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People like Twitter threads because they’re great for engagement. The author says it’s bad that someone can retweet some random tweet in the middle of your thre

by rafram 2y ago

People like Twitter threads because they’re great for engagement. The author says it’s bad that someone can retweet some random tweet in the middle of your thread without context - but what if that’s actually… good? Not necessarily for the people reading it, and definitely not for our societal discourse, but it absolutely will get people to click. Same reason every long YouTube video starts with a flash-forward “coming up” clip now. People can rant all they want about the way information is presented these days, but we’ve come to do things this way because it works.

johnnyanmac 2y ago
>it’s bad that someone can retweet some random tweet in the middle of your thread without context - but what if that’s actually… good? Depends on your lens. If you're reading on twitter it's a nightmare (and is why I never really got into twitter). If you are just focused on engagement it probably doesn't matter. I only accepted how twitter works in my head when I realized it's just like its namesake: a bunch of birds all cheeping in a cacophony. Not necessarily to each other, just in a way to become known and try to stand out. >Same reason every long YouTube video starts with a flash-forward “coming up” clip now Not really a fan of those either. If it's <10 minutes, I'm going to see it soon, if it's more than like, 30 minutes, then the en media RES better strongly resonate with the thesis, otherwise it's just a strange proprechy I'll forget long before it comes true. >People can rant all they want about the way information is presented these days, but we’ve come to do things this way because it works. We do it this way because coporate billionaires shoved ads down everyone's throats to pretend it works. I've never heard anyone say Twitter is efficient, not even in its heyday. Twitter wasn't meant to be this facade of a forum/community center, it was meant to emulate a tickerboard you see on the side. But as I've seen from 3 decades of Javascript, people will in fact hammer a square peg into a circle hole rather than migrate to the actual square hole. As is, we do things this way because we're selfish and all want to be noticed. And Twitter has a lot of eyeballs.

by rafram 2y ago

johnnyanmac 2y ago

>it’s bad that someone can retweet some random tweet in the middle of your thread without context - but what if that’s actually… good? Depends on your lens. If you're reading on twitter it's