notes
Following the whole banning-saga my impression was that Notes was a genuine extension of the Substack platform, but it being a frontend clone explains why such a tantrum was thrown by Musk.
[1] https://twitter.com/
[2] https://substack.com/notes
I wasn't able to see the Substack design until I hacked away at the obtrusive signup wall.
Here's a side-by-side comparison for anyone that doesn't want to go through the same process:
https://i.imgur.com/On0RZG8.png
Here's a side-by-side comparison for anyone that doesn't want to go through the same process:
https://i.imgur.com/On0RZG8.png
Strikingly similar, but so are most websites anyway.
If you sign in to twitter the sidebar becomes almost identical
Seems just like one of the many cookie-cutter Twitter clones out there. I don't think people would even be talking about Substack Notes had it not been for Musk's tantrum.
Competitors are refining their Musk Tantrum Inducer algorithms to better market their products.
I'm not saying Twitter front end is that hard to clone, but I wonder how many ex-twitter employees are at Substack now working on Notes.
Is there any way to access Substack Notes without an account?
This is just what 95% of websites look like these days, they both could be demo pages from the react or angular doc's.
The fact that Musk is known to be thin-skinned and prone to internet outbursts explains why he threw such a tantrum.
The fact that Musk is known to be thin-skinned and prone to internet outbursts explains why he threw such a tantrum.
This is a case where an algorithmic feed would make this into a truly amazing product.
I don't want email spam from every follower, but do want to see the best snippets on substack.
Super easy to create a for you page, given text content:
Step 1: embed every article I ever read, or note I liked/comment/share and stuff it in a DB.
Step 2: every time a new note is posted (by anyone anywhere), embed it, search the db for my last 100 embedded items, and see if new note has relevance > 50%. If so, add it to my feed inventory. Resort my feed inventory by semantic relevance every hour. Remove items older than 7 days from feed inventory every hour.
Step 3: On page load, move everything in my feed inventory to my feed archive - never rerank again. (Bonus points for tracking note level views rather than assuming all were viewed, but small detail).
Bonus Step 4: Every 4th item in my feed inventory, intersperse something that's solely there based on popularity/top liked note of all notes visible to all of my followings. i.e., show me something possibly irrelevant but viral.
That'll get you pretty far, each step can be endlessly optimized over time.
I want to see the results of this so bad that I'll volunteer to build v1 this weekend if you really don't have time to do it internally. Tiktok for text... could be amazing.
I don't want email spam from every follower, but do want to see the best snippets on substack.
Super easy to create a for you page, given text content:
Step 1: embed every article I ever read, or note I liked/comment/share and stuff it in a DB.
Step 2: every time a new note is posted (by anyone anywhere), embed it, search the db for my last 100 embedded items, and see if new note has relevance > 50%. If so, add it to my feed inventory. Resort my feed inventory by semantic relevance every hour. Remove items older than 7 days from feed inventory every hour.
Step 3: On page load, move everything in my feed inventory to my feed archive - never rerank again. (Bonus points for tracking note level views rather than assuming all were viewed, but small detail).
Bonus Step 4: Every 4th item in my feed inventory, intersperse something that's solely there based on popularity/top liked note of all notes visible to all of my followings. i.e., show me something possibly irrelevant but viral.
That'll get you pretty far, each step can be endlessly optimized over time.
I want to see the results of this so bad that I'll volunteer to build v1 this weekend if you really don't have time to do it internally. Tiktok for text... could be amazing.
> This is a case where an algorithmic feed would make this into a truly amazing product.
how many platforms need to be ruined by an algorithmic feed before people understand that its a terrible idea?
how many platforms need to be ruined by an algorithmic feed before people understand that its a terrible idea?
The terrible idea is only having an algorithmic feed. If you always offer the user the option to not use it and instead have a feed they can control, then it’s a non issue
Algorithmic feeds generate more user engagement, that is what they are for. That's why platforms built around following updates from people that you like can't help themselves but implement them.
This would be much more interesting to me if it was a member of the Fediverse and supported ActivityPub.
Agreed. I commented this on the announcement thread, but there's so much... Bluesky, T2, Hive, Post, now this. I'm not gonna jump to a new microblogging platform when 10% of my friends are on one, 10% on another.
If you are making a twitter clone, AP is the only way to go
If you are making a twitter clone, AP is the only way to go
I don't understand why providing and consuming RSS/Atom is so problematic the technical headaches couldn't be overcome...
please no. Substack Notes is a self-quarantine zone for the kind of self-promoting Twitter users who viewed the site as a place for them to engage an audience. despite its many, many faults, at least the Fediverse has real people hanging out and chatting with each other.
How would this be better than Mastodon? (Really asking, I only ever tried Mastodon for a bit.)
Mastodon lacks personalized sorting in its news feed as well as account-to-follow recommendations. A news feed that is strictly organized in chronological order becomes unusable when users follow more than 100 accounts. This can only be solved by having a centralized services like Substack.
I've been checking out Notes all morning (I write a jargon-free, FOMO-free, AI newsletter). It's kind of a weird product launch? My feed is primarily content that the people I subscribe to post or comment on, but I don't subscribe to that many people.
I'm not sure what the average number of subscriptions a Substack user has, but it seems like a very echo-chambery setup right now. As an author there are definitely things that I want to share that aren't worth of an email, but I'm pretty sure very few of my audience members are going to see it. Maybe this makes more sense for writers with audiences who are on the Substack app all day.
I'm not sure what the average number of subscriptions a Substack user has, but it seems like a very echo-chambery setup right now. As an author there are definitely things that I want to share that aren't worth of an email, but I'm pretty sure very few of my audience members are going to see it. Maybe this makes more sense for writers with audiences who are on the Substack app all day.
Completely agree with this. This is basically the perfect formula for creating mini echo-chambers. If Substack wants to make this a real competitor to Twitter, it needs to have the "two feed" set up that both TikTok and Twitter have: a feed for algorithm-based recommendations and a feed solely for people that the user follows. They also need to make it so that you can follow someone's notes without also following their newsletter.
Since when did "ignoring-shit-I-didn't-subscribe-to" become a "formula for creating mini echo-chambers"
Is my email inbox an echo chamber because I don't get random newsletters from political activists?
Is my email inbox an echo chamber because I don't get random newsletters from political activists?
Your email inbox isn't an echo chamber because it's not a social platform.
According to this research study, these are the two main ingredients: 1) Homophily in the interaction networks 2) Bias in the information diffusion toward like-minded peers https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2023301118
Substack Notes is their way to venture into the social platform realm, which differs from the personal email inbox model, which isn't a social platform. With that in mind, for ingredient #1: people can only see notes from people they follow. People will overwhelmingly only follow people that align with their ideas/political leanings/beliefs. This creates the homophily in interaction networks. For #2, users can easily share biased information to their like-minded peers without pushback/opposing views since their social network is comprised of people with the same viewpoints.
To be clear, algorithms can definitely create echo chambers as well but ideally an algorithm based feed will promote discourse and dialogue about ideas.
An anecdote: I follow quite a few people on TikTok that post about housing policy in NYC. TikTok's algorithm exposes these videos to people with varying viewpoints, which creates a ton of dialogue on proposed solutions and pushback on ideas that could potentially harm certain demographics/historical areas, etc. This pushback is very important but is only possible when there is a chance for those with opposing views to discover it, which means there needs to be an algorithmic recommendation feature.
If TikTok had no FYP and instead people could only watch videos from people they follow, this would create a closed loop system and those opposing views for housing policy would not be nearly as prevalent.
According to this research study, these are the two main ingredients: 1) Homophily in the interaction networks 2) Bias in the information diffusion toward like-minded peers https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2023301118
Substack Notes is their way to venture into the social platform realm, which differs from the personal email inbox model, which isn't a social platform. With that in mind, for ingredient #1: people can only see notes from people they follow. People will overwhelmingly only follow people that align with their ideas/political leanings/beliefs. This creates the homophily in interaction networks. For #2, users can easily share biased information to their like-minded peers without pushback/opposing views since their social network is comprised of people with the same viewpoints.
To be clear, algorithms can definitely create echo chambers as well but ideally an algorithm based feed will promote discourse and dialogue about ideas.
An anecdote: I follow quite a few people on TikTok that post about housing policy in NYC. TikTok's algorithm exposes these videos to people with varying viewpoints, which creates a ton of dialogue on proposed solutions and pushback on ideas that could potentially harm certain demographics/historical areas, etc. This pushback is very important but is only possible when there is a chance for those with opposing views to discover it, which means there needs to be an algorithmic recommendation feature.
If TikTok had no FYP and instead people could only watch videos from people they follow, this would create a closed loop system and those opposing views for housing policy would not be nearly as prevalent.
> because it's not a social platform.
Is that what people actually want? To be algorithmiclly fed content from strangers? Why is this the imputed ideal?
> but ideally an algorithm based feed will promote discourse and dialogue about ideas.
Is there any evidence that this is true or should be an expectation? Is that really why billions of dollars are spent on this space?
Is that what people actually want? To be algorithmiclly fed content from strangers? Why is this the imputed ideal?
> but ideally an algorithm based feed will promote discourse and dialogue about ideas.
Is there any evidence that this is true or should be an expectation? Is that really why billions of dollars are spent on this space?
> Is that what people actually want? To be algorithmiclly fed content from strangers? Why is this the imputed ideal?
I never made the argument that it's the imputed ideal. Rather, my point is that in the context of a social platform, having an option for an algorithmic feed leads to other people with opposing views to discover the content and have dialogue about it/contest that viewpoint. Otherwise, it's a closed loop system that contains only like-minded viewpoints that can lead to an echo chamber. How do we prevent echo chambers from forming? Well, the most straightforward option is to introduce opposing viewpoints. How do we introduce opposing viewpoints? Well the people with opposing viewpoints need to be able to discover the content - so it needs to be shown to them somehow. The best way to do that (right now at least) is through an algorithmic recommendation engine.
