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> Podcasts are the best example. They were the way to distribute certain content. Users adopted podcasts because the content was there, even though the UX was/i

> Podcasts are the best example. They were the way to distribute certain content. Users adopted podcasts because the content was there, even though the UX was/is clunky. It happened to be decentralized and rss-based. I would argue that podcasts are as decentralized as emails are "decentralized". When was the last time you downloaded a Podcast from a self-hosted server? Most people download podcasts through iTunes, SoundCloud, etc. because...centralizing makes sense economically. In this environment, RSS is virtually meaningless because the whole point of RSS was to have an open standard in a world where everyone ran their own RSS servers. Once it becomes centralized you're better off just distributing content as a centralized feed like Twitter. > The fact that podcasts work better economically for content makers than youtube... that was incidental. Nothing's "incidental". There are always reasons behind everything. Let's dig in further to see what's going on. When was the last time you've sat through a shitty Podcast that's 1 hour long? You probably haven't. Now think of how long most Podcasts are. Yes, they are mostly "long-form" content that are 30 minutes to 1 hour long. Now think about the last YouTube video you watched. How long was it? Probably like 3 minutes to 5, or maybe you watch a conference livestream or tutorial that's 1 hour long, but those are exceptions. Most people go to YouTube to watch bite sized videos. This is why ads don't work as well on Youtube compared to Podcasts. Why would you watch a 30 second ad just to watch a 2 minute video? Naturally, if you have the same content, people will watch the videos WITHOUT ads. And this is where the "race to the bottom" begins. So are Podcasts absolutely superior to videos? No. Podcasts have their own drawbacks. Because Podcasts are long form content, listeners don't want to end up wasting their precious 1 hour. Therefore it's really hard as a podcast publisher to get people to listen to their podcast. Which means initial "acquisition" is much harder for Podcasts compared to YouTube. But once you "acquire" the listeners it's worth it because they have "chosen" to listen to you on an on-going basis. Which is why I asked earlier when was the last time you sat through a shitty podcast. It is much harder to build an audience for a Podcast compared to Youtube, you really need to be able to produce super high quality content. My point is, these different types of medium each have pros and cons. But there are always very good reasons if you look behind the scenes. Nothing is "incidental". And again, this all comes down to money.

dalbasal 8y ago
I suppose we disagree on your last point, and that colours a lot of the rest. I don't think it all comes down to money. Some of it does. I certainly don't see a straight line from FB being an excellent way to sell ads and facebook being the most popular platform. FB won because FB was where people posted and read posts. No one even knew that facebook would be such a great ad platform at that point. I don't think users cared much. This is what I mean by incidental. Not coincidental and not without consequence, just not having a determining cause and effect relationship. ...incidentally (yep, again), twitter and youtube are not great ad platforms, by comparison. That's in large part why podcasts are comparatively better, economically, in some cases, for content makers. Youtube sets a low bar. Control for content quality, length, viewer loyalty or whatever you think is relevant and you'll still rarely find direct youtube ad revenue good relative to television, radio or most comparable mediums. low bar. Anyway, my larger point is that the same rules apply for open, decentralised, democratized or other characteristic you/me/we would like our FB-killer to have. It must win the platform game. The platform game is determined by users, chickens, eggs, internal economics, external economics, UX paradigms, early adopters, people, stuff.... That will determine the success of rss-based ideas just like it determined FBs success. I don't think this is reducible to "it's all about the money," or at least not reducible to a way that preserves much meaning..
- cocktailpeanuts 8y ago
  I don't think we disagree on any of the facts you suggested. Obviously you need to win the platform if you want to be successful. You're interpreting from business point of view and I'm interpreting from macro economical view. And in this view, every human activity revolves around money. If something is not economical, each economic actor will leave, and the technology will lose out. Of course, on a lower level there's user experience, network effects, etc. but on a more fundamental level if you think of the entire world as a network of human value transactions, it does become mostly about money what people spend their time on (with opportunity costs and all) > FB won because FB was where people posted and read posts. No one even knew that facebook would be such a great ad platform at that point FB got traction because it was free. If they charged for posting it would have lost to some other service. And during the early days FB survived because they raised money from VCs, and the VCs thought that there WILL be ways to make money if they got tons of users somehow. If FB was some drug dealing, child trafficking service, then VCs wouldn't have put money into it. Even if we don't go that far, we can just look at music tech industry to see how this applies. Investors really got burned by Napster and never wanted to invest in a music tech company anymore because they knew it was a difficult industry to make money in. Imagine how many people will be building web services if it was guaranteed that nobody made any money from it. That's why I keep saying it's all about money. But I get your point, and I will compromise with you and say it's not "all" about money but "mostly" about money. After all, people build these web services in hopes of making money. That's why they form corporations (corporation's main function is to make money)

dalbasal 8y ago

I suppose we disagree on your last point, and that colours a lot of the rest. I don't think it all comes down to money. Some of it does. I certainly don't see a straight line from FB being an excellent way to sell ads and facebook being the most popular platform. FB won because FB was where people posted and read posts. No one even knew that facebook would be such a great ad platform at that point. I don't think users cared much. This is what I mean by incidental. Not coincidental and not without consequence, just not having a determining cause and effect relationship. ...incidentally (yep, again), twitter and youtube are not great ad platforms, by comparison. That's in large part why podcasts are comparatively better, economically, in some cases, for content makers. Youtube sets a low bar. Control for content quality, length, viewer loyalty or whatever you think is relevant and you'll still rarely find direct youtube ad revenue good relative to television, radio or most comparable mediums. low bar. Anyway, my larger point is that the same rules apply for open, decentralised, democratized or other characteristic you/me/we would like our FB-killer to have. It must win the platform game. The platform game is determined by users, chickens, eggs, internal economics, external economics, UX paradigms, early adopters, people, stuff.... That will determine the success of rss-based ideas just like it determined FBs success. I don't think this is reducible to "it's all about the money," or at least not reducible to a way that preserves much meaning..

cocktailpeanuts 8y ago
I don't think we disagree on any of the facts you suggested. Obviously you need to win the platform if you want to be successful. You're interpreting from business point of view and I'm interpreting from macro economical view. And in this view, every human activity revolves around money. If something is not economical, each economic actor will leave, and the technology will lose out. Of course, on a lower level there's user experience, network effects, etc. but on a more fundamental level if you think of the entire world as a network of human value transactions, it does become mostly about money what people spend their time on (with opportunity costs and all) > FB won because FB was where people posted and read posts. No one even knew that facebook would be such a great ad platform at that point FB got traction because it was free. If they charged for posting it would have lost to some other service. And during the early days FB survived because they raised money from VCs, and the VCs thought that there WILL be ways to make money if they got tons of users somehow. If FB was some drug dealing, child trafficking service, then VCs wouldn't have put money into it. Even if we don't go that far, we can just look at music tech industry to see how this applies. Investors really got burned by Napster and never wanted to invest in a music tech company anymore because they knew it was a difficult industry to make money in. Imagine how many people will be building web services if it was guaranteed that nobody made any money from it. That's why I keep saying it's all about money. But I get your point, and I will compromise with you and say it's not "all" about money but "mostly" about money. After all, people build these web services in hopes of making money. That's why they form corporations (corporation's main function is to make money)