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All these alternative frontends, hacks and crutches are a sad testament to the state of the web.
by zoul 3y ago
All these alternative frontends, hacks and crutches are a sad testament to the state of the web.
- WendyTheWillow 3y agoTotally disagree; the alternative clients are providing invaluable feedback for the atprotocol.
- zoul 3y agoDo we talk about “alternative” browsers? No, because there (still) is no “official” one, there’s (still) no single governing entity. Just standard protocols anyone is free to implement and join the party. See Mastodon – there is a kind of official web client and a kind of official native app and a kind of official default instance, but everyone is mostly free to do whatever they want. There are many great instances and clients. Not alternative clients – just clients. The difference being that an alternative client can be one day just cut off.
- Hamuko 3y agoThe third-party ecosystem that Twitter used to have was anything but sad. It was great that you were able to choose what kind of an experience you'd have with the service. This is why I'm hoping that Bluesky will take Twitter's place now that the latter no longer exists.
- zoul 3y agoThe ecosystem was great and now it’s gone. Because they were not just clients, they were third-party clients, they were second class citizens. The more second class citizens we have on the web, the worse everyone gets. Because a random crazy billionare du jour can wake up one day and destroy a big chunk of the third-party ecosystem in a single decision.
- pyinstallwoes 3y agoIn a way it begs for the most natural state of the web: client only front ends that sync with other clients. Anyone should be able to modify their front end to view the representation of information in any way they want.
- winwang 3y agoCurious if this can be reconciled with the need for monetization. Do you know of propositions?
- barnabee 3y agoLess monetisation. The web was just fine when it didn't directly make anybody any money.
- mschuster91 3y agoSomeone has to pay for the creation of the content we all consume each day. It's one thing for low-level stuff like funny cats and dogs because people do that for the fun of it, but even there someone still has to pay for moderation, hosting, traffic and platform development. But "high class" stuff like Practical Engineering? That's running some serious budget, impossible to recoup without advertising or other forms of monetisation.
- tcfhgj 3y agoDonations
- pyinstallwoes 3y agoPeople tend to create content on their own devices. See bloggers, forums, chat rooms. The internet was abundant with natural information from experts due to people sharing what they naturally love.
- Cthulhu_ 3y agoI would argue that one major issue is cost vs revenue vs moderation; that is, a Twitter or Reddit clone is not hard to make, but it's hard and expensive to scale and monetize, and really hard to keep it 'safe', that is, not let it turn into a wretched hive of scum and villany.
- zoul 3y agoRight. I’d say this problem could and should be solved by decentralization. It’s impossible for a single actor to keep up, for a monoculture to stay healthy.