> Is there any evidence that this is true or should be an expectation? Is that really why billions of dollars are spent on this space?
That's why I said "ideally". There's huge differences in algorithms for all the major social platforms. Algorithms can easily be used to make echo chambers worse, but algorithms can also be used to reduce echo chambers on a platform. To your point, that's why billions of dollars are spent on this because it's a complicated problem. One thing is a fact though, dissenting opinions create engagement and keeps people on the platform. If you responded to my comment and said "I agree with you", I wouldn't be commenting here right now and back on Hackernews. Most social platforms take advantage of this feature of our human psyche to get people to stay on the platform to then show them more ads and drive more ad revenue. That's why engagement is such a critical factor in social media algorithms and also has the unintended consequence of promoting controversial content - because it receives the most engagement. Which goes back to the need of having an algorithm that can balance reducing echo chambers by showing the content to others with dissenting opinions without unintentionally promoting only the most controversial content because it has the highest engagement. There's really no easy answer to this and again, that's why they spend billions like you said.
I never made the argument that it's the imputed ideal. Rather, my point is that in the context of a social platform, having an option for an algorithmic feed leads to other people with opposing views to discover the content and have dialogue about it/contest that viewpoint. Otherwise, it's a closed loop system that contains only like-minded viewpoints that can lead to an echo chamber. How do we prevent echo chambers from forming? Well, the most straightforward option is to introduce opposing viewpoints. How do we introduce opposing viewpoints? Well the people with opposing viewpoints need to be able to discover the content - so it needs to be shown to them somehow. The best way to do that (right now at least) is through an algorithmic recommendation engine.
> Is there any evidence that this is true or should be an expectation? Is that really why billions of dollars are spent on this space?
That's why I said "ideally". There's huge differences in algorithms for all the major social platforms. Algorithms can easily be used to make echo chambers worse, but algorithms can also be used to reduce echo chambers on a platform. To your point, that's why billions of dollars are spent on this because it's a complicated problem. One thing is a fact though, dissenting opinions create engagement and keeps people on the platform. If you responded to my comment and said "I agree with you", I wouldn't be commenting here right now and back on Hackernews. Most social platforms take advantage of this feature of our human psyche to get people to stay on the platform to then show them more ads and drive more ad revenue. That's why engagement is such a critical factor in social media algorithms and also has the unintended consequence of promoting controversial content - because it receives the most engagement. Which goes back to the need of having an algorithm that can balance reducing echo chambers by showing the content to others with dissenting opinions without unintentionally promoting only the most controversial content because it has the highest engagement. There's really no easy answer to this and again, that's why they spend billions like you said.
> Is there any evidence that this is true or should be an expectation? Is that really why billions of dollars are spent on this space?
Yes. If people only used social media to connect/follow people they know the industry would be making nothing.
Yes. If people only used social media to connect/follow people they know the industry would be making nothing.
This only makes sense if you assume large national conglomerates are the norm. If they weren't, then the industry could make _plenty_ of money off a much larger base of small to medium businesses advertising to local citizens.
Substack really competes with creators leaving and setting up their own newsletter + payment gateway software. That’s like a $20,000 or so project from a web dev firm and for a creator who gets $200,000 a year from their newsletter it pays for itself in a year. The trouble is that substack makes almost all of its money from two handfuls of users who make more than that so if substack loses those creators it is left with all the expenses but none of the revenue.
The question about any feature they add is “what does it do about that situation?”
The question about any feature they add is “what does it do about that situation?”
This is similar to the "Amazon problem," where manufacturers can earn a higher margin by selling direct.
>The question about any feature they add is “what does it do about that situation?”
The answer is the same in the cases of Amazon & Substack: generating sales isn't free, and in all likelihood the platform can do it cheaper than you can. Take the $200k writer who pays $20k to Substack annually. Either Substack can generate 166 subscriptions ($10/mo) annually so it's worth the money, or you move. (That's almost correct: if you are a writer, it may be worth it to you to let Substack continue to own this piece so that you don't have to run a business. There's a lot of value in being able to focus on thinking and writing and not SEO and ad placement.)
>The question about any feature they add is “what does it do about that situation?”
The answer is the same in the cases of Amazon & Substack: generating sales isn't free, and in all likelihood the platform can do it cheaper than you can. Take the $200k writer who pays $20k to Substack annually. Either Substack can generate 166 subscriptions ($10/mo) annually so it's worth the money, or you move. (That's almost correct: if you are a writer, it may be worth it to you to let Substack continue to own this piece so that you don't have to run a business. There's a lot of value in being able to focus on thinking and writing and not SEO and ad placement.)
I've seen people trying to compare Amazon to Substack, but it doesn't add up for me.
One Substack "generates" the sale, transferring the relationship to your own site feels cheap.
It's like if Amazon stopped selling New Yorker subscriptions. If I actually gave a crap about the NYer subscription I was paying for, I'd find some other way to pay for it. Amazon [Substack] is a commodity in this vertical.
Of course, the people who didn't care about your subscription because they never read it would disappear. But, they were going to churn eventually. I imagine if you amortize over a year, this marginal loss is less than the diff between Substack's take rate and operating your own blog + newsletter.
---
Acting rationally from an economic point of view, the only reason you'd want to stick around on Substack is that you think this equation holds true:
(Future subscriber base on Substack * (monthly rate - Substack fee)) > (Future subscriber base as an independent * (monthly rate - cc transaction fees)).
For "young" writers who don't yet have an audience, Substack helps a lot. But if you have a well-developed audience, IDK, I imagine Substack must view them as big flight risks (hence the advance payments).
Some substantial things Substack can do to make this equation more favorable:
- Give you free (or low-fee) marketing on substack properties (note this is a zero sum game over ad inventory, choosing to give you ad space means choosing to not give it to others. this is a hard game to solve, but they can probably do it).
- Reduce their take rate for mature audiences.
IMO, their current model doesn't make a lot of sense if you're somebody with a large audience. Especially now that we're out of ZIRP and they can't afford to sweeten the deal as much anymore.
One Substack "generates" the sale, transferring the relationship to your own site feels cheap.
It's like if Amazon stopped selling New Yorker subscriptions. If I actually gave a crap about the NYer subscription I was paying for, I'd find some other way to pay for it. Amazon [Substack] is a commodity in this vertical.
Of course, the people who didn't care about your subscription because they never read it would disappear. But, they were going to churn eventually. I imagine if you amortize over a year, this marginal loss is less than the diff between Substack's take rate and operating your own blog + newsletter.
---
Acting rationally from an economic point of view, the only reason you'd want to stick around on Substack is that you think this equation holds true:
(Future subscriber base on Substack * (monthly rate - Substack fee)) > (Future subscriber base as an independent * (monthly rate - cc transaction fees)).
For "young" writers who don't yet have an audience, Substack helps a lot. But if you have a well-developed audience, IDK, I imagine Substack must view them as big flight risks (hence the advance payments).
Some substantial things Substack can do to make this equation more favorable:
- Give you free (or low-fee) marketing on substack properties (note this is a zero sum game over ad inventory, choosing to give you ad space means choosing to not give it to others. this is a hard game to solve, but they can probably do it).
- Reduce their take rate for mature audiences.
IMO, their current model doesn't make a lot of sense if you're somebody with a large audience. Especially now that we're out of ZIRP and they can't afford to sweeten the deal as much anymore.
It's an interesting case.
So far the superstars of Substack (say Matt Taibbi) were superstars before Substack and promote Substack as opposed to the other way around.
Substack competes with traditional journalism, which delivers more journalism per dollar than the typical Substack but is based around the strength of the brand of The Guardian or The Economist as opposed to that of the individual journalist. From the viewpoint of the journalist the newspaper is an aggregator that is doing their marketing work for them.
Substack also competes with Medium which plausibly claims to be doing promotional work for its authors, but despite claiming to be a place which is a little bit better than the rest of the web it's actually a place that is a little worse than the rest of the web and isn't making significant amounts of money for anyone.
So far the superstars of Substack (say Matt Taibbi) were superstars before Substack and promote Substack as opposed to the other way around.
Substack competes with traditional journalism, which delivers more journalism per dollar than the typical Substack but is based around the strength of the brand of The Guardian or The Economist as opposed to that of the individual journalist. From the viewpoint of the journalist the newspaper is an aggregator that is doing their marketing work for them.
Substack also competes with Medium which plausibly claims to be doing promotional work for its authors, but despite claiming to be a place which is a little bit better than the rest of the web it's actually a place that is a little worse than the rest of the web and isn't making significant amounts of money for anyone.
I mean look at Patreon that basically exist as 100% overhead over just a Paypal account. They're doing fine. They demonstrated that convenient cash transactions for digital subscriptions is a viable business model.
I mean, youtube had half the internet complaining "I wish that link was text and not a video" and the other half complaining "I wish it was as easy to monetize writing as it was to monetize video" and Substack saw the obvious solution.
Most creatives don't want to run a business, they want to create.
I mean, youtube had half the internet complaining "I wish that link was text and not a video" and the other half complaining "I wish it was as easy to monetize writing as it was to monetize video" and Substack saw the obvious solution.
Most creatives don't want to run a business, they want to create.
That's a good comparison.
I know a warvlogger, however, who is still active on YouTube but moved to Patreon because he felt constrained about what he could post on YouTube who left Patreon because Patreon kicked out all warvloggers, now he has his own members-only website.
Another example is OnlyFans which has the same inequality problem as Substack. In my mind it is a little more mysterous how you'd run your own video streaming platform than how you'd run an email newsletter system, but I know you can rent video streaming from AWS so it isn't so hard. I think it's interesting how live-interaction platforms like Clubhouse outside pornography collapsed really quickly though.
