4 ms·

I don't know whether killing Tweetbot was intentional or deliberate. However I was a pretty heavy user of Twitter - scrolling through my timeline on the tram, i

by smcl 4y ago

I don't know whether killing Tweetbot was intentional or deliberate. However I was a pretty heavy user of Twitter - scrolling through my timeline on the tram, in cafes, on the toilet or whenever I had a spare moment. I assumed that the API outage was temporary so I didn't download the "official" app, and figured I'd just wait a day or so for Tweetbot to be fixed. It's now been ~3 days, I don't miss not having Twitter, I don't check it at all. I'm maybe missing a couple of @dril posts, podcast recommendations or funny images I could've shared with friends but that's nothing. So intentional or not, I'm effectively lost as a Twitter user. I'm not claiming to be particularly high value, but I don't imagine my experience is unique. I'm quite far from a fan of Musk but I enjoyed my Twitter experience enough that his meddling was just an amusing side-show until now. It's not a dramatic rage quit, just a sort of accidental "oh I guess I didn't need that" realisation that I didn't plan on having at all. Weird. Interestingly if Twitter had said "We are killing off Tweetbot, you have to use our app" I probably would have just begrudgingly downloaded the Twitter app. But because they didn't say anything, I just waited and went through the "cold turkey" period, where every now and then I'd instinctively tap the Tweetbot icon before thinking "ah yeah it's down, oh well" - before completely losing that habit. What an own goal.

bfeynman 4y ago
I deactivated my twitter, after constantly checking it for updates and the like all the time. I don't miss it at all, don't even have urge to find it again. Think that might speak a lot to the attention economy and how fragile it can be for free apps. Twitter is doomed, the experience is broken, the recommendations were all trash and seeing promoted comments from people who paid to have a checkmark was like the most idiotic move I've seen in an app.
- smcl 4y ago
  > that might speak a lot to the attention economy and how fragile it can be for free apps Yep, well said - this is a more clearly worded version of the point I was trying to make
- quest88 4y ago
  Haha same. It has almost been 6 years for me. I recently looked up some people I used to follow and they're tweeting the same damn content. I thought it was kinda sad.
- omoikane 4y ago
  I always wondered why people choose to make these "I no longer use X and now I am happier" kind of posts, where X could be a number of things including Twitter, as opposed to quietly fading away. For people who were happy with X, these posts just sound like sour grapes[1]. I am not a top Twitter user by any metric, but I have been happy with the content I got. I wonder if all the problems I hear about are limited to the English speaking parts of Twitter? [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fox_and_the_Grapes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fox_and_the_Grapes
  - kingofpandora 4y ago
    Why? Because it's a discussion about a change and these are some results. Seems normal to talk about impact of decisions.
  - smcl 4y ago
    In this specific instance I was talking about my experience of unintentionally quitting my Twitter habit, so the comments where people describe how they also stopped using it are relevant. But I wouldn't be so quick to assume sour grapes, otherwise. It could be that these people found their experience of quitting Twitter to be pretty transformative and fulfilling and genuinely want to let others know about it.
  - McDyver 4y ago
    I suppose they do it for themselves, a public statement that reinforces and legitimises their choice. It doesn't contribute or take away anything from society. It makes them happy and doesn't hurt anyone. Let people be :)
  - bfeynman 4y ago
    I did not say anywhere that I was happier, rather I was surprised that something I feverishly would check constantly multiple times a day could disappear and I wouldn't have any problem with it or urge to get it back. It's anecdotal but I've had friends who have also disconnected and realized that it doesn't seem to change anything, most of the information you consume is crap and forgotten.
gardenhedge 4y ago
Twitter was making no money off you so I doubt Elon Musk will care.
- smcl 4y ago
  I thought about this, so I wasn't seeing the sponsored tweets ... but I don't see why they couldn't have just modified the feed they provided to Tweetbot, Twitterific et al to include these ads. I agree that Elon doesn't care, but he probably should care that heavy users like me can be so quickly and easily lost. And in addition to being more bad PR, 3rd party developers will interpret this as a clear signal not to invest much in integrating with Twitter.
  - calr 4y ago
    With a third party client Twitter can’t (easily?) measure if an ad was actually seen by the end user (impression) or if it was just served by the API but never rendered on the users screen. A lot of ad measurement follows from there.
    - smcl 4y ago
      That’s a fair point but IMO still not a completely unsolvable problem
  - gardenhedge 4y ago
    His goal is to reduce costs, not increase or maintain the user base.
- superfrank 4y ago
  That thinking only works for so long. If you drive away enough users, eventually your network effect starts to weaken making it easier for even more users to leave. I also think it's an odd decision now that they're exposing view count to users. Driving away users on third party clients will cause that number to drop.
  - 4y ago
zero_ 4y ago
Same. I don't miss it. I would use Tweetbot again if it becomes available again, but for now I am good. If it is not coming back, I am not going to download the official client. I am also not interested in Mastodon either.

