4 ms·

Nothing twitter can do to restore the lost trust. Twitter has to die evenutally. I believe in federated microblogging future.

szundi 4y ago
A closed secretive company must be better for sure.
LegitShady 4y ago
I dont think the general public wants to do the work. centralized systems leverage that to win in the long run.
- b112 4y ago
  I dont think the general public wants to do the work. centralized systems leverage that to win in the long run. Outside of hackernews, most people could care less. So many non-tech twitter users I have talked to, don't even know Musk bought it. Why would they know/care to move, as you say.
sho_hn 4y ago
For me the best social media company is one I don't have to trust in because I can look, check and verify. Or at least that others can do this. In that sense, this does make a dent. Still, without config/model weights, etc. it's not worth that much.
arnorhs 4y ago
I think twitter can be replaced by another twitter. something that share some of the nice traits, but leaves out the others. Whatever it is it won't be federated though.. except maybe as a small side feature "normies" dont know about.
- simonw 4y ago
  Launching a big brand Twitter alternative on top of the existing Fediverse feels to me like it could work incredibly well right now. The obsolute worst thing about the Fediverse (Mastodon et al) right now is the onboarding process. You have to "chose an instance" before you can even start understanding what that's about - and if you chose wrong you might find your instance gets switched off leaving you high and dry in the future. Now imagine Tumblr ships ActivityPub. Every Tumblr user can now follow any Mastodon user, and vice-versa. The Tumblr ecosystem gets a whole bunch of new high quality available content. Mastodon enthusiasts can tell their skeptical friends "go sign up for a Tumblr account and follow me from that". Or... if you're launching something new, why would you launch from a state of zero accounts when you could launch with Fediverse compatibility and have ~10m accounts that your first users can start following straight away?
  - th18row 4y ago
    > Or... if you're launching something new, why would you launch from a state of zero accounts when you could launch with Fediverse compatibility and have ~10m accounts that your first users can start following straight away? I'd rather build something new and actually have a userbase than be something akin to a subreddit with fleeting users. It will be a lot more hard work, but it's worth it. Also, Mastodon sucks. This whole "let's be free together" but also "don't step out of line" culture is disgusting: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28495086 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28495086. > The obsolute worst thing about the Fediverse (Mastodon et al) right now is the onboarding process. You have to "chose an instance" before you can even start understanding what that's about - and if you chose wrong you might find your instance gets switched off leaving you high and dry in the future. That's the problem. It's unnecessarily complex and other than a subniche, people in the real world are not interested in it. They just don't care about this at all.
    - simonw 4y ago
      Which is the opportunity. It's unnecessarily complex: so solve that.
      - th18row 4y ago
        It's possible that I'm missing something here, but I'm not sure what's the point of the 'fediverse' is. Looks like a solution looking for a problem, or an overcorrection to the trend from the 2010s to move everything to silos (independent forums -> facebook groups / subreddits / twitter). Wouldn't it be better and simpler to just revert that trend to how it was before the big tech behemoths put everything behind walled gardens?
        krapp 4y ago
        >Wouldn't it be better and simpler to just revert that trend to how it was before the big tech behemoths put everything behind walled gardens? That's... kind of the point of the fediverse? A decentralized network built on non-proprietary software makes walled gardens and centralization by corporations infeasible. Identity is controlled by the end user.
th18row 4y ago
Sorry but I have this strong feeling that the Fediverse/ActivityPub will be one of those ideas that will fail miserably or just become a niche for weirdos. My reasoning is: it's completely unnecessary. Just have different sites, like forums from the early 2000s. Much cleaner and simpler. I don't need a shared identity throughout these places. It's not what the web was meant to be, at all. On the other hand, I have no reason to assume Twitter will die. What trust are we talking about here? I have no idea. People will just continue using it. In fact, I vastly prefer what's happening now than what the last management was doing. Not trying to be confrontational here. I'm trusting my gut feeling more because I've seen through so many things that range from delusions to failed ideas in the last decade: Theranos, WeWork, Metaverse, Clubhouse, Crypto [other than Bitcoin], Social networks pretending to be the arbiters of truth, etc. I have a strong BS detector.
yucky 4y ago
Wait, did you find Twitter trustworthy before Elon bought it? If so, why?

szundi 4y ago

A closed secretive company must be better for sure.