I know a warvlogger, however, who is still active on YouTube but moved to Patreon because he felt constrained about what he could post on YouTube who left Patreon because Patreon kicked out all warvloggers, now he has his own members-only website.
Another example is OnlyFans which has the same inequality problem as Substack. In my mind it is a little more mysterous how you'd run your own video streaming platform than how you'd run an email newsletter system, but I know you can rent video streaming from AWS so it isn't so hard. I think it's interesting how live-interaction platforms like Clubhouse outside pornography collapsed really quickly though.
Ghost is effectively pivoted into this, so, it's an open-source and cheap/free alternative to Substack, if for some reason Substack doesn't work for you.
$20,000? I could code up a basic newsletter app in half a day's work, with payments handled by Stripe.
If it's really possible to charge $20,000 for this service then please tell me where to find clients.
If it's really possible to charge $20,000 for this service then please tell me where to find clients.
If I were doing it on my own account my estimate is close to yours. I have a cloud-native email newsletter system I built already, hooking up a payment gateway is routine, testing can be a bit of a hassle.
You could put a job like that up on a freelancer platform for a lot less money and you might get a good outcome or you might not.
My figure would assume there is a certain amount of arguing and barguing about requirements and that you’re dealing with somebody who will really come through, dot all the i’s and cross all the t’s and it is worth it if you are really making money on a newsletter.
You could put a job like that up on a freelancer platform for a lot less money and you might get a good outcome or you might not.
My figure would assume there is a certain amount of arguing and barguing about requirements and that you’re dealing with somebody who will really come through, dot all the i’s and cross all the t’s and it is worth it if you are really making money on a newsletter.
It’s a start. Hopefully they’ll improve the reader experience. Having a single general-purpose forum (a “firehose”) doesn’t really work for me since it’s so random, but with so little content, it’s probably necessary for now.
Subscribing needs improvement. Subscribing to a hashtag might make sense? It seems like subscribing to someone’s notes and their blog should be independent, because maybe someone has a good blog but you don’t care for their notes, or vice-versa. Having them tied together also doesn’t work for people like me who use RSS. I don’t usually want email from blogs I read, so I only subscribe to blogs where I’m interested in the paid content and usually turn the email off.
I think this loses what makes Substack interesting, though, which is keeping the community for each blog separate, so you don’t care what people are saying on other blogs that you don’t read. Putting everyone in one community, or an unclear blob of overlapping communities, seems likely to be bad for the same reasons Twitter can often be bad.
I guess blogs need discovery, though, and maybe external sites aren’t enough?
(I think I’ll repost this as a note, since they need the content.)
Subscribing needs improvement. Subscribing to a hashtag might make sense? It seems like subscribing to someone’s notes and their blog should be independent, because maybe someone has a good blog but you don’t care for their notes, or vice-versa. Having them tied together also doesn’t work for people like me who use RSS. I don’t usually want email from blogs I read, so I only subscribe to blogs where I’m interested in the paid content and usually turn the email off.
I think this loses what makes Substack interesting, though, which is keeping the community for each blog separate, so you don’t care what people are saying on other blogs that you don’t read. Putting everyone in one community, or an unclear blob of overlapping communities, seems likely to be bad for the same reasons Twitter can often be bad.
I guess blogs need discovery, though, and maybe external sites aren’t enough?
(I think I’ll repost this as a note, since they need the content.)
> I think this loses what makes Substack interesting
I have the same concern. Substack creators are paid for highly engaging content as individuals subscribe to individual content creators. I don't see how that mechanism works with short form content; it could easily prove to be another platform where number of minutes of eyes on content is the metric that's optimised, rather than engagement with high quality content.
I have the same concern. Substack creators are paid for highly engaging content as individuals subscribe to individual content creators. I don't see how that mechanism works with short form content; it could easily prove to be another platform where number of minutes of eyes on content is the metric that's optimised, rather than engagement with high quality content.
clicks link to Notes
“Log in to Substack”
closes tab
“Log in to Substack”
closes tab
Very precisely my course of action. As consumers, we will do well to protest and boycott services that ask you to identify yourself unnecessarily. But I had to scroll far to see this comment. The general interest here for a new product and the willingness to look past mandatory login in worrying. I feel companies have successfully normalized this and consumers don't question this much any more.
[deleted]
+1
Does anyone know what software they use to make these short demo videos? I see them in lots of app landing pages and I'm curious how to make them.
Minus the background color, the drop shadow is the same as how it looks when you do this in QuickTime > New Screen Recording > Capture Selected Window.
On macOS, you can use Quicktime which lets you also select a geometric region within the screen. Then, you can edit, crop and so forth in iMovie. Finally, you can use ffmpeg to convert to gif.
The following command works well:
ffmpeg -i in.mp4 -vf "fps=10" -loop 0 out.gif
To be clear, the loop 0 will make the gif infinitely loop. By setting a number n, it will set the gif to loop n times.
The following command works well:
ffmpeg -i in.mp4 -vf "fps=10" -loop 0 out.gif
To be clear, the loop 0 will make the gif infinitely loop. By setting a number n, it will set the gif to loop n times.
I've done this but I've still never figured out the magic sauce to get a gif with a good balance of file size and quality. And gifs seem to have some kind of trick I don't understand with framerate cause sometimes a 30fps gif I made will play in slow motion, and at first I think it's that it's just slowly loading, but even after it's fully loaded it still plays slowed down.
gifs just constantly remind me that they're not made for what we used them for these days
gifs just constantly remind me that they're not made for what we used them for these days
gifski does a great job at being relatively simple, while handling quality stuff for you.
https://gif.ski/
gifski --fps 10 --width 320 -o anim.gif video.mp4
https://gif.ski/
gifski --fps 10 --width 320 -o anim.gif video.mp4
> On macOS, you can use Quicktime which lets you also select a geometric region within the screen.
Or Command + Shift + 5
Or Command + Shift + 5
Thanks, it seems like Quicktime + iMovie is what I was looking for.
Gif makes sense as an output format but your question may be what software to use to capture & edit the screen activity.
Even with all the other options, my favorite is still ScreenFlow. It has a lot of editing features… basically uMovie for screen recordings.
Even with all the other options, my favorite is still ScreenFlow. It has a lot of editing features… basically uMovie for screen recordings.
animated gifs. lots of free tools available. substack probably has staff designers to make it extra pretty.
I use gifski, it's perfect: https://gif.ski/
Can gifski handle the initial recording (e.g. selecting an area of your monitor and recording)? Or is it just for converting other recordings into gif?
It's just for converting. For the actual recording I use the built-in functionality in macOS, it's pretty great: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208721
Negative. Just a converter.
this seems really nice.
One thing I noticed right away, is when I scrolled down their page it didn't pop up that horrible popup all substack pages have asking you to subscribe; maybe they can ditch Notes and implement that feature on the rest of substack.
Curious how they plan to handle handles. Right now they're using full names for link text and having the URL as the unique identifier. Seems difficult to account for in the actual notes when you have multiple instances of the same name or full name (for example I'm @Zachary).
defaulting to a "Home" feed that includes posts from people I've never heard of is a bad start
https://substack.com/notes
https://substack.com/notes
Just a few days back, I was downvoted for guessing that this would be their "algorithmic recommendation" moment, because I was seemingly assuming malice about the developers' intentions.
Uh, no, I was observing how every other "social media" company has done this, and was guessing that Substack, having already told its users to write more frequently, would jump in with both feet.
Uh, no, I was observing how every other "social media" company has done this, and was guessing that Substack, having already told its users to write more frequently, would jump in with both feet.
How would you know people are using it otherwise? Better than an empty feed.
Substack has been adding a lot of random features lately and it makes me worry that they will lose focus on the email
newsletter aspect of their platform, which is what I like about it.
There's a few reasons I'm skeptical. For one they have an equally spotty reputation for arbitrary editorial policy while claiming to be completely agnostic. And secondly there have been a few stories about their distressed fiscal situation. They spent a load of VC money from the zero interest era on prominent writers. Far more than they'd bring in as revenue in the hopes they'd juice the brand. Classic strategy of selling dollars for 75 cents to get traction. Only they'd paid disproportionate amounts to some controversial writers which is, in essence, an editorial policy that speaks in dollars. They've also punished critics.
My general belief is that we won't get a better Twitter from VC world. I also have zero confidence in the Fediverse because it has no business strategy.
https://www.theverge.com/2022/8/17/23309877/substack-forever...
My general belief is that we won't get a better Twitter from VC world. I also have zero confidence in the Fediverse because it has no business strategy.
https://www.theverge.com/2022/8/17/23309877/substack-forever...
Honestly, my confidence in the Fediverse is in part because it has no business strategy. The tooling behind it is at the moment pretty much universally AGPL (a license which I don't think is very good but it seems to keep away big businesses). It probably won't reach mass-appeal outside of gradually amassing tech nerds, but at the same time... maybe that's for the better?
I dunno, I think a lot of the enshittification[0] of social media companies comes in part because of their business strategies. VCs demand eternal growth or an eventual buyout. Fedi doesn't have that incentive. The worst that can happen to it is what happened to e-mail, where you get a few nebulously large providers but it's still more than possible (although with e-mail, rather aggravating due to an outdated tech stack that we've bolted a bunch of asterisks onto to try and make it more suited for general use) to live outside that bubble and interact with that big provider bubble anyway.
[0]: https://www.wired.com/story/tiktok-platforms-cory-doctorow/
I dunno, I think a lot of the enshittification[0] of social media companies comes in part because of their business strategies. VCs demand eternal growth or an eventual buyout. Fedi doesn't have that incentive. The worst that can happen to it is what happened to e-mail, where you get a few nebulously large providers but it's still more than possible (although with e-mail, rather aggravating due to an outdated tech stack that we've bolted a bunch of asterisks onto to try and make it more suited for general use) to live outside that bubble and interact with that big provider bubble anyway.