by smcl 4y ago

bfeynman 4y ago

I deactivated my twitter, after constantly checking it for updates and the like all the time. I don't miss it at all, don't even have urge to find it again. Think that might speak a lot to the attention economy and how fragile it can be for free apps. Twitter is doomed, the experience is broken, the recommendations were all trash and seeing promoted comments from people who paid to have a checkmark was like the most idiotic move I've seen in an app.

smcl 4y ago
> that might speak a lot to the attention economy and how fragile it can be for free apps Yep, well said - this is a more clearly worded version of the point I was trying to make
quest88 4y ago
Haha same. It has almost been 6 years for me. I recently looked up some people I used to follow and they're tweeting the same damn content. I thought it was kinda sad.
omoikane 4y ago
I always wondered why people choose to make these "I no longer use X and now I am happier" kind of posts, where X could be a number of things including Twitter, as opposed to quietly fading away. For people who were happy with X, these posts just sound like sour grapes[1]. I am not a top Twitter user by any metric, but I have been happy with the content I got. I wonder if all the problems I hear about are limited to the English speaking parts of Twitter? [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fox_and_the_Grapes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fox_and_the_Grapes
- kingofpandora 4y ago
  Why? Because it's a discussion about a change and these are some results. Seems normal to talk about impact of decisions.
- smcl 4y ago
  In this specific instance I was talking about my experience of unintentionally quitting my Twitter habit, so the comments where people describe how they also stopped using it are relevant. But I wouldn't be so quick to assume sour grapes, otherwise. It could be that these people found their experience of quitting Twitter to be pretty transformative and fulfilling and genuinely want to let others know about it.
- McDyver 4y ago
  I suppose they do it for themselves, a public statement that reinforces and legitimises their choice. It doesn't contribute or take away anything from society. It makes them happy and doesn't hurt anyone. Let people be :)
- bfeynman 4y ago
  I did not say anywhere that I was happier, rather I was surprised that something I feverishly would check constantly multiple times a day could disappear and I wouldn't have any problem with it or urge to get it back. It's anecdotal but I've had friends who have also disconnected and realized that it doesn't seem to change anything, most of the information you consume is crap and forgotten.

gardenhedge 4y ago

Twitter was making no money off you so I doubt Elon Musk will care.

smcl 4y ago
I thought about this, so I wasn't seeing the sponsored tweets ... but I don't see why they couldn't have just modified the feed they provided to Tweetbot, Twitterific et al to include these ads. I agree that Elon doesn't care, but he probably should care that heavy users like me can be so quickly and easily lost. And in addition to being more bad PR, 3rd party developers will interpret this as a clear signal not to invest much in integrating with Twitter.
- calr 4y ago
  With a third party client Twitter can’t (easily?) measure if an ad was actually seen by the end user (impression) or if it was just served by the API but never rendered on the users screen. A lot of ad measurement follows from there.
  - smcl 4y ago
    That’s a fair point but IMO still not a completely unsolvable problem
- gardenhedge 4y ago
  His goal is to reduce costs, not increase or maintain the user base.
superfrank 4y ago
That thinking only works for so long. If you drive away enough users, eventually your network effect starts to weaken making it easier for even more users to leave. I also think it's an odd decision now that they're exposing view count to users. Driving away users on third party clients will cause that number to drop.
- 4y ago

zero_ 4y ago

Same. I don't miss it. I would use Tweetbot again if it becomes available again, but for now I am good. If it is not coming back, I am not going to download the official client. I am also not interested in Mastodon either.