4 ms·

What should we do? Twitter offered a base service that was great and they are now constantly removing features (no chronological timeline, no access to polls f

What should we do? Twitter offered a base service that was great and they are now constantly removing features (no chronological timeline, no access to polls for 3rd party apps, now no streaming for 3rd party apps). A few days ago on HN we were talking about Mastodon but I don't see it replacing a Twitter as it's a platform, not a single entity that I can use. The best scenario I can imagine would be to see the teams behind Twitterific and Tweetbot creating a Mastodon server and offering me to switch in the app in the coming months. Twitter is screwing us because we are, as users of those apps, the 1%. And I'm quite sure that the people I follow are also part of the same single percent. To The Iconfactory and Tapbots: make me pay again, ask me to pay a subscription, I don't care. But screw Twitter, they treat you (and thus us) like garbage, make me switch to something offering me a better experience and that is guaranteed to last. Is posting tweets from my account through your apps still free? Then offer me the possibility to send tweets when I send messages on your new platform + a weekly message to send to my few followers that they should also switch. Twitter is gonna apparently kill you at some point anyway, letting your users see a stream ordered by a shitty IA and with 1/3 of ads. So please, let's fight instead of slowly dying.

sp332 8y ago
There's still an option for a chronological timeline. https://twitter.com/settings/account#personalize_timeline https://twitter.com/settings/account#personalize_timeline and uncheck "Show best tweets first". It will still inject a block called "In case you missed it" from time to time but you can dismiss it. Mastodon... it's a platform, not a single entity that I can use. That might be the tradeoff that has to be made. Pick a Mastodon instance whose administration you trust not to screw you over. If they do you can move to another. If you go with a single entity, you're going to be stuck when they mess with you. Like with Twitter.
- eli 8y ago
  That only seems plausible if most of the people I want follow are already there.
  - sp332 8y ago
    Twitter had that chicken-and-egg problem too, but do you know how we solved it? We all joined Twitter and then told people we wanted to follow that we were there.
    - johannes1234321 8y ago
      With the difference, that back then Twitter didn't exist. Only in form of IRC or such and Twitter could distinguish from that. A new service has to be unique in a new way.
      - solarkraft 8y ago
        Like not screwing its users over?
- Mindwipe 8y ago
  Well, it goes you a chronological ish timeline. It still insists on trying to insert blocks of "content you might have missed", and it still has crappy conversation views that can't be turned off. A strictly chronological timeline is only available via third party apps.
  - WorldMaker 8y ago
    Plus "Promoted Tweets". Those are also out of order, and increasingly just as irritating as the "content you might have missed" blocks. Also, now the "content you might have missed" stuff is showing up in Notifications and whoever thought that was a good idea?
dillondoyle 8y ago
What if Twitterific and Tweetbot just default to posting to both platforms, users could turn it off, to kind of dark pattern posts onto Mastadon or another alternative.
yborg 8y ago
>creating a Mastodon server This is really what Mastodon needs, a solid sponsor. I want to use it, but the loose federation model without core instances that have a critical mass of users makes it hard to commit to. In Japan, when Pixiv sponsored Pawoo, the Mastodon usage shot up, I think that's still one of the biggest instances worldwide right now. Also, Mastodon needs a good Mac client. I would pay for both that and to support a general Mastodon instance backed by someone with name recognition.

sp332 8y ago

There's still an option for a chronological timeline. https://twitter.com/settings/account#personalize_timeline https://twitter.com/settings/account#personalize_timeline and uncheck "Show best tweets first". It will still inject a block called "In case you missed it" from time to time but you can dismiss it. Mastodon... it's a platform, not a single entity that I can use. That might be the tradeoff that has to be made. Pick a Mastodon instance whose administration you trust not to screw you over. If they do you can move to another. If you go with a single entity, you're going to be stuck when they mess with you. Like with Twitter.

eli 8y ago
That only seems plausible if most of the people I want follow are already there.
- sp332 8y ago
  Twitter had that chicken-and-egg problem too, but do you know how we solved it? We all joined Twitter and then told people we wanted to follow that we were there.
  - johannes1234321 8y ago
    With the difference, that back then Twitter didn't exist. Only in form of IRC or such and Twitter could distinguish from that. A new service has to be unique in a new way.
    - solarkraft 8y ago
      Like not screwing its users over?
Mindwipe 8y ago
Well, it goes you a chronological ish timeline. It still insists on trying to insert blocks of "content you might have missed", and it still has crappy conversation views that can't be turned off. A strictly chronological timeline is only available via third party apps.
- WorldMaker 8y ago
  Plus "Promoted Tweets". Those are also out of order, and increasingly just as irritating as the "content you might have missed" blocks. Also, now the "content you might have missed" stuff is showing up in Notifications and whoever thought that was a good idea?

dillondoyle 8y ago

What if Twitterific and Tweetbot just default to posting to both platforms, users could turn it off, to kind of dark pattern posts onto Mastadon or another alternative.

yborg 8y ago

>creating a Mastodon server This is really what Mastodon needs, a solid sponsor. I want to use it, but the loose federation model without core instances that have a critical mass of users makes it hard to commit to. In Japan, when Pixiv sponsored Pawoo, the Mastodon usage shot up, I think that's still one of the biggest instances worldwide right now. Also, Mastodon needs a good Mac client. I would pay for both that and to support a general Mastodon instance backed by someone with name recognition.