[0]: https://www.wired.com/story/tiktok-platforms-cory-doctorow/
The tech stack of any platform is secondary or even tertiary to success. Especially for something relatively trivial like microblogging.
> I also have zero confidence in the Fediverse because it has no business strategy.
HTTP also has no business strategy. Any number of sites that use the protocol can have different strategies, profit-oriented or otherwise.
HTTP also has no business strategy. Any number of sites that use the protocol can have different strategies, profit-oriented or otherwise.
So, I gave it a try today. Was hopeful, because on Twitter all my posts go essentially into the void.
However, Substack Notes seems to have no method for discovery. They add some random larger accounts to my feed.
You can't search Notes to find people posting content in order to find others potentially interested in similar content.
So, unless you already have a large following, seems like posting into another void. People are reluctant to follow you as well, since you must subscribe to the persons newsletter, they are the same action.
However, Substack Notes seems to have no method for discovery. They add some random larger accounts to my feed.
You can't search Notes to find people posting content in order to find others potentially interested in similar content.
So, unless you already have a large following, seems like posting into another void. People are reluctant to follow you as well, since you must subscribe to the persons newsletter, they are the same action.
Perhaps they will have improved the product in a few months. I'm sure they're collecting a lot of feedback.
I'm just amazed that no social media has really attempted to put what you view in mostly the control of users.
I put forward this suggestion to Twitter, I doubt they will use it, but it is currently ranked 4th by up votes.
https://github.com/twitter/the-algorithm/issues/1363
I put forward this suggestion to Twitter, I doubt they will use it, but it is currently ranked 4th by up votes.
https://github.com/twitter/the-algorithm/issues/1363
The sign in flow is completely broken for me. I am signing up with an email, after I click the verification link it takes me to a page where I need to enter my email yet again. Here it says I already might have an account and sends another verification email which does the same thing again.
Also found other issues the site after going to the home page. Multiple modals overlapping with the sign in flow.
Same. Managed to get in by opening one of the links in Chrome instead of my usual Firefox. Haven't managed to set a password yet though. It's a real fucking mess.
Url changed from https://twitter.com/cjgbest/status/1645804524068818945, which (sort of) points to this.
Is that basically like Twitter then? A micro-blogging feature?
Maybe that's why Twitter had blocked retweeting links containing to Substack.
Maybe that's why Twitter had blocked retweeting links containing to Substack.
> Maybe that's why Twitter had blocked retweeting links containing to Substack.
That seems to have accelerated the shift for some to Substack [1] (imagine if Google blocked searches for Bing or Brave!). Suppressing Substack makes the Twitter brand look weak and nervous.
1. https://reason.com/2023/04/10/elon-musk-matt-taibbi-twitter-...
That seems to have accelerated the shift for some to Substack [1] (imagine if Google blocked searches for Bing or Brave!). Suppressing Substack makes the Twitter brand look weak and nervous.
1. https://reason.com/2023/04/10/elon-musk-matt-taibbi-twitter-...
Substack also removed the "Also publish to Twitter" checkbox from the settings screen before publishing each post.
I think that was because Twitter revoked their API access including breaking their Sign in with Twitter feature (at least that’s what I read a few days back).
Is that Substack being evil, or the result of Twitter locking almost everyone out of its API recently?
I just shared an interesting fact that I learned while posting on Substack this morning. I don't know the reason, and generally I don't think of product changes in terms of good and evil.
prediction - substack goes nowhere, like they currently are.
Suppressing substack when substack is trying to advertise for a twitter competitor is just common sense. There's no need for twitter to advertise for a competitor. That isn't censorship, thats just normal business. If substack was depending on twitter for free data and free advertising they were the ones who were weak and nervous.
Suppressing substack when substack is trying to advertise for a twitter competitor is just common sense. There's no need for twitter to advertise for a competitor. That isn't censorship, thats just normal business. If substack was depending on twitter for free data and free advertising they were the ones who were weak and nervous.
Twitter was supposed to be the "public square", even Elon said as much. Restricting which goods and services are sold or marketed in said square is a shift away from that mentality.
When you're even losing the other billionaires:
https://mastodon.social/@[email protected]/110172...
Twitter's another monopolist media company with a bunch of debt that needs to drown a potential competitor. I don't see Substack being able to become a direct competitor because the newsletter business is too good, and having closed twitter-like spaces that don't allow organized harassment is a good way for newsletters to build community and conversations. Twitter will remain the public version, where constant harassment from the ill and the covert has to be filtered out like spam.
That being said, maybe the important things will start being said in private spaces and only end up in "public squares" via screenshot ten or fifteen minutes later.
That being said, maybe the important things will start being said in private spaces and only end up in "public squares" via screenshot ten or fifteen minutes later.
Of course. It's never been about free speech, but promoting Musk's personal interests and brand of politics.
They blocked any retweet or like of a tweet containing a substack link.
E.g. an author writes content, people who are not affiliated with substack try to like/share.
That is not advertising, and this from the apparent free speech absolutist Elon.
E.g. an author writes content, people who are not affiliated with substack try to like/share.
That is not advertising, and this from the apparent free speech absolutist Elon.
As I see it if you have a significantly superior product then a competitor advertising on your platform is a positive since it just make you look even better in comparison. And a social media platform with 200 million daily users should be significantly superior to an identical clone with probably 1 million on a good day. Of course if you think you don't have a better product or that people hate your product that much then it's time to build moats and prevent people from jumping ship.
none of this has anything to do with substack making a business plan off of sucking down twitter data and advertising on twitter. There's no reason twitter has to put up with that.
Twitter's freedom to do something doesn't prevent other people's freedom to react to those actions.
They can block whomever they want and I can say it highlights how fragile they view their own business position as.
They can block whomever they want and I can say it highlights how fragile they view their own business position as.
if you want to believe not directly contributing to competition that tried to take your data and advertise on your platform is fragile, thats of course your choice. To everyone else its just common sense. the fragility is the business plan that needs to steal its competitors data and space for advertising to have a hope in succeeding.
Many had already forgotten that before the so-called villain of the year called Elon Musk took over the blue bird site, there was a social network called Meerkat that Twitter actively suppressed and introduced their own alternative called periscope.
Twitter is within their right to cut off access to their competitors, future or present.
Twitter is within their right to cut off access to their competitors, future or present.
It's admitting that managing infrastructure for email newsletters is not a viable business. After all, you can't serve people targeted third party ads with just email.
Why not? Could insert an ad into the email. Personalized for each recipient even.
It depends what you mean by viable. Substack newsletters have a paid option, substack can take a cut of that and the infra costs of sending emails is tiny.
If you want to bethe next massive aquistion/IPO, then maybe not.
If you want to bethe next massive aquistion/IPO, then maybe not.
I think it was a bad move by Elon to ban (and good move to reverse, though some damage already done), but I see why he was pissed: it's a straight-up Twitter clone.
Honestly, you can basically do all of Substack + this Notes thing in Tumblr, maybe minus the email newsletter. Damn, that’s something I haven’t heard about in a long time; apparently they support paid content now.
My thoughts exactly.
But... paying for a Tumblr sounds weird. People are already used to paying for Substacks, so there's that.
But... paying for a Tumblr sounds weird. People are already used to paying for Substacks, so there's that.
I've already noted that when you select text on substack, it shows a popover with a "ReStack Quote" button. I think when any blogging platform — medium does this as well — shows a popover when you select text, it's over. Selecting text is such a natural mechanic, there are so many reasons you might want to select text, I often even do it to "play" with the text, or to focus on a specific part.
Substack is an "absolute free speech" app. They have gotten away with it so far because nobody could see the highly offensive content unless they actively sought after it and subscribed.
However now that Substack is becoming more like a conventional social media platform they will have a harder time being an "absolute free speech" app.
However now that Substack is becoming more like a conventional social media platform they will have a harder time being an "absolute free speech" app.
"Our host Nilay asked Substack CEO Chris Best the tough questions about whether racist speech should be allowed in their new consumer product, Substack Notes." https://www.tiktok.com/@decoderpod/video/7221602731998498094
Never using that shit :)
Never using that shit :)
You make it sound like a bad thing. Being proud of harboring hate speech puts one in a very specific category of people, one I wouldn't be proud to be part of.
One thing that is often lost with the free speech argument is amplification. For example, no one is stopping most people from going and yelling on a street corner. But that doesn't mean that you need to be allowed to speak in a particular venue or platform. Our society is currently not one in which there is a right to "equal volume" on speech, and I think that's a good thing.
The entire free speech movement was a response to government literally throwing people in jail for even talking about a given topic. It was never about allowing minority opinions to be as loud as majority opinions.
The entire free speech movement was a response to government literally throwing people in jail for even talking about a given topic. It was never about allowing minority opinions to be as loud as majority opinions.
It's a good thing, I think. "Absolute free speech" is most often championed by people who want to build society around pure logic rather than empirical evidence. The slippery slope bogeyman they gesture to is laughably dated in a time when misinformation and misdirection are so much easier.
[deleted]
I've been enjoying Farcaster in recent months. I think they've taken a very thoughtful approach with the "sufficiently decentralized" philosophy [1] and that openness is now helping them grow the ecosystem of apps using the network.
[1] - https://www.varunsrinivasan.com/2022/01/11/sufficient-decent...
[1] - https://www.varunsrinivasan.com/2022/01/11/sufficient-decent...
I have mixed feelings about this and some of the other twitters clones I've been experimenting with: bluesky, mastodon, read.cv's posts, farcaster. They're reminding me of the wave of audio-first social features that came after the Clubhouse hype.
