3 ms·

I think a lot of that is on mastodon fwiw, and some hasn't left Twitter

packetlost 3y ago
I've mostly been able to curate my Twitter feed to not include that stuff. Similarly for Mastodon. The problem is BlueSky tries to add algorithmic feeds while not doing it well enough to learn that I don't want to see it.
- flkiwi 3y ago
  I tried to create a curated feed on Bluesky. It didn't go well. It interpreted my unambiguous keyword in the technology space as applying to content in the uh personal massage space. Much, much prefer Mastodon's direct hashtag following.
- AJ007 3y ago
  I think the future has to be feed ingestion that is 100% controlled by the user. To some extent we were there with RSS readers. I'm still able to retrieve Twitter feeds with an RSS reader. Everything comes together in one place, in order. If this is done on device and everything is archived, it starts getting really powerful. For example, after the 737 MAX door incident, I searched "Boeing" in my RSS reader and instantly had a list of news stories going back over the past year. (The number of 737 incidents that has been happening around the world is a lot more than what sits in the top of the news, but that's another discussion.) A local LLM could even summarize large amounts of stored headlines and tweets going back over years, and that's tech that works today. I don't want third party ad platforms (which now consists of Google, Facebook, Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, and more) measuring, running tests, re-ordering, and deleting on my communications. The LLMs and machine learning advancements are going to just make this more invasive, ugly, and manipulative. Sure, hn is largely about VC backed startups going on to try to have a multi-billion dollar IPO. It's also about disrupting incumbents. I can't think of a better path to disruption than coming up with business models that choke off their user-bases and end ad monetized surveillance. I for one have no interest in a future where I wear an Apple/Facebook/Google controlled AR/VR headset that has cameras to make sure my eyes are looking at all of the ads which are targeted based on the other pixels it knows I looked at. (I feel like a paranoid schizophrenic writing that, but that is what they are making.)
  - 008289x8820 3y ago
    Look man, I'm a regular HN reader and even I don't buy into this. Are ads really the problem they are made out to be here? I'm asking because I don't mind and haven't mind about seeing an ad in years. In fact, I think they are perfectly good compromise when it comes to monetizing a website. Even HN has ads for gods sake. I even was okay with those old porn ads in The Pirate Bay or in 4chan, etc. Sure, if it's too much of that it can get annoying but whatever. On the other hand, the vast majority of people don't even know what RSS is and haven't even noticed a change in Twitter in the last few years. I'm sure most of them, believe it or not, aren't even aware of the transition to Elon Musk. I'm not saying that you're necessarily wrong, but perhaps you and the tech industry in general are vastly overestimating a extremely niche opinion and a "nothingburger". For example, cookies. Now we have extremely annoying cookie banners everywhere, when they didn't matter at all. Why? Because if I'm using an icognito browser, what are they going to track? Do you think I REALLY care? What are they going to do with that? Track me and offer me catered ads? I don't think "they" can, but even if they do, big fucking deal. I'm a lot more worried about Know Your Customer policies on everything, or social media platforms (or even hosting platforms) deplatforming you if they don't like your opinion, or the FBI planting child porn on your site if they want to take it down. Do you think I'll worry about an AD out of all things?
- delecti 3y ago
  BlueSky lets people add their own algorithmic feeds, and customize which feeds they subscribe to. Currently I have "Following" (strictly reverse chronological feed of the people I follow), "What's Hot Classic" (reverse chronological feed of posts that are "hot", by some unclear metric, but not tailored to me), and "Discover" (described as "Trending content from your personal network"). I can remove any of those feeds, and use any others I want, including curated feeds of: scientists, furries, black users, cats, authors, people you follow who follow you back, people who follow you that you don't follow back, or just create your own feed. If you want to only ever see a strictly reverse chronological feed of the people you follow, then remove all feeds other than "Following", done. If you don't want to see reposts, then turn off seeing reposts. If you don't want to see replies, then turn off seeing those too. I'm not sure what you experienced which isn't easily solvable. The only QoL feature I can think of that isn't yet supported is the ability to selectively turn off reposts from individual people you follow.
delecti 3y ago
IMO the biggest problem with Mastodon is that for a while decentralization was the biggest selling point. It led to the place being full of a lot of pedantic dorks. The situation did improve as Twitter exploded and various communities migrated in herds though.

