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Unpopular opinion: any social network, no matter how it’s architected will become terrible past a certain size. Perhaps some architectures will have different “

Unpopular opinion: any social network, no matter how it’s architected will become terrible past a certain size. Perhaps some architectures will have different “maximum tolerable sizes” than others, but all will become intolerable once there is a large enough user base. More users, however, means more ad / tracking revenue, so these two ideas will always be at odds.

deanc 4y ago
Agreed. Small, decentralised communities should be the way forward. We could call them forums ;-)
- asynchronous 4y ago
  I miss forums. Discord has replaced forums in most of the communities I cared about and it’s been for the worse.
  - Mezzie 4y ago
    I hate this, and I like Discord. Discord is a replacement for IRC/chat/AIM/other synchronous and informal conversation. It's not a replacement for forums, archives, or formal communication.
    - Grimburger 4y ago
      Dealing with opensource projects via discord is a nightmare. One I use regularly decided to escape the walled garden and move to github discussions and it's been such a boon for search. Discord is a repetitive nightmare of doing support I don't know why projects use it. The discord server still exists but questions generally don't get answered as much or if they do it's usually a link to github discussions.
  - prox 4y ago
    So how do you combine social network + forum? What does that look like?
- squarefoot 4y ago
  Heh, I just thought of an even smaller solution called newsgroups ;#)
- bcrosby95 4y ago
  There is/was already a social network for that - Ning. Back when social network platforms became A Thing they adopted OpenSocial - they had a news feed, notifications, etc - but each social network was completely isolated. I haven't taken a look at Ning since I worked on social networking apps about 12 years ago, so I have no clue how they've evolved since then.
hn_throwaway_99 4y ago
Is this really an unpopular opinion? Seems most people have acknowledged then general toxicity of large social networks by now.
- everdrive 4y ago
  I suppose it's not. The part which I _thought_ would be unpopular was that technology unequivocally could not solve this problem.
deleted 4y ago
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deanc 4y ago

Agreed. Small, decentralised communities should be the way forward. We could call them forums ;-)

asynchronous 4y ago
I miss forums. Discord has replaced forums in most of the communities I cared about and it’s been for the worse.
- Mezzie 4y ago
  I hate this, and I like Discord. Discord is a replacement for IRC/chat/AIM/other synchronous and informal conversation. It's not a replacement for forums, archives, or formal communication.
  - Grimburger 4y ago
    Dealing with opensource projects via discord is a nightmare. One I use regularly decided to escape the walled garden and move to github discussions and it's been such a boon for search. Discord is a repetitive nightmare of doing support I don't know why projects use it. The discord server still exists but questions generally don't get answered as much or if they do it's usually a link to github discussions.
- prox 4y ago
  So how do you combine social network + forum? What does that look like?
squarefoot 4y ago
Heh, I just thought of an even smaller solution called newsgroups ;#)
bcrosby95 4y ago
There is/was already a social network for that - Ning. Back when social network platforms became A Thing they adopted OpenSocial - they had a news feed, notifications, etc - but each social network was completely isolated. I haven't taken a look at Ning since I worked on social networking apps about 12 years ago, so I have no clue how they've evolved since then.

hn_throwaway_99 4y ago

Is this really an unpopular opinion? Seems most people have acknowledged then general toxicity of large social networks by now.

everdrive 4y ago
I suppose it's not. The part which I _thought_ would be unpopular was that technology unequivocally could not solve this problem.

deleted 4y ago

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