Though I do appreciate the niche focuses of these apps, e.g. posts is primarily designers, farcaster is a lot of crypto people, etc, I still use Twitter for most of my content discovery.
Though I do appreciate the niche focuses of these apps, e.g. posts is primarily designers, farcaster is a lot of crypto people, etc, I still use Twitter for most of my content discovery.
While cool, this has coincided with Substack not paying the twitter API fee and you can no longer embed tweets on new articles (at least for now)
I'm looking forward to trying this, but the app crashed after posting my first reply to someone. Busy day for Substack engineers, I imagine!
Big Twitter alternative announced on ... Twitter
Yeah, I think @dang should change this link to the official announcement at https://on.substack.com/p/notes
I’m a little unclear on what subscribing means in the context of Notes + Newsletters. Does subscribing to someone in the Notes product mean I’m also subscribed to emails from the person? If so, that’s not a great dynamic — I’d like to follow 100s of people in Notes, but that doesn’t mean I want to subscribe to 100s of newsletters.
This appears to be correct based on my extremely limited experience thus far. It's pretty confusing. However, apparently the emails can be disabled: https://substack.com/profile/364398-judd-legum/note/c-144726...
> 1. Go to Settings on the web version of substack.com
> 2. Scroll down to you publications
> 3. Click into any publication you don’t want to get emails.
> 4. Deselect “Receive emails for new posts”
Hoping they improve the experience.
> 1. Go to Settings on the web version of substack.com
> 2. Scroll down to you publications
> 3. Click into any publication you don’t want to get emails.
> 4. Deselect “Receive emails for new posts”
Hoping they improve the experience.
I'm surprised no one seems to have commented on the lack of usernames, I think the lack of usernames may hinder adoption since it's much harder to follow someone just from seeing a tweet, err note, displayed. With Substack Notes you'll need to know the user's id, or search by their non-unique name.
The fact that I have to be signed in to see people's notes/tweets means that I will not use it any time soon.
I honestly can't imagine a better marketing campaign for Substack Notes than Elon 'Streisand Effect' Musk's ongoing shenanigans.
I'm left in awe of the wranglers at SpaceX and Tesla who have managed to keep the companies in question profitable despite being surgically sewn to a narcissistic fauntleroy
I'm left in awe of the wranglers at SpaceX and Tesla who have managed to keep the companies in question profitable despite being surgically sewn to a narcissistic fauntleroy
They should add a paid add-on where writers can have an LLM generate snippets from their articles and then post them as notes automatically in order to generate a bite sized feed from existing content. Gives Substack a foot in the AI door and paves the way for timelines and algorithmic feeds, etc.
I can see why Elon is hysterical. An actual long-form publisher, with content creators, with proper "blue checks" and a customer base paying for more than vanity badges. I spent a few minutes on it, and yeah, it IS a Twitter clone, and it's a real threat.
I use a unique email address for each substack author that I subscribe to. That is incompatible with Notes.
Looks very good. I wonder how the product team is thinking about user retention. I caught myself thinking "Huh, there's a lot of interesting content here — I hope I don't forget to look at it tomorrow". Not sure how to solve that without being annoying, TBH.
Social network must be a protocol, not a platform. That's the only way to gurantee free speech and cencorship resistance. Nostr[1] is proving to be a good first step in this direction.
[1] https://nostr.how/
[1] https://nostr.how/
On one hand I agree with you on the "protocol not platform" ideal (and thanks for linking nostr, hadn't seen it before), but on the other I guess I still don't understand why so many are committed to the best way to go about that involving "relays" / federation.
RSS solved the "you fully own the content, everyone else can discover it via a well-known protocol" problem decades ago! Is it just that stuff like comments and reactions would be harder with just RSS?
RSS solved the "you fully own the content, everyone else can discover it via a well-known protocol" problem decades ago! Is it just that stuff like comments and reactions would be harder with just RSS?
No thanks. Social networks are non essential. Twitter and Substack Notes can go away tomorrow and no one will bat an eyelid. In these cases, people just want to go to a website or a mobile app, click around and have some foolish fun for sometime. Banking networks need protocols, not social media, which is intrinsically about dumb fun. That is why Mastodon and these things will never be as popular.
You seem to have no recollection of how Twitter has played an outsized role in fast reporting on breaking events, such as the Arab Spring.
I watched the arab spring unfold on aljazeera's livestream, what was going on with twitter?
Twitter is not important. Breaking news were always there on TV from the beginning of time.
Every time I have seen any form of social media/platform/forum/whatever put "free speech" and anti-censorship as their primary goals, it always ends the same way - hate speech, antisemitism, racism, sexism, etc.
Whether by design or because such sites just attract those kind of individuals, that's not good for a couple of key reasons:
1: Those kinds of interactions turn away many potential users
2: It makes advertising basically impossible (No potential advertiser wants to be associated with that kind of site)
There's a good reason that as sites like Reddit got larger, they started to clamp down on less desirable content.
And any form of social media with no advertising is always going to be very tiny and niche, and in general likely to die out quickly.
Whether by design or because such sites just attract those kind of individuals, that's not good for a couple of key reasons:
1: Those kinds of interactions turn away many potential users
2: It makes advertising basically impossible (No potential advertiser wants to be associated with that kind of site)
There's a good reason that as sites like Reddit got larger, they started to clamp down on less desirable content.
And any form of social media with no advertising is always going to be very tiny and niche, and in general likely to die out quickly.
Nostr is the real deal.
I first heard about nostr last in November when Twitter tried to ban it. There's an incredible dev ecosystem developing — so much so that I decided to rebuild Satellite (https://satellite.earth) the social platform I'd been working on to become a client for the protocol.
There's a bunch of other clients too. Someone started a directory here https://www.nostrapps.com/
I'm happy to answer technical questions about nostr if anyone is curious.
I first heard about nostr last in November when Twitter tried to ban it. There's an incredible dev ecosystem developing — so much so that I decided to rebuild Satellite (https://satellite.earth) the social platform I'd been working on to become a client for the protocol.
There's a bunch of other clients too. Someone started a directory here https://www.nostrapps.com/
I'm happy to answer technical questions about nostr if anyone is curious.
The big downside with Nostr is it’s not built on the web. With blogs and webmention the feeds are websites. And there’s already a huge ecosystem for blogs. I’d prefer people build on that instead. Especially if the end result is more or less the same: blogs with comments.
There isn't a huge amount of demand for 'censorship resistance' and 'free speech' in social networks.
People want enjoyable communities far more than they want the 'freedom' to spam the n-word.
People want enjoyable communities far more than they want the 'freedom' to spam the n-word.
On the contrary, I think there is a huge demand. I can find enjoyable community offline. Speaking for myself, freedom from censorship is in fact the main thing I want in a social network. Your values might differ.
I think you're missing the point. I understand that you value that. There is no question of that.
The majority of people however don't value it or actively desire it because no wants to live in a pigsty. There is a reason apps like Truth Social don't take off, and that 4chan never gained the mainstream popularity of other social sites.
There have been multiple reddit clones, multiple twitter clones, multiple social media clones all based on the false pretense that there is demand for a freeze peach social site, and they all fall flat. Mastodon is doing better than most and its gaining users because of Twitter catering to the alt-right and refusing to censor offensive or dangerous speech.
The majority of people however don't value it or actively desire it because no wants to live in a pigsty. There is a reason apps like Truth Social don't take off, and that 4chan never gained the mainstream popularity of other social sites.
There have been multiple reddit clones, multiple twitter clones, multiple social media clones all based on the false pretense that there is demand for a freeze peach social site, and they all fall flat. Mastodon is doing better than most and its gaining users because of Twitter catering to the alt-right and refusing to censor offensive or dangerous speech.
Dangerous speech?
Yes, if you go back and take a gander at US history, you'll learn that there is a long history of restricting speech that is likely to cause another person harm.
Is that something you are unaware of?
Is that something you are unaware of?
> Sub stack dot com / notes
Elon's regexp for matching Substack links just got defeated.
Elon's regexp for matching Substack links just got defeated.
Does anyone have a method to discover good writers on Substack? There's so much trash there that I'm tuning out every writer that publishes on Substack, except for a small handful that I already knew about.
As far as I can tell, there's no Substack app (at least for iOS) that allows posting?
If so, I don't really see this taking a notable chunk out of Twitter until this happens.
I see a Substack Reader app, but it's more or less read-only.
If so, I don't really see this taking a notable chunk out of Twitter until this happens.
I see a Substack Reader app, but it's more or less read-only.
I use Substack by subscribing to every blog with a unique email address, just as one would do for a newsletter.
Forcing me to login to a single account is not going to work beyond a single email address that I can pick.
Forcing me to login to a single account is not going to work beyond a single email address that I can pick.
People may berate twitter as being a 'simple' app, but everyone uses it because everyone is already there. Substack can't clone that 'first mover' advantage.
As someone who consumes twitter posts without even having an account, I don't really care if a 'tweet' comes from twitter or substack.
Seems like their infrastructure is not holding up today (a good sign that the launch has got a lot of attention?). I cannot load article pages without 2-3 tries.
I love that it looks identical to Twitter but is orange.
I love that it's going to enrage Elon. He's going to realize that he paid 44 billion for something that's going to lose users to Substack's side project.
I love that it's going to enrage Elon. He's going to realize that he paid 44 billion for something that's going to lose users to Substack's side project.
Elon paid 44 billion for twitter's existing users and wanting to overthrow the censorship regime that was defacto the standard before Elon bought twitter. Thank god Elon bought twitter and made it possible for other social media sites to be more open to free-speech.
That 'censorship regime' (your words, not mine) was doing a very good job compared to the clown running it today.
