6 ms·

Were they really wrong though?

by pram 6y ago

darkerside 6y ago
Twitter is perhaps the biggest change in how people communicate in the 21st century so far. I would say that was a laughable underestimation. Would you like to expand on your point?
- Apocryphon 6y ago
  A drastic dramatic change needn’t mean that it’s not a stupid change.
  - stevofolife 6y ago
    Change for the better. Definitely not stupid.
    - Apocryphon 6y ago
      I humbly beg to differ.
  - darkerside 6y ago
    I don't make judgements on whether a global phenomenon is "stupid" or not, because frankly I think doing so is stupid itself. If everybody goes in a stupid direction, you can pretend it doesn't matter, but you'll be wrong. Just because it isn't important and profound to you personally doesn't mean it's stupid. Whatever you mean by that word anyway.
    - Apocryphon 6y ago
      You are objectively right and subjectively wrong.
      - darkerside 6y ago
        As are you
        Apocryphon 6y ago
        My point exactly.
        darkerside 6y ago
        The difference is, way more people agree with me
        Apocryphon 6y ago
        Argument from popularity. Anyway, this all stems from a fundamental misreading. I said that things can both be drastic, and stupid. I never said what, nor claimed that something significant and profound cannot also be stupid.
        darkerside 6y ago
        > But there is no need to talk in such grandious terms, when talking about a voice chat app. This is the statement I'm responding to. I think it demonstrates a lack of vision, and I'm trying to correct it. So yeah, basically different conversations at this point.
        Apocryphon 6y ago
        I was making a general point. I wasn’t even talking about Twitter. Though I do agree that Twitter is simultaneously significant and has engendered a lot of stupidity. Many things throughout history have been both great and stupid.
- ethbr0 6y ago
  To be fair, Twitter wouldn't have taken off if cell carriers hadn't been mind-blowingly incapable of evolving SMS.
  - darkerside 6y ago
    SMS is a totally different protocol. It's a 1 to 1 framework, not a 1 to many, by default.
    - ethbr0 6y ago
      It's a 1:1 framework, because it didn't evolve. There's nothing fundamentally limiting SMS to being stuck to that. That SMS didn't add better 1:something capabilities is an indictment of post-1995 cellular carrier pricing models and greed. They could have prevented and owned the entire messaging space, all of which is essentially an attempt to recreate basic messaging functionality that SMS lacks.
      - rchaud 6y ago
        You seem to be confusing group chat with Twitter. And who exactly would "own the messaging space"? SMS is a protocol available to any carrier in any country.
        ethbr0 6y ago
        I'm viewing both as a way to transport short messages from senders to receivers On the search side, there's nothing stopping a carrier from indexing public SMSs and making them discoverable. We're not talking about rocket science, in the basic realization [0]. I'm not sure why HN is looking at these things like (short blobs of text) are completely different than (short blobs of text). Everything built around them is plumbing. Complicated, difficult plumbing, but plumbing nonetheless. I'm all ears as to why providing an SMS service that supports all of Twitter's features would have been technically impossible... say, circa-2000. [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usenet https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usenet
- bavell 6y ago
  Twitter is only important to the in-group that uses it. To them, it feels bigger and more important than it is because half of it is made up of bots and spammers inflating numbers and activity. Social media is unfortunately one of the biggest changes in how people communicate this century so far but Twitter is only a small part of that.
  - darkerside 6y ago
    That in group includes mainstream media journalists who report on it and influential people who read it and make decisions based on it. I can't believe you're making that argument with a straight face. We just had the Twitter president (who's been kneecapped by the Twitter ban, if you need another example of its power). The ways Facebook, Insta, etc are being used now are heavily influenced by what Twitter started doing first.
    - bavell 6y ago
      Right, the tiny in-group of mainstream journalists and elites use it and place way too much weight on what's being said on the platform. Outside of that, most of America (& the world?) doesn't give a crap about what blue checks are saying. That doesn't stop journalists from twisting themselves into pretzels over what this or that person tweeted. I'm not saying it's not important and influential to the people using it, I'm saying those people think everyone else feels the same way and that's not the case. It's trivial to buy a bot farm and pump up your tweets to make it seem you have a large following or tons of people agree with your opinion when in fact it's all manufactured. But hey, all that tech is complicated right? Better to not think about it... /s

Were they really wrong though?

by pram 6y ago

Were they really wrong though?