LegitShady 4y ago

I dont think the general public wants to do the work. centralized systems leverage that to win in the long run.

b112 4y ago
I dont think the general public wants to do the work. centralized systems leverage that to win in the long run. Outside of hackernews, most people could care less. So many non-tech twitter users I have talked to, don't even know Musk bought it. Why would they know/care to move, as you say.

sho_hn 4y ago

For me the best social media company is one I don't have to trust in because I can look, check and verify. Or at least that others can do this. In that sense, this does make a dent. Still, without config/model weights, etc. it's not worth that much.

arnorhs 4y ago

I think twitter can be replaced by another twitter. something that share some of the nice traits, but leaves out the others. Whatever it is it won't be federated though.. except maybe as a small side feature "normies" dont know about.

simonw 4y ago
Launching a big brand Twitter alternative on top of the existing Fediverse feels to me like it could work incredibly well right now. The obsolute worst thing about the Fediverse (Mastodon et al) right now is the onboarding process. You have to "chose an instance" before you can even start understanding what that's about - and if you chose wrong you might find your instance gets switched off leaving you high and dry in the future. Now imagine Tumblr ships ActivityPub. Every Tumblr user can now follow any Mastodon user, and vice-versa. The Tumblr ecosystem gets a whole bunch of new high quality available content. Mastodon enthusiasts can tell their skeptical friends "go sign up for a Tumblr account and follow me from that". Or... if you're launching something new, why would you launch from a state of zero accounts when you could launch with Fediverse compatibility and have ~10m accounts that your first users can start following straight away?
- th18row 4y ago
  > Or... if you're launching something new, why would you launch from a state of zero accounts when you could launch with Fediverse compatibility and have ~10m accounts that your first users can start following straight away? I'd rather build something new and actually have a userbase than be something akin to a subreddit with fleeting users. It will be a lot more hard work, but it's worth it. Also, Mastodon sucks. This whole "let's be free together" but also "don't step out of line" culture is disgusting: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28495086 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28495086. > The obsolute worst thing about the Fediverse (Mastodon et al) right now is the onboarding process. You have to "chose an instance" before you can even start understanding what that's about - and if you chose wrong you might find your instance gets switched off leaving you high and dry in the future. That's the problem. It's unnecessarily complex and other than a subniche, people in the real world are not interested in it. They just don't care about this at all.
  - simonw 4y ago
    Which is the opportunity. It's unnecessarily complex: so solve that.
    - th18row 4y ago
      It's possible that I'm missing something here, but I'm not sure what's the point of the 'fediverse' is. Looks like a solution looking for a problem, or an overcorrection to the trend from the 2010s to move everything to silos (independent forums -> facebook groups / subreddits / twitter). Wouldn't it be better and simpler to just revert that trend to how it was before the big tech behemoths put everything behind walled gardens?
      - krapp 4y ago
        >Wouldn't it be better and simpler to just revert that trend to how it was before the big tech behemoths put everything behind walled gardens? That's... kind of the point of the fediverse? A decentralized network built on non-proprietary software makes walled gardens and centralization by corporations infeasible. Identity is controlled by the end user.

th18row 4y ago

Sorry but I have this strong feeling that the Fediverse/ActivityPub will be one of those ideas that will fail miserably or just become a niche for weirdos. My reasoning is: it's completely unnecessary. Just have different sites, like forums from the early 2000s. Much cleaner and simpler. I don't need a shared identity throughout these places. It's not what the web was meant to be, at all. On the other hand, I have no reason to assume Twitter will die. What trust are we talking about here? I have no idea. People will just continue using it. In fact, I vastly prefer what's happening now than what the last management was doing. Not trying to be confrontational here. I'm trusting my gut feeling more because I've seen through so many things that range from delusions to failed ideas in the last decade: Theranos, WeWork, Metaverse, Clubhouse, Crypto [other than Bitcoin], Social networks pretending to be the arbiters of truth, etc. I have a strong BS detector.

yucky 4y ago

Wait, did you find Twitter trustworthy before Elon bought it? If so, why?