Somehow Elon's Twitter is even worse for anything remotely queer. I run into the "sensitive content" click walls any time I follow a link to anything on furry Twitter these days, and it's never a tweet that remotely warrants it.
I wasn't expecting anything different from a company run by the archtypical techbro. Musk is doing a lot of damage in a very indirect way: plenty of people see in him their justification for being jerks.
Everyone likes the censors when they are on their side.
Yes, but Twitter was arguably doing a reasonably good job of that part of their mission. You can debate about the business side, it's not easy monetizing something like that but they showed rather a lot of restraint and if they messed up they fixed things.
The people that see this differently are typically the same people who believe that 'the Twitter files' were revelatory, when in fact they weren't. Strong overlap there with eternal Trump supporters and various complot theory proponents, I'm not sure what degree of evidence would be able to convince people like that.
The people that see this differently are typically the same people who believe that 'the Twitter files' were revelatory, when in fact they weren't. Strong overlap there with eternal Trump supporters and various complot theory proponents, I'm not sure what degree of evidence would be able to convince people like that.
Watching the increasing polarisation of the public's opinion of Elon as he's inserted himself into the culture wars has been such a bizarre experience.
I guess by now he probably appreciates people going off the deep end for/against him.
I guess by now he probably appreciates people going off the deep end for/against him.
Am I right in that it's Poe's law[0] that's getting the workout today?
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poe's_law
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poe's_law
'Censorship regime'? In the time since Musk took over twitter I've gotten right-wing tweets forced into my feed despite not following a single right winger and a ton of high profile people have been banned for speaking out about him.
Not to mention that old Twitter never hamfistedly censored people by straight up shadowbanning users for using the words 'mastodon' or 'substack' in their tweets.
Not to mention that old Twitter never hamfistedly censored people by straight up shadowbanning users for using the words 'mastodon' or 'substack' in their tweets.
You literally said Twitter is less of an echo chamber and that makes me upset. I enjoy seeing a wide spectrum of ideas.
Shekelphile(1)
Even if that were true, what would you gain from that? If it makes you feel better that Elon Musk (or anyone else) failed at something, you may want to re-evaluate your life's loss function.
Or maybe people want him to fail for the same reason they want someone like Martin Shkreli or Kanye West to fail: because he's bad for society.
I think there are better ways to make the world a better place than wanting someone you don't like to fail. Besides, there's often an ulterior motive - not just for wanting that person to fail, but also for telling yourself that they are "bad for society".
Where one cannot love, one should – pass by. - Nietzsche
Where one cannot love, one should – pass by. - Nietzsche
Really? It's hard to imagine him doing anything at this point that would offset the good he's done for society.
He upset and tore down the military-industrial complex launch monopoly saving the collective US tax payers billions through starting SpaceX (and could soon revolutionize access to space for the average person within the next decade). (Also note that without SpaceX, we'd still be paying money to Russia to send US astronauts to space, which wouldn't be a good look during the Russian invasion of Ukraine.)
He created an electrical vehicle revolution that's taking the world by storm, changing industries and pushing us much faster toward ending global warming than would have happened without. It's hard to imagine a few misguided political opinions could offset all of that. Let's be realistic here.
(Yes you can't attribute all that to him solely, as Elon himself says commonly, the praise should be given to the workers at SpaceX and Tesla, not him. But at the same time, without him, they would have never happened.)
He upset and tore down the military-industrial complex launch monopoly saving the collective US tax payers billions through starting SpaceX (and could soon revolutionize access to space for the average person within the next decade). (Also note that without SpaceX, we'd still be paying money to Russia to send US astronauts to space, which wouldn't be a good look during the Russian invasion of Ukraine.)
He created an electrical vehicle revolution that's taking the world by storm, changing industries and pushing us much faster toward ending global warming than would have happened without. It's hard to imagine a few misguided political opinions could offset all of that. Let's be realistic here.
(Yes you can't attribute all that to him solely, as Elon himself says commonly, the praise should be given to the workers at SpaceX and Tesla, not him. But at the same time, without him, they would have never happened.)
This feels like some kind of the opposite of the sunk costs fallacy. Like a “past gains” fallacy.
None of those good things magically disappear if Elon fails in his Twitter purchase or changes. Those past gains have already happened.
If your argument was forward looking it would make more sense to me (if he fails with this Twitter program, he won’t be able to deliver Starship which would be bad because XYZ; or it would impact his ability to continue Tesla forward because ABC). I don’t know that I agree with the forward looking argument, but it seems more sound to me than the backward looking argument.
None of those good things magically disappear if Elon fails in his Twitter purchase or changes. Those past gains have already happened.
If your argument was forward looking it would make more sense to me (if he fails with this Twitter program, he won’t be able to deliver Starship which would be bad because XYZ; or it would impact his ability to continue Tesla forward because ABC). I don’t know that I agree with the forward looking argument, but it seems more sound to me than the backward looking argument.
You said it well.
I actually suspect that many people hate him not in spite of what he has done, but because of it:
They think if they acknowledge what people like Elon Musk have done in their lives, they'd have to loathe themselves, their own choices, values and weaknesses.
Which is, of course, quite silly. Each human being has their own path in life. Comparing yourself to anyone, no matter who, is going to cause misery. But with people like Elon, the threat to the ego is particularly great.
So, hate and schadenfreude are the easy way out. "He, too, makes mistakes. So I'm not that worthless after all".
(The irony being that many of these people say that Elon Musk is self-centered. Though the question he is asking is "What do I believe is greatest good to humanity as a species", whereas they, by their very act of comparing themselves to him, are asking "How can I be greater than and more right than Elon Musk".)
I actually suspect that many people hate him not in spite of what he has done, but because of it:
They think if they acknowledge what people like Elon Musk have done in their lives, they'd have to loathe themselves, their own choices, values and weaknesses.
Which is, of course, quite silly. Each human being has their own path in life. Comparing yourself to anyone, no matter who, is going to cause misery. But with people like Elon, the threat to the ego is particularly great.
So, hate and schadenfreude are the easy way out. "He, too, makes mistakes. So I'm not that worthless after all".
(The irony being that many of these people say that Elon Musk is self-centered. Though the question he is asking is "What do I believe is greatest good to humanity as a species", whereas they, by their very act of comparing themselves to him, are asking "How can I be greater than and more right than Elon Musk".)
I tend to agree. By tearing him down as much as they can, and making his minor issues stick out more than his major good sides they can offset his "worth" per-se. Additionally there's the narrative that all people with lots of money are automatically assumed to be evil, so if they're not evil they need to be torn down enough that they fit with the stereotype.
Precisely put. I wouldn't attempt to ignore his work on SpaceX, Tesla, etc since those companies have kickstarted their own revolution(s); electric vehicles and Starlink, even though I think Tesla FSD is a dangerous scam. Without it, the cars are fine.
Before, almost all the techies here were dreaming and begging to work for Elon Musk. Then the blue bird happened, got bought out and gave them 'emotional distress' and Elon immediately became public enemy number 1.
> So, hate and schadenfreude are the easy way out. "He, too, makes mistakes. So I'm not that worthless after all".
Hence that, the same techies who loved him are now eternally desperate for Twitter to be Elon's biggest failure as much as possible, giving 24/7 over-coverage about Twitter schadenfreude.
The manipulation of human psychology due to over-coverage and creating villains every month or year is just too easy to create a story out of that is guaranteed to attract eyeballs and clicks. It is an symptom of obsession.
Before, almost all the techies here were dreaming and begging to work for Elon Musk. Then the blue bird happened, got bought out and gave them 'emotional distress' and Elon immediately became public enemy number 1.
> So, hate and schadenfreude are the easy way out. "He, too, makes mistakes. So I'm not that worthless after all".
Hence that, the same techies who loved him are now eternally desperate for Twitter to be Elon's biggest failure as much as possible, giving 24/7 over-coverage about Twitter schadenfreude.
The manipulation of human psychology due to over-coverage and creating villains every month or year is just too easy to create a story out of that is guaranteed to attract eyeballs and clicks. It is an symptom of obsession.
Curious question I have. What makes you think FSD is a “dangerous scam”? It’s quite functional even if it doesn’t quite meet the advertising yet. Maybe slightly dangerous for now yes, but hardly a scam.
I actually suspect that people who idolize Elon Musk are subscribers to the Just World Fallacy, believing that he represents the kind of person that they -- though in a temporarily diminished and embarrassing state -- can become. They can't wait for the time when they too have the consequence-free power to sneer at disabled people, spread lies about victims of violent attacks, and call people who mildly disagree with them "pedo guy".
(By the way, I don't actually agree with any of what I wrote above. It's just another example of a bad-faith argument like the one I'm responding to.)
(By the way, I don't actually agree with any of what I wrote above. It's just another example of a bad-faith argument like the one I'm responding to.)
I could never accomplish what he has. He is so many standard deviations away from a regular person that it’s ridiculous to to feel anything but admiration. He’s human and imperfect like everyone and that’s ok. He was born with certain abilities and drive and he has made the world a better place by using those gifts. He is not beyond criticism either and some of his fans are too eager to dismiss them.
A good reason to want self-absorbed bullies to publicly fail rather than publicly succeed is to discourage others from adopting similar attitude and methods.
If Elon was self-absorbed he'd be buying private yachts or private islands or massive mansions. He wouldn't be constantly talking about existential risks to humanity and trying to come up with ways of fixing them. Is Bill Gates self-absorbed? Much of what Elon Musk does is in a similar vein as the Gates Foundation, though often through for-profit companies.
And also wouldn't deny that he had a threesome Amber Heard and Cara Delevingne. [1]
> I think people think these things are generally more salacious than they are.
[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/25/style/elon-musk-maureen-d...
> I think people think these things are generally more salacious than they are.
[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/25/style/elon-musk-maureen-d...
