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The status game is their answer to discovery, because ultimately Clubhouse's biggest problem is content quality. I ticked all the interests boxes, perused throu

by pfraze 5y ago

The status game is their answer to discovery, because ultimately Clubhouse's biggest problem is content quality. I ticked all the interests boxes, perused through the suggested rooms, and never ever waltzed into a room that I found interesting (after about 20 tries). The exception is a weekly room I was invited to by a friend. That room has been amazing. I've met people, had fun and interesting conversations, and gotten a lot of value out of the app. So Clubhouse is using one mechanism that's probably Almost Right, the "follows," to help discover rooms that are going to be worth your time. This then creates a status game, and it's very real; our weekly room had a million-follower person get on stage for about 15 seconds, and we suddenly had 1000+ people in the audience. It was a bit like a Twitch raid from a popular streamer. > Now that high status people can be seen in person again, they are spending less time on Clubhouse. Lower status people are left trying to be seen amongst themselves. Without high status people, Clubhouse is not serving its purpose of helping people be seen. It is a cargo cult: low status people recreating the actions of high status people, after they have left, thinking it will cause them to be high status. I have to agree. Clubhouse imploded around February and it's been a sad scene since then.

rvz 5y ago
Everyone, including some small startups have already added Clubhouse-like functionality into their own apps. Look at Discord, Facebook / Instagram, Twitter, Reddit, LinkedIn, Spotify, Telegram, and even small startups like 'Public' have treated it like a feature, which is why Clubhouse is losing users. The only daily active users there are a16z and the same VCs of Clubhouse. I still don't know why it is worth $4B. And now Slack, with Slack Huddles [0] [0] https://slack.com/intl/en-gb/help/articles/4402059015315-Introducing-Slack-Huddles-a-new-way-to-have-live-audio-discussions https://slack.com/intl/en-gb/help/articles/4402059015315-Int...
- addicted 5y ago
  It is a useful feature, but I doubt that’s why clubhouse is losing users. If clubhouse truly had interest conversations from interesting people all of whom derived benefit from these conversations it wouldn’t have lost to these other platforms because of network effects. Everyone was on clubhouse. I think the article does a good job backing up their theory about why clubhouse’s network effect has evaporated. People were there because it was a great way to show status during the pandemic. Now that other status displaying activities have opened up, they’ve left it en masse.
  - rvz 5y ago
    > Everyone was on clubhouse. Given that Clubhouse peaked in January - February 2021 [0], where were the Android users at the time then? [0] https://9to5mac.com/2021/02/18/clubhouse-reaches-8-million-downloads-on-the-ios-app-store/ https://9to5mac.com/2021/02/18/clubhouse-reaches-8-million-d...
  - ttmb 5y ago
    > Everyone was on clubhouse. Anecdatapoint: I don't recall hearing anyone talk about Clubhouse - or at least not in enough detail that it actually stuck with me what it was - before this post. I may live under a small rock, but others must be under here with me. Some app? Okay, moving on. Sometimes the network effect is so focused that the in-network and the out-network can't perceive each other.
- villasv 5y ago
  I do think that Clubhouse was aiming for a different use case than what's happening in these other apps. I say this as a daily user of Slack Huddles (love 'em) and frustrated week-long Clubhouse user, but mostly as a product market-fit analyst. The problem is, the market Clubhouse is trying to create is a Wild West without near-perfect content curation. It's going to fail a hundred times before taking off and when it does it's not going to be as big as everyone though initially, much like groupon.
- redisman 5y ago
  Discord has had that for years before clubhouse?
riffic 5y ago
> ultimately Clubhouse's biggest problem is content quality lol, that's not even the biggest problem. This is a service known to send identifiers as cleartext[0], among other privacy and security flaws[1]. [0] https://cyber.fsi.stanford.edu/io/news/clubhouse-china https://cyber.fsi.stanford.edu/io/news/clubhouse-china [1] https://www.wired.com/story/clubhouse-privacy-security-growth/ https://www.wired.com/story/clubhouse-privacy-security-growt...
- asdfasgasdgasdg 5y ago
  Their security could be perfect, and I still wouldn't use it because there is nothing on there that I really care about hearing. Meanwhile, their imperfect security would not stop me from using them if there was good content on there. So I do think, at least for a not insubstantial slice of their possible userbase, content is probably a bigger problem than their security and privacy.
  - riffic 5y ago
    I just think it speaks to a bigger issue, which is one that is cultural - if they can't get the fundamentals right, what else are they screwing up? This isn't the 90s - in this day and age this stuff matters.
    - rvz 5y ago
      > if they can't get the fundamentals right, what else are they screwing up? It was the lack of an Android app for more than a year (Android accounts for more than 70% of marketshare worldwide) [0], plus they have kept the invite system in place even when all their competitors have already cloned them to death. Finally on top of that, the end of lockdowns for hundreds of millions, worldwide and getting back to normal. By the time all of that was phased out and the Android app released, everyone went back to Twitter, Discord and Reddit and the Clubhouse hype died. [0] https://www.statista.com/statistics/272698/global-market-share-held-by-mobile-operating-systems-since-2009/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/272698/global-market-sha...
- ummonk 5y ago
redisman 5y ago
> The exception is a weekly room I was invited to by a friend. And that is already solved well by a weekly repeating zoom meeting
PaywallBuster 5y ago
Voice has the problem that you can't easily skim through. And it's more limited than video, you're limited to sound only. Basically need to spend multiple minutes to understand what's going on and whether is worth it or not
UncleOxidant 5y ago
A friend gave me an invite a couple of months ago. He seemed to really like it so I figured I'd give it a go. WTAF? Seems to be mostly teens gossiping at this point. I quickly deleted the app.
capkutay 5y ago
Clubhouse is fundamentally a poor user experience. Dropping into a live discussion mid-stream is a pretty inefficient way to consume content...takes about 10-15 minutes to understand the flow of the conversation. Most of the clubhouse influencers treat it as a low-effort way to just start a channel and brain dump whatever's on their mind compared to curated/planned content that you see on Youtube or high quality blog posts. In fact that's how it was sold to marketers (low effort, high yield).