I've mostly been able to curate my Twitter feed to not include that stuff. Similarly for Mastodon. The problem is BlueSky tries to add algorithmic feeds while not doing it well enough to learn that I don't want to see it.

flkiwi 3y ago
I tried to create a curated feed on Bluesky. It didn't go well. It interpreted my unambiguous keyword in the technology space as applying to content in the uh personal massage space. Much, much prefer Mastodon's direct hashtag following.
AJ007 3y ago
I think the future has to be feed ingestion that is 100% controlled by the user. To some extent we were there with RSS readers. I'm still able to retrieve Twitter feeds with an RSS reader. Everything comes together in one place, in order. If this is done on device and everything is archived, it starts getting really powerful. For example, after the 737 MAX door incident, I searched "Boeing" in my RSS reader and instantly had a list of news stories going back over the past year. (The number of 737 incidents that has been happening around the world is a lot more than what sits in the top of the news, but that's another discussion.) A local LLM could even summarize large amounts of stored headlines and tweets going back over years, and that's tech that works today. I don't want third party ad platforms (which now consists of Google, Facebook, Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, and more) measuring, running tests, re-ordering, and deleting on my communications. The LLMs and machine learning advancements are going to just make this more invasive, ugly, and manipulative. Sure, hn is largely about VC backed startups going on to try to have a multi-billion dollar IPO. It's also about disrupting incumbents. I can't think of a better path to disruption than coming up with business models that choke off their user-bases and end ad monetized surveillance. I for one have no interest in a future where I wear an Apple/Facebook/Google controlled AR/VR headset that has cameras to make sure my eyes are looking at all of the ads which are targeted based on the other pixels it knows I looked at. (I feel like a paranoid schizophrenic writing that, but that is what they are making.)
- 008289x8820 3y ago
  Look man, I'm a regular HN reader and even I don't buy into this. Are ads really the problem they are made out to be here? I'm asking because I don't mind and haven't mind about seeing an ad in years. In fact, I think they are perfectly good compromise when it comes to monetizing a website. Even HN has ads for gods sake. I even was okay with those old porn ads in The Pirate Bay or in 4chan, etc. Sure, if it's too much of that it can get annoying but whatever. On the other hand, the vast majority of people don't even know what RSS is and haven't even noticed a change in Twitter in the last few years. I'm sure most of them, believe it or not, aren't even aware of the transition to Elon Musk. I'm not saying that you're necessarily wrong, but perhaps you and the tech industry in general are vastly overestimating a extremely niche opinion and a "nothingburger". For example, cookies. Now we have extremely annoying cookie banners everywhere, when they didn't matter at all. Why? Because if I'm using an icognito browser, what are they going to track? Do you think I REALLY care? What are they going to do with that? Track me and offer me catered ads? I don't think "they" can, but even if they do, big fucking deal. I'm a lot more worried about Know Your Customer policies on everything, or social media platforms (or even hosting platforms) deplatforming you if they don't like your opinion, or the FBI planting child porn on your site if they want to take it down. Do you think I'll worry about an AD out of all things?
delecti 3y ago
BlueSky lets people add their own algorithmic feeds, and customize which feeds they subscribe to. Currently I have "Following" (strictly reverse chronological feed of the people I follow), "What's Hot Classic" (reverse chronological feed of posts that are "hot", by some unclear metric, but not tailored to me), and "Discover" (described as "Trending content from your personal network"). I can remove any of those feeds, and use any others I want, including curated feeds of: scientists, furries, black users, cats, authors, people you follow who follow you back, people who follow you that you don't follow back, or just create your own feed. If you want to only ever see a strictly reverse chronological feed of the people you follow, then remove all feeds other than "Following", done. If you don't want to see reposts, then turn off seeing reposts. If you don't want to see replies, then turn off seeing those too. I'm not sure what you experienced which isn't easily solvable. The only QoL feature I can think of that isn't yet supported is the ability to selectively turn off reposts from individual people you follow.

delecti 3y ago

IMO the biggest problem with Mastodon is that for a while decentralization was the biggest selling point. It led to the place being full of a lot of pedantic dorks. The situation did improve as Twitter exploded and various communities migrated in herds though.