Agreed. The problem with Twitter is in its design. It's in what it allows you to do, and what it doesn't. I'll repeat what I raised in the other post: 1. Peopl

Agreed. The problem with Twitter is in its design. It's in what it allows you to do, and what it doesn't. I'll repeat what I raised in the other post: 1. People are high-variance, and yet we're only allowed to follow individual accounts. That's a problem, especially because network effects mean that one person's voice gets amplified exponentially with the number of followers they have. Consider the six degrees of separation: applied to Twitter, we realize that it only takes 6 retweets to reach basically everyone. Following "Topics" is close but not good enough, because you cannot voluntarily opt into topics or really understand why a given tweet is within a topic; Twitter uses its Computer Magic to categorize tweets and makes all the decisions in a black box. 2. The only negative feedback is unfollowing. This is a problem because it means that practically all forms of engagement are treated equally. Oh, this tweet is getting a lot of comments, let's boost it so more people see it! Whoops, it was about space lasers. We are stuck repeatedly fighting Bad Takes because they have to be argued against every time, always gain nonzero traction. They are never put to rest. There is very little negative incentive against being a garbage human on Twitter, especially if you're anonymous. We're never going to change core human behavior, but the design of a platform can guide that behavior. For example, the HN and Reddit model of posting means that your previous karma has no impact on your post's reach. That has serious implications for the kind of conversations that become popular on the platform. Another example: Facebook's commenting model is not nested and therefore doesn't allow you to have conversations with other people. So what do you get? Everyone screaming into the void, vaguely in the direction of other people. Everyone talks about "changing the system", and yet all the suggestions are mostly cosmetic like charging for accounts. That doesn't change the fact that every time Elon tweets, it's automatically shunted to a million people no matter how bonkers it is.