by pfraze 5y ago

rvz 5y ago

Everyone, including some small startups have already added Clubhouse-like functionality into their own apps. Look at Discord, Facebook / Instagram, Twitter, Reddit, LinkedIn, Spotify, Telegram, and even small startups like 'Public' have treated it like a feature, which is why Clubhouse is losing users. The only daily active users there are a16z and the same VCs of Clubhouse. I still don't know why it is worth $4B. And now Slack, with Slack Huddles [0] [0] https://slack.com/intl/en-gb/help/articles/4402059015315-Introducing-Slack-Huddles-a-new-way-to-have-live-audio-discussions https://slack.com/intl/en-gb/help/articles/4402059015315-Int...

addicted 5y ago
It is a useful feature, but I doubt that’s why clubhouse is losing users. If clubhouse truly had interest conversations from interesting people all of whom derived benefit from these conversations it wouldn’t have lost to these other platforms because of network effects. Everyone was on clubhouse. I think the article does a good job backing up their theory about why clubhouse’s network effect has evaporated. People were there because it was a great way to show status during the pandemic. Now that other status displaying activities have opened up, they’ve left it en masse.
- rvz 5y ago
  > Everyone was on clubhouse. Given that Clubhouse peaked in January - February 2021 [0], where were the Android users at the time then? [0] https://9to5mac.com/2021/02/18/clubhouse-reaches-8-million-downloads-on-the-ios-app-store/ https://9to5mac.com/2021/02/18/clubhouse-reaches-8-million-d...
- ttmb 5y ago
  > Everyone was on clubhouse. Anecdatapoint: I don't recall hearing anyone talk about Clubhouse - or at least not in enough detail that it actually stuck with me what it was - before this post. I may live under a small rock, but others must be under here with me. Some app? Okay, moving on. Sometimes the network effect is so focused that the in-network and the out-network can't perceive each other.
villasv 5y ago
I do think that Clubhouse was aiming for a different use case than what's happening in these other apps. I say this as a daily user of Slack Huddles (love 'em) and frustrated week-long Clubhouse user, but mostly as a product market-fit analyst. The problem is, the market Clubhouse is trying to create is a Wild West without near-perfect content curation. It's going to fail a hundred times before taking off and when it does it's not going to be as big as everyone though initially, much like groupon.
redisman 5y ago
Discord has had that for years before clubhouse?

riffic 5y ago

> ultimately Clubhouse's biggest problem is content quality lol, that's not even the biggest problem. This is a service known to send identifiers as cleartext[0], among other privacy and security flaws[1]. [0] https://cyber.fsi.stanford.edu/io/news/clubhouse-china https://cyber.fsi.stanford.edu/io/news/clubhouse-china [1] https://www.wired.com/story/clubhouse-privacy-security-growth/ https://www.wired.com/story/clubhouse-privacy-security-growt...

asdfasgasdgasdg 5y ago
Their security could be perfect, and I still wouldn't use it because there is nothing on there that I really care about hearing. Meanwhile, their imperfect security would not stop me from using them if there was good content on there. So I do think, at least for a not insubstantial slice of their possible userbase, content is probably a bigger problem than their security and privacy.
- riffic 5y ago
  I just think it speaks to a bigger issue, which is one that is cultural - if they can't get the fundamentals right, what else are they screwing up? This isn't the 90s - in this day and age this stuff matters.
  - rvz 5y ago
    > if they can't get the fundamentals right, what else are they screwing up? It was the lack of an Android app for more than a year (Android accounts for more than 70% of marketshare worldwide) [0], plus they have kept the invite system in place even when all their competitors have already cloned them to death. Finally on top of that, the end of lockdowns for hundreds of millions, worldwide and getting back to normal. By the time all of that was phased out and the Android app released, everyone went back to Twitter, Discord and Reddit and the Clubhouse hype died. [0] https://www.statista.com/statistics/272698/global-market-share-held-by-mobile-operating-systems-since-2009/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/272698/global-market-sha...
ummonk 5y ago

redisman 5y ago

> The exception is a weekly room I was invited to by a friend. And that is already solved well by a weekly repeating zoom meeting

PaywallBuster 5y ago

Voice has the problem that you can't easily skim through. And it's more limited than video, you're limited to sound only. Basically need to spend multiple minutes to understand what's going on and whether is worth it or not

UncleOxidant 5y ago

A friend gave me an invite a couple of months ago. He seemed to really like it so I figured I'd give it a go. WTAF? Seems to be mostly teens gossiping at this point. I quickly deleted the app.

capkutay 5y ago

Clubhouse is fundamentally a poor user experience. Dropping into a live discussion mid-stream is a pretty inefficient way to consume content...takes about 10-15 minutes to understand the flow of the conversation. Most of the clubhouse influencers treat it as a low-effort way to just start a channel and brain dump whatever's on their mind compared to curated/planned content that you see on Youtube or high quality blog posts. In fact that's how it was sold to marketers (low effort, high yield).