3 ms·

I think it's interesting how people do sometimes complain about the echo chamber, tumbleweeds of moving from one 'so big it's infinity' space, to another one wh

by ggm 2y ago

I think it's interesting how people do sometimes complain about the echo chamber, tumbleweeds of moving from one 'so big it's infinity' space, to another one which is a smaller 'so big it's infinity' yet still immeasurably larger than your normal circuit. Yes, your favourite filmstar you follow isn't there. Yes, nor are 10 people you know. But you know what? nine million, nine hundred thousand, nine hundred and eighty-eight other people are there. If you're bored, why not reach out and say hello to every one of them? (not yourself: that would be wierd) I had a brief period 3 decades ago where on some electronic fabric (I forget which) I was contacted by random coders in Peru, to try and help debug a problem. I have no idea who these guys were, but we established a basis to communicate for a while. I think thats a lot cooler than Justin Bieber's latest tattoo drop. I think it's like "but is he the one" -the belief there is only one, only one group, only one fabric to talk to people, only one way, is .. well it's silly. There are lots of ways to talk to people.

yowayb 2y ago
Since I started to notice the value of my online presence, I’ve been spending a bit more time going down rabbit holes, and frankly I’m not sure we’ve truly lost the magic of the internet/bbs of decades ago.
- OKRainbowKid 2y ago
  Would you mind elaborating? Specifically what you mean with the "value of your online presence", and perhaps with an example of a rabbit hole in which you found the "old internet"? I've recently been thinking about how much the internet changed since I started using it in the early 2000s and how it mostly lost its magic, so I'm really interested in how/where you still find it.
doe_eyes 2y ago
I think that's a reductionist view. Platforms like Twitter are pretty unique in that unlike most other social media, you don't have well-defined communities organized around topics or locations. On Reddit or Nextdoor, you join to discuss specific interests, and that serves as "social glue" that lets you make new acquittances along the way. The same goes for HN, by the way. But on Twitter / Bluesky / Threads / Mastodon, you probably don't have anything in common with another user picked at random. The most common (non-commercial) motivation for joining is probably to just hang out with the people you already know from elsewhere, and then expand your social network very gradually and conservatively, mostly based on who they know. So it doesn't matter that there's 10M strangers over there if none of your buddies use it.
- ggm 2y ago
  All true. And of course, at low critical mass, for any new participant, the likelihood of your buddies being there is lower than when you go to the one everyone is one.
tucnak 2y ago
And how many of these 10M are bots now? I reckon in the high 20s percent.

by ggm 2y ago

yowayb 2y ago

Since I started to notice the value of my online presence, I’ve been spending a bit more time going down rabbit holes, and frankly I’m not sure we’ve truly lost the magic of the internet/bbs of decades ago.

OKRainbowKid 2y ago
Would you mind elaborating? Specifically what you mean with the "value of your online presence", and perhaps with an example of a rabbit hole in which you found the "old internet"? I've recently been thinking about how much the internet changed since I started using it in the early 2000s and how it mostly lost its magic, so I'm really interested in how/where you still find it.

doe_eyes 2y ago

I think that's a reductionist view. Platforms like Twitter are pretty unique in that unlike most other social media, you don't have well-defined communities organized around topics or locations. On Reddit or Nextdoor, you join to discuss specific interests, and that serves as "social glue" that lets you make new acquittances along the way. The same goes for HN, by the way. But on Twitter / Bluesky / Threads / Mastodon, you probably don't have anything in common with another user picked at random. The most common (non-commercial) motivation for joining is probably to just hang out with the people you already know from elsewhere, and then expand your social network very gradually and conservatively, mostly based on who they know. So it doesn't matter that there's 10M strangers over there if none of your buddies use it.

ggm 2y ago
All true. And of course, at low critical mass, for any new participant, the likelihood of your buddies being there is lower than when you go to the one everyone is one.

tucnak 2y ago

And how many of these 10M are bots now? I reckon in the high 20s percent.