4 ms·

Whenever a site does something "bad" (Twitter and musk's BS, Reddit with their API nonsense, etc) people's initial reaction is to look for a site JUST like it b

Whenever a site does something "bad" (Twitter and musk's BS, Reddit with their API nonsense, etc) people's initial reaction is to look for a site JUST like it but without the bad thing. That feels like stage 1 of grief: denial. Denial that the thing you loved is no longer the same. Maybe it's dead, or maybe its changed in such a drastic way thats its no longer the same thing. Regardless, I have never seen a successful website or service start from the premise of "we will be just like thing X, but without the bad thing". You need more than that. You need a vision. And I'd argue your initial motivation needs to be something positive, not negative. If you're initial motivation is "this website is doing something bad, so we need to make a similar site that doesn't do that" then you are motivated by a negative emotion, which will only drive you so far. You'll be driven by anger which might get a bunch of new users, but that emotion will fade, and after a while what will you have left? That isn't to say that situations like this aren't a great opportunity. Far from it. It's just that the opportunity requires people to think creatively. For sure learn from the mistakes of these companies, but also don't just create a clone that positions itself as a direct competitor or a home for refugees. That's just depressing and a recipe for failure.

jxcole 3y ago
I disagree completely. Facebook was just Myspace without the terrible UX. Google was just Yahoo but better. Tech businesses can easily move in over each other if there is a way to make it noticeably better.
- steviedotboston 3y ago
  Facebook did not start as a competitor to MySpace. It started as a niche social network for universities, and then eventually branched off to be a competitor to myspace. By the time it did, it had already positioned itself as a unique product. That's quite different than say, people upset with Reddit over the Apollo situation looking for a Reddit clone with a better API policy, or people who like Blue Sky because it's "Twitter without Elon Musk".
comex 3y ago
> Regardless, I have never seen a successful website or service start from the premise of "we will be just like thing X, but without the bad thing". Reddit itself received a massive influx of users from Digg after the unpopular Digg v4 change. For me and many others, it was just like Digg but without the bad thing. Admittedly that’s not how Reddit started - in fact, Reddit had been around for 5 years already at that point - but you could say the same thing about Mastodon, which was started in 2016(!), or Lemmy, which was started in 2019.
ineedtosleep 3y ago
I think I agree with your premise, but maybe not the delivery, but I also think the other comments about the Myspace -> Facebook and Digg -> Reddit moves are significant enough to believe the opposite. These days IMO users don't want to re-learn something that's not just ingrained into daily life, but ingrained into minute-by-minute routines. Personally, the biggest platform move I've made was the switch from IGN boards (objectively the top 1% of message boards at the time) to Reddit. During the switch it felt completely wrong and different, but as time passed I saw how much more Reddit offered compared to a traditional message board. I hope there's something out there that would make me feel the same with this next transition, but so far I don't see much for me yet. All I can see in the near-term is (hopefully) more productivity.
johnnyanmac 3y ago
>people's initial reaction is to look for a site JUST like it but without the bad thing. That feels like stage 1 of grief: denial. Denial that the thing you loved is no longer the same. it makes sense if you were raised in the early 2000's forums. I don't know what framework it was, but there very much was a feel where many sites had the exact same forum UI/UX, just different theming and color. Only difference was who was hosting the site and who browsed it (which would inevitably have some overlap). So migration was almost seemless. Reddit technically has some ancient open source part out there, but even if you remade the UI/UX, social media in the 2020's is a completely different landscape. >If you're initial motivation is "this website is doing something bad, so we need to make a similar site that doesn't do that" then you are motivated by a negative emotion, which will only drive you so far. You'll be driven by anger which might get a bunch of new users, but that emotion will fade, and after a while what will you have left? The theory is that 1. the site's own qualities stand out and you get enough power users to keep content flowing if you hit a certain critical mass. This is the part I have yet to see under "anger", unless you count Reddit itself after Digg. 2. the people are what make a community, so if those people stay you got a community. Of course, this doesn't take into account that some people may simply just leave social media as a whole if the experience isn't already seamless for them. So you create a power vacuum. Also keep in mind that users =/= website creators. Faster horses and all that; the user don't generally know what they want, simply what makes them comfortable.

jxcole 3y ago

I disagree completely. Facebook was just Myspace without the terrible UX. Google was just Yahoo but better. Tech businesses can easily move in over each other if there is a way to make it noticeably better.

steviedotboston 3y ago
Facebook did not start as a competitor to MySpace. It started as a niche social network for universities, and then eventually branched off to be a competitor to myspace. By the time it did, it had already positioned itself as a unique product. That's quite different than say, people upset with Reddit over the Apollo situation looking for a Reddit clone with a better API policy, or people who like Blue Sky because it's "Twitter without Elon Musk".

comex 3y ago

> Regardless, I have never seen a successful website or service start from the premise of "we will be just like thing X, but without the bad thing". Reddit itself received a massive influx of users from Digg after the unpopular Digg v4 change. For me and many others, it was just like Digg but without the bad thing. Admittedly that’s not how Reddit started - in fact, Reddit had been around for 5 years already at that point - but you could say the same thing about Mastodon, which was started in 2016(!), or Lemmy, which was started in 2019.

ineedtosleep 3y ago

I think I agree with your premise, but maybe not the delivery, but I also think the other comments about the Myspace -> Facebook and Digg -> Reddit moves are significant enough to believe the opposite. These days IMO users don't want to re-learn something that's not just ingrained into daily life, but ingrained into minute-by-minute routines. Personally, the biggest platform move I've made was the switch from IGN boards (objectively the top 1% of message boards at the time) to Reddit. During the switch it felt completely wrong and different, but as time passed I saw how much more Reddit offered compared to a traditional message board. I hope there's something out there that would make me feel the same with this next transition, but so far I don't see much for me yet. All I can see in the near-term is (hopefully) more productivity.

johnnyanmac 3y ago

>people's initial reaction is to look for a site JUST like it but without the bad thing. That feels like stage 1 of grief: denial. Denial that the thing you loved is no longer the same. it makes sense if you were raised in the early 2000's forums. I don't know what framework it was, but there very much was a feel where many sites had the exact same forum UI/UX, just different theming and color. Only difference was who was hosting the site and who browsed it (which would inevitably have some overlap). So migration was almost seemless. Reddit technically has some ancient open source part out there, but even if you remade the UI/UX, social media in the 2020's is a completely different landscape. >If you're initial motivation is "this website is doing something bad, so we need to make a similar site that doesn't do that" then you are motivated by a negative emotion, which will only drive you so far. You'll be driven by anger which might get a bunch of new users, but that emotion will fade, and after a while what will you have left? The theory is that 1. the site's own qualities stand out and you get enough power users to keep content flowing if you hit a certain critical mass. This is the part I have yet to see under "anger", unless you count Reddit itself after Digg. 2. the people are what make a community, so if those people stay you got a community. Of course, this doesn't take into account that some people may simply just leave social media as a whole if the experience isn't already seamless for them. So you create a power vacuum. Also keep in mind that users =/= website creators. Faster horses and all that; the user don't generally know what they want, simply what makes them comfortable.