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What about Twitter's actions that are yet to come? And why not just try? What if the open platform succeeds? Even if the chance of success is 0.01%, it is wort

What about Twitter's actions that are yet to come? And why not just try? What if the open platform succeeds? Even if the chance of success is 0.01%, it is worth trying. Also, a million such attempts by million such teams can fail. Only one team needs to succeed. Once.

peteforde 16y ago
On Hacker News, we don't downvote someone just because we can't find the right words to describe how radically we disagree. There really are two types of people in the world: lottery players and everyone else.
- kirubakaran 16y ago
  I am not exactly worried about getting downvoted but thanks anyway :-) I guess I should elaborate on my previous comment: I am saying that there is no reason to look at someone actually trying something big and say "Dude, give up! It won't work!" no matter how rooted in reality you think your choices are. IMHO it is not helpful or interesting to view the world in binary terms as "lottery players and everyone else". In the risk profile continuum, you're drawing a line at your max risk tolerance level and viewing it as a binary choice. But it is a continuum. Someone else may view everyone not working for the government with pension benefits as a lottery player.
  - InclinedPlane 16y ago
    I think the responses are more "dude, try something else, that won't work", which is quite a bit different.
    - borism 16y ago
      what else?
jamesaguilar 16y ago
> Even if the chances of success is 0.01% . . . If chance of success * probable value of outcome + (the converse of failure) - cost > 0, it's worth it. Is that really the case here? Personally I think you are overestimating chance of success by a wide margin.
- kirubakaran 16y ago
  That is a good method to make personal choices. But in the 'startup ecosystem' (pardon me) or the 'free market' the cost is privatized and the benefit of success is socialized. The overall equation looks like this: success = (team1_success or team2_success or ... or teamn_success)
  - jamesaguilar 16y ago
    I was assuming that the calculation was from the standpoint of all society, considering most free software advocates consider themselves altruists. So our functions are the same in this case, and it is still possible for the project to not be a good idea based on expected value.
jfischer 16y ago
Hmmm. If we look at some past examples of cases in the consumer internet space where a new entrant overtook an entrenched player (e.g. Google vs. other search engines and Facebook vs. Myspace), I think you need to have something new and compelling about your application to drive adoption. I don't know of any cases where just cloning an existing app was successful for a startup. Has movement to a new player every been driven by openness concerns? What can you do that is different from Twitter and cannot easily be copied by them?
- deleted 16y ago
  [deleted]
- kirubakaran 16y ago
  If enough of us "nerds" get pissed of by the actions of Twitter, can't we ourselves provide the initial momentum for an open alternative, with HN having 80k daily uniques and all? Does it have to have better features? (although that will help)
  - rch 16y ago
    Making something better is the easy part.
- btmorex 16y ago
  I'm sure you meant consumer facing applications, but I might as well point out that there exceptions in the general case. Linux has nearly completely taken over from UNIX and it did this (at least originally) by simply being more open.
- lukes 16y ago
  It's all about critical mass. If techies who care about it being open switch over and then it becomes the most popular amongst HN readers, then it can grow out from there.
deleted 16y ago
[deleted]
rch 16y ago
In the general scheme of things, Twitter and Facebook have only just demonstrated that a market exists around their type of product. They'll be replaced at some point, but not by the services in the article. Niche players might be able establish a de facto standard for shared profile data though.
jmathai 16y ago
> What about Twitter's actions that are yet to come? No telling. That's the point. > And why not just try? Because human hours are the most valuable asset on this planet. If you have a .01% chance of success then it's not necessarily worth trying. But that's up to the person who's putting in the time. In this case some people do believe it's worth it and by all means they should try. I just wonder if there's an option that's more than .01%.

peteforde 16y ago

On Hacker News, we don't downvote someone just because we can't find the right words to describe how radically we disagree. There really are two types of people in the world: lottery players and everyone else.

kirubakaran 16y ago
I am not exactly worried about getting downvoted but thanks anyway :-) I guess I should elaborate on my previous comment: I am saying that there is no reason to look at someone actually trying something big and say "Dude, give up! It won't work!" no matter how rooted in reality you think your choices are. IMHO it is not helpful or interesting to view the world in binary terms as "lottery players and everyone else". In the risk profile continuum, you're drawing a line at your max risk tolerance level and viewing it as a binary choice. But it is a continuum. Someone else may view everyone not working for the government with pension benefits as a lottery player.
- InclinedPlane 16y ago
  I think the responses are more "dude, try something else, that won't work", which is quite a bit different.
  - borism 16y ago
    what else?

jamesaguilar 16y ago

> Even if the chances of success is 0.01% . . . If chance of success * probable value of outcome + (the converse of failure) - cost > 0, it's worth it. Is that really the case here? Personally I think you are overestimating chance of success by a wide margin.

kirubakaran 16y ago
That is a good method to make personal choices. But in the 'startup ecosystem' (pardon me) or the 'free market' the cost is privatized and the benefit of success is socialized. The overall equation looks like this: success = (team1_success or team2_success or ... or teamn_success)
- jamesaguilar 16y ago
  I was assuming that the calculation was from the standpoint of all society, considering most free software advocates consider themselves altruists. So our functions are the same in this case, and it is still possible for the project to not be a good idea based on expected value.

jfischer 16y ago

Hmmm. If we look at some past examples of cases in the consumer internet space where a new entrant overtook an entrenched player (e.g. Google vs. other search engines and Facebook vs. Myspace), I think you need to have something new and compelling about your application to drive adoption. I don't know of any cases where just cloning an existing app was successful for a startup. Has movement to a new player every been driven by openness concerns? What can you do that is different from Twitter and cannot easily be copied by them?

deleted 16y ago
[deleted]
kirubakaran 16y ago
If enough of us "nerds" get pissed of by the actions of Twitter, can't we ourselves provide the initial momentum for an open alternative, with HN having 80k daily uniques and all? Does it have to have better features? (although that will help)
- rch 16y ago
  Making something better is the easy part.
btmorex 16y ago
I'm sure you meant consumer facing applications, but I might as well point out that there exceptions in the general case. Linux has nearly completely taken over from UNIX and it did this (at least originally) by simply being more open.
lukes 16y ago
It's all about critical mass. If techies who care about it being open switch over and then it becomes the most popular amongst HN readers, then it can grow out from there.

deleted 16y ago

[deleted]

rch 16y ago

In the general scheme of things, Twitter and Facebook have only just demonstrated that a market exists around their type of product. They'll be replaced at some point, but not by the services in the article. Niche players might be able establish a de facto standard for shared profile data though.

jmathai 16y ago

> What about Twitter's actions that are yet to come? No telling. That's the point. > And why not just try? Because human hours are the most valuable asset on this planet. If you have a .01% chance of success then it's not necessarily worth trying. But that's up to the person who's putting in the time. In this case some people do believe it's worth it and by all means they should try. I just wonder if there's an option that's more than .01%.