I'm not sure what you're saying, but the source is actually him denying it.
> About the contention that he had a threesome with Ms. Heard and her friend Cara Delevingne, Mr. Musk said, laughing, “We did not have the threesome, you know. So I think people think these things are generally more salacious than they are.”
He's laughing at the reporter for even proposing the idea, followed by downplaying it in a way that makes it clear that this was the media being sensationalist for clicks again.
> About the contention that he had a threesome with Ms. Heard and her friend Cara Delevingne, Mr. Musk said, laughing, “We did not have the threesome, you know. So I think people think these things are generally more salacious than they are.”
He's laughing at the reporter for even proposing the idea, followed by downplaying it in a way that makes it clear that this was the media being sensationalist for clicks again.
Are there people who think Bill Gates is not self-absorbed?
Verily, I have beheld greater self-absorbed bullies than the man who speaketh thus. [1]
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2WX_mgnAFA0
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2WX_mgnAFA0
> If it makes you feel better that Elon Musk (or anyone else) failed at something, you may want to re-evaluate your life's loss function.
Unfortunately I haven't reached that level of enlightenment yet.
I root for Elon to fail in the same ways I root for Donald Trump to fail. He's destructive, self-serving, thinks he's above the law, and hasn't faced real consequences for his actions.
I'm rooting for him to fail because he constantly lies, about big and small things. An example: He claimed Substack is downloading Twitter user data to power their competitor. There's no evidence of this. He said this before backtracking because he knew he was looking bad.
I'm rooting for him to fail so folks, like the ones in this very comment chain, can come back to reality and see that he's a flawed human like the rest of us and stop the blind worship.
In this specific case, I'm rooting for him to fail because he's proven over and over he's unfit to lead Twitter and make it a better product.
Unfortunately I haven't reached that level of enlightenment yet.
I root for Elon to fail in the same ways I root for Donald Trump to fail. He's destructive, self-serving, thinks he's above the law, and hasn't faced real consequences for his actions.
I'm rooting for him to fail because he constantly lies, about big and small things. An example: He claimed Substack is downloading Twitter user data to power their competitor. There's no evidence of this. He said this before backtracking because he knew he was looking bad.
I'm rooting for him to fail so folks, like the ones in this very comment chain, can come back to reality and see that he's a flawed human like the rest of us and stop the blind worship.
In this specific case, I'm rooting for him to fail because he's proven over and over he's unfit to lead Twitter and make it a better product.
Sure. If I had never heard of Elon, and suddenly saw his name everywhere, and bros who cheer and justify him and feel like they’re the chosen people… and Tesla this and Twitter that... I'd be turned off as well, call him a nuisance, and steer clear of anything that has to do with him. And yeah, maybe I’d even try to level the scales, so to speak, by publicly speaking against him simply because I couldn’t bear the hype.
Its not that. I want elon to fail, because he tried to ruin that cave divers life by claiming that he had a childbride in thailand.
I want elon to fail, because he gives voice to Russian war criminals, because he is a union buster, because he fired most of the twitter employees and made the rest work long days.
I'm looking for a new platform to write technical blog posts, is Substack the right place?
I'm basically looking for the "Medium from when Medium was good"
I'm basically looking for the "Medium from when Medium was good"
I was in mobile and clicked the link to try notes and it redirected me to App Store. Lol
So much for giving a new platform a try. I will never use this
So much for giving a new platform a try. I will never use this
I can't see a single Note without logging in, or in my case creating an account. That's a hard limit on exploration.
Whoever approved that name must be crazy. Googling that is coming up with everything else. Looking on the AppStore is the same.
That occurred to me too. You want something that has meaning but isn't insanely generic. So something between "Notes" and "Nostr."
I wonder, if Substack Notes fail – will Substack survive? It feels like they are pivoting into not-that profitable domain
Substack notes is an interesting reimagining of blog post comments to be presented in a more familiar social media style.
I wonder if the founders really want to be launching this, or if this is a move pushed by their VCs.
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Coming Soon: Substack Orange
Substack and Beehiv is my favorite.
Is there a way to follow notes via RSS? This is how I read regular substack posts.
There does not appear to be officially. No RSS feed is declared in the main index page metadata, and adding /feed to the URL doesn't work as it does with "newsletter" pages.
However, by poking around in my browser debugger's XHR calls, it only took me a few hours to write a translator from Substack's (not-publicly-supported) JSON-based browser API to RSS.
However, by poking around in my browser debugger's XHR calls, it only took me a few hours to write a translator from Substack's (not-publicly-supported) JSON-based browser API to RSS.
I think it would be fantastic if Substack Notes were to become dominant and replace Twitter.
What's the rationale?
I got banned from Twitter for tweeting that I would commit suicide if I were still programming in Java after the age of 50. I appealed, and I got rejected by a bot (I know because my appeal was rejected instantaneously). So I think Twitter is stupid. Also, Elon is stupid.
As much as I love Twitter, I welcome the competition. Twitter needs a vitamin shot
I can't take it anymore
If this isn’t in app I don’t see how it has any way to get traction.
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But the name ... couldnt they name it "Stacks" or something
All substack.com pages freeze for me on iOS Firefox. Anyone else?
Dead on arrival. You cannot transfer a crowd to another platform.
Looks like you can’t explore Notes without signing up? Bummer
Perfect way to grow Substack. Didn't see this coming.
i am not an avid user of either platforms, but substack just seems like another take at medium to me, more than twitter.
am i missing something in my understanding?
am i missing something in my understanding?
On this episode of a boring dystopia: a twitter clone
You can now start a timer until they announce that they're going to algorithmically organize the feed of "Notes" because "chronological order is too hard to follow."
Then, they will let an Algo organize the feed of articles.
Then the ads - no, wait, the "sponsored post - will start popping in, etc, etc...
Maybe they won't. I enjoy substack as it is today, and maybe they'll pull it off. But I can't help seing this as the next step towards enshitification. In the words of a 21s century social media author : "so sad".
Then, they will let an Algo organize the feed of articles.
Then the ads - no, wait, the "sponsored post - will start popping in, etc, etc...
Maybe they won't. I enjoy substack as it is today, and maybe they'll pull it off. But I can't help seing this as the next step towards enshitification. In the words of a 21s century social media author : "so sad".
I don't think there is inherently anything wrong with algorithmic feeds. Algorithms work well when finding you interesting content when there is too much content to show you all of it. Netflix does this every day and people don't complain about it.
I think the real problem is when this is done with an ad-supported business model. In that model, the interests of the algorithm designer are too far removed from the interests of the user. Presumably, since substack has a subscription business model (like netflix) we may end up with algorithmic feeds that users enjoy using.
I think the real problem is when this is done with an ad-supported business model. In that model, the interests of the algorithm designer are too far removed from the interests of the user. Presumably, since substack has a subscription business model (like netflix) we may end up with algorithmic feeds that users enjoy using.
Maybe there's not anything "inherently wrong", but in all instances I'm aware of they've been worse than simply showing the posts in date order.
I kinda prefer the algo feed tbh. It shows me stuff from yesterday when I didnt check the feed at all. I'm on some IRC servers and a couple discord as well and it often feels like if I don't check constantly I'll miss something and have to scroll for ages to sort it out. I don't mind that as much on those platforms but for things like IG and twitter I do enjoy the algo feed.
Catastrophising about a future that doesn't exist based on pure speculation. You're already upset about this product on the basis that bad things MIGHT happen in the future. Live in the moment, this type of chronic negativity is unhealthy.
You could argue that it isn't just a hypothetical future, it's a trend that already exists and has repeated multiple times over in recent history. Nothing wrong with recognizing that and warning about it ("if you don't learn history you're doomed to repeat it" or something like that).
I think that since Substack already has a monetization in subscriptions it's possible that they won't need the same revenue. But it's also hard to convince execs to leave potential revenue on the table when they see it.
I think that since Substack already has a monetization in subscriptions it's possible that they won't need the same revenue. But it's also hard to convince execs to leave potential revenue on the table when they see it.
It's not "pure speculation" if you've seen it happen many times, and you see the same early patterns now. That's not speculation, that's pattern recognition and intelligence.
I not sure I'm upset yet, but I'm definitely concerned, and rather pessimistic on the outcome.
Looks too much like deja vu all over again.
What bother me the most is that they don't seem to address the issue at all in the announcement. I'm not going to pretend I'm the only one who sees how things could get awry here. I wish they had at least given a nod to the very likely worst case scenario, and maybe explained why they think they're in a better position then pretty-much-every-other-social-media.
I just wonder how long it's going to take for:
* this Notes tab to be the first thing that the app opens
* Content from people I have not subscribed to, to be the first thing in the Notes tab
* This content being stuff I do not care about
* In short form
* Optimized to get "engagement" (aka "arguments between trolls")
We'll see...
Looks too much like deja vu all over again.
What bother me the most is that they don't seem to address the issue at all in the announcement. I'm not going to pretend I'm the only one who sees how things could get awry here. I wish they had at least given a nod to the very likely worst case scenario, and maybe explained why they think they're in a better position then pretty-much-every-other-social-media.
I just wonder how long it's going to take for:
* this Notes tab to be the first thing that the app opens
* Content from people I have not subscribed to, to be the first thing in the Notes tab
* This content being stuff I do not care about
* In short form
* Optimized to get "engagement" (aka "arguments between trolls")
We'll see...
> Maybe they won't. I enjoy substack as it is today, and maybe they'll pull it off.
Mindread much? You have no idea whether GP is upset.
Mindread much? You have no idea whether GP is upset.
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I doubt that will be the case. The cash cow is subscription, not ads or engagement. The fundamental value proposition for the product is getting more people to pay for subscription content. It has a similar feel for the end user, but that appears to be the only overlap.