Twitter is perhaps the biggest change in how people communicate in the 21st century so far. I would say that was a laughable underestimation. Would you like to expand on your point?

Apocryphon 6y ago
A drastic dramatic change needn’t mean that it’s not a stupid change.
- stevofolife 6y ago
  Change for the better. Definitely not stupid.
  - Apocryphon 6y ago
    I humbly beg to differ.
- darkerside 6y ago
  I don't make judgements on whether a global phenomenon is "stupid" or not, because frankly I think doing so is stupid itself. If everybody goes in a stupid direction, you can pretend it doesn't matter, but you'll be wrong. Just because it isn't important and profound to you personally doesn't mean it's stupid. Whatever you mean by that word anyway.
  - Apocryphon 6y ago
    You are objectively right and subjectively wrong.
    - darkerside 6y ago
      As are you
      - Apocryphon 6y ago
        My point exactly.
        darkerside 6y ago
        The difference is, way more people agree with me
        Apocryphon 6y ago
        Argument from popularity. Anyway, this all stems from a fundamental misreading. I said that things can both be drastic, and stupid. I never said what, nor claimed that something significant and profound cannot also be stupid.
        darkerside 6y ago
        > But there is no need to talk in such grandious terms, when talking about a voice chat app. This is the statement I'm responding to. I think it demonstrates a lack of vision, and I'm trying to correct it. So yeah, basically different conversations at this point.
        Apocryphon 6y ago
        I was making a general point. I wasn’t even talking about Twitter. Though I do agree that Twitter is simultaneously significant and has engendered a lot of stupidity. Many things throughout history have been both great and stupid.
ethbr0 6y ago
To be fair, Twitter wouldn't have taken off if cell carriers hadn't been mind-blowingly incapable of evolving SMS.
- darkerside 6y ago
  SMS is a totally different protocol. It's a 1 to 1 framework, not a 1 to many, by default.
  - ethbr0 6y ago
    It's a 1:1 framework, because it didn't evolve. There's nothing fundamentally limiting SMS to being stuck to that. That SMS didn't add better 1:something capabilities is an indictment of post-1995 cellular carrier pricing models and greed. They could have prevented and owned the entire messaging space, all of which is essentially an attempt to recreate basic messaging functionality that SMS lacks.
    - rchaud 6y ago
      You seem to be confusing group chat with Twitter. And who exactly would "own the messaging space"? SMS is a protocol available to any carrier in any country.
      - ethbr0 6y ago
        I'm viewing both as a way to transport short messages from senders to receivers On the search side, there's nothing stopping a carrier from indexing public SMSs and making them discoverable. We're not talking about rocket science, in the basic realization [0]. I'm not sure why HN is looking at these things like (short blobs of text) are completely different than (short blobs of text). Everything built around them is plumbing. Complicated, difficult plumbing, but plumbing nonetheless. I'm all ears as to why providing an SMS service that supports all of Twitter's features would have been technically impossible... say, circa-2000. [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usenet https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usenet
bavell 6y ago
Twitter is only important to the in-group that uses it. To them, it feels bigger and more important than it is because half of it is made up of bots and spammers inflating numbers and activity. Social media is unfortunately one of the biggest changes in how people communicate this century so far but Twitter is only a small part of that.
- darkerside 6y ago
  That in group includes mainstream media journalists who report on it and influential people who read it and make decisions based on it. I can't believe you're making that argument with a straight face. We just had the Twitter president (who's been kneecapped by the Twitter ban, if you need another example of its power). The ways Facebook, Insta, etc are being used now are heavily influenced by what Twitter started doing first.
  - bavell 6y ago
    Right, the tiny in-group of mainstream journalists and elites use it and place way too much weight on what's being said on the platform. Outside of that, most of America (& the world?) doesn't give a crap about what blue checks are saying. That doesn't stop journalists from twisting themselves into pretzels over what this or that person tweeted. I'm not saying it's not important and influential to the people using it, I'm saying those people think everyone else feels the same way and that's not the case. It's trivial to buy a bot farm and pump up your tweets to make it seem you have a large following or tons of people agree with your opinion when in fact it's all manufactured. But hey, all that tech is complicated right? Better to not think about it... /s