No need for a $8 verified button, they can just say how many paying subscribers has as a form of social truth. That is game-able, obviously, but imposes a substantial cost on buying credibility.
No need for a $8 verified button, they can just say how many paying subscribers has as a form of social truth. That is game-able, obviously, but imposes a substantial cost on buying credibility.
This is exactly right. Because they will have to.
If you follow 100 people who post 3 times a day, that's 300 posts. You're awake 16 hours a day, so an average of ~18 posts per hour, or 1 every 3 minutes. Many users follow way more people and/or follow accounts which post much more often.
Having a non-algorithmic feed means that posters will see low levels of engagement and users will quickly be overwhelmed with their reading list, and miss most of the posts. It's a vicious circle which will cause both writers and readers to eventually give up.
If, on the other hand, posts are ranked based on user popularity and engagement and that rank affects its position in subscriber feeds, then it's a virtuous cycle where more people will be directed to interesting posts, and those posters will be incentivised to post more.
This is why Mastodon has seen its usage drop after their initial surge earlier this year. We don't have time to wade through a firehouse of random posts every day.
If you follow 100 people who post 3 times a day, that's 300 posts. You're awake 16 hours a day, so an average of ~18 posts per hour, or 1 every 3 minutes. Many users follow way more people and/or follow accounts which post much more often.
Having a non-algorithmic feed means that posters will see low levels of engagement and users will quickly be overwhelmed with their reading list, and miss most of the posts. It's a vicious circle which will cause both writers and readers to eventually give up.
If, on the other hand, posts are ranked based on user popularity and engagement and that rank affects its position in subscriber feeds, then it's a virtuous cycle where more people will be directed to interesting posts, and those posters will be incentivised to post more.
This is why Mastodon has seen its usage drop after their initial surge earlier this year. We don't have time to wade through a firehouse of random posts every day.
> If, on the other hand, posts are ranked based on user popularity and engagement and that rank affects its position in subscriber feeds, then it's a virtuous cycle where more people will be directed to interesting posts, and those posters will be incentivised to post more.
... or it's a vicious cycle when someone understand which kind of cheaply generated content games the recommandation system the best. If history has told us anything, it's that radical, divisive, tribal, infuriating, titilating, voyeuristic, trivial, scammy, stupid short form tends to works very well.
... or it's a vicious cycle when someone understand which kind of cheaply generated content games the recommandation system the best. If history has told us anything, it's that radical, divisive, tribal, infuriating, titilating, voyeuristic, trivial, scammy, stupid short form tends to works very well.
I don’t disagree in any way. But in the short term, an algorithmic feed will be the only way to make the service “sticky”. But yes, any algorithm can and will be gamed and it’s a cat and mouse game from that point on.
I think before that you need to get all the fake journalists that just get payed by companies to review their products and say it's awesome for the price. Substack doesn't have those yet.
Can you explain what you enjoy about substack? It just seems to be Forbes contributors with even less vetting.
can you explain what you mean by "It just seems to be Forbes contributors with even less vetting"? I am subscribed to several different columns, with a couple of paid subscriptions, all about a very wide variety of topics—it's just a blog/podcast platform.
Layperson here:
When I click on a forbes article I usually don't notice the author.
On Substack I'm subscribed to specific authors and one former newspaper/ now independent journalist I follow.
When I click on a forbes article I usually don't notice the author.
On Substack I'm subscribed to specific authors and one former newspaper/ now independent journalist I follow.
Honest question: why is noticing/not noticing the author relevant to you? Isn’t the point of reading something to consume the actual content?
I totally get the point of following people you’re already familiar with and have a track record of quality. Not arguing against that.
I’m just interested in your comment about not noticing the author.
I totally get the point of following people you’re already familiar with and have a track record of quality. Not arguing against that.
I’m just interested in your comment about not noticing the author.
In that case, just continue using it until it sucks and move on.
This assumes there will be an alternative system to move on to.
I'm starting to wonder if there is a law of physics that inevitably turns any content publishing platform into youtwitokbook (tm).
Let's hope we keep a critical mass of "suckers" who still write good, long form content despite it being the least effective strategy.
I'm starting to wonder if there is a law of physics that inevitably turns any content publishing platform into youtwitokbook (tm).
Let's hope we keep a critical mass of "suckers" who still write good, long form content despite it being the least effective strategy.
Happens every time. But there are alternatives. It's just that everyone copies prior art and so we have this algorithmic mess.
Can I look at a note without logging in first?
wish they could have an API soon so you could create new notes / posts and get a list of them
If you subscribe to someone’s Notes you also subscribe to their email articles. No thank you, especially if aal their articles are behind a paywall. Not sure why Musk is so freaked out over Notes. Probably just general paranoia.
You can just receive their notes without subscribing to their newsletter. You'll see their notes in your stream, albeit with an option to subscribe.
You can also post notes without even having a newsletter.
You can also post notes without even having a newsletter.
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For me, it's just an empty login form, and I'm not going to register an account just to see what's there.
I'm sympathetic to the idea of paying for content directly (I spend over $100/mo on Patreon), but I feel like Substack has cultivated a nasty branding issue for themselves. To me, and I know I'm not alone, Substack is where you go when you want to hear some 17-year-old who got high for the first time tell you what THE MANNNN doesn't want you to know, duuude. Greenwald and Taibbi and the like. I guess there's probably other types of content on there, but that's all I ever see from the domain.
Anyway I'm not going to register an account to see whatever's going on with Notes. Good luck, guys.
I'm sympathetic to the idea of paying for content directly (I spend over $100/mo on Patreon), but I feel like Substack has cultivated a nasty branding issue for themselves. To me, and I know I'm not alone, Substack is where you go when you want to hear some 17-year-old who got high for the first time tell you what THE MANNNN doesn't want you to know, duuude. Greenwald and Taibbi and the like. I guess there's probably other types of content on there, but that's all I ever see from the domain.
Anyway I'm not going to register an account to see whatever's going on with Notes. Good luck, guys.
On the hand I know exactly what you mean about Greenwald and Taibbi (and so many other neoreactionary media folks), but it's also where I get great content from economists (Noah Smith, Claudia Sahm, Doomberg) and technologists (our own Simon Willison, Gergely Orosz, Molly White).
The media folks are clearly escaping scrutiny and playing to their base, but there are many excellent Substackers in other fields!
The media folks are clearly escaping scrutiny and playing to their base, but there are many excellent Substackers in other fields!
I believe you, but Substack is clearly trying to appeal to that same base[1]. I'm sure there's fine content on there somewhere, but Substack's brand is so unappealing to me I'm just not interested in supporting the company.
[1] https://twitter.com/lulumeservey/status/1511376638487019524
[1] https://twitter.com/lulumeservey/status/1511376638487019524
>Greenwald and Taibbi (and so many other neoreactionary media folks)
I intensely dislike both of them, but are they really considered NRx?
I intensely dislike both of them, but are they really considered NRx?
lol just go along with it, we need to label them something, and "non-partisan" just doesn't give anyone a self-righteous dopamine hit
A branding problem doesn't mean all of the content is bad, no?
How are they escaping scrutiny? They hardly seem interested in hiding what they believe seeing as how they are both very active on Twitter. And whose scrutiny do you consider them anxious to avoid? Their opponents know very well what they are saying. This whole framing reeks of the kind of censoriousness which they both spend a lot of time railing against.
On the other hand, I have a quite positive opinion of Substack given the articles I read there, and I know I'm not alone.
I don't like Twitter though, so I don't really care about Notes
I don't like Twitter though, so I don't really care about Notes
Personally I've always disliked Substack because their links used to only show a newsletter sign up form and a button that said "Let me read it first". I'm sure everyone who works at Substack knows no one wants to sign up for a newsletter before "reading it first" but they still put that form there in hopes some small percentage of people type their email not realizing they don't need to.
Just wait for Reddit screenshot reposts.
...and his actions. He's not just a nebulous political creature, thinking thoughts but not acting upon them. He's actually _doing_ things that people might rightly not agree with.
Not to mention, a good chunk of those actual actions have resulted in Twitter being a legitimately worse place for a great number of people to spend time on/engage with, and thus they... leave.
Not to mention, a good chunk of those actual actions have resulted in Twitter being a legitimately worse place for a great number of people to spend time on/engage with, and thus they... leave.
Please let's not have the nth (or n-thousandth) celebrity flamewar about this celebrity. It's not what this site is for, and destroys what it is for.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35530201.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35530201.
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Whenever someone criticizes Elon Musk I just remember he sent a car he drove, a car built by a company he leads, into heliocentric orbit using his own rockets via his own space launching tech company. I don't know how you can talk about the guy without that context. People talk about him like he's just another jerk on Twitter. His car is in space. He's also the wealthiest person on the planet. And his car is in space.
Whenever someone criticizes Elon Musk, it's not about his abilities to launch a car into space.
In fact most of us would much prefer that he focused on his space launching abilities and electric-car making abilities (with the usual caveat that it's not clear how much of both are based on his contributions vs others, but I'm willing to give some benefit of doubt).
He doesn't know anything about tunneling (boring company), mass transit (hyper loop), software (twitter), or social platforms (twitter). And those are the areas he gets criticized for.
In fact most of us would much prefer that he focused on his space launching abilities and electric-car making abilities (with the usual caveat that it's not clear how much of both are based on his contributions vs others, but I'm willing to give some benefit of doubt).
He doesn't know anything about tunneling (boring company), mass transit (hyper loop), software (twitter), or social platforms (twitter). And those are the areas he gets criticized for.
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twitter, is that you dude? what happened?
https://substack.com/profile/241262-casey-newton/note/c-1446... I’d a good summary. I don’t want to subscribe to hundreds of newsletters to see tweet (sorry, notes). But if you change that setup, it really is a Twitter clone with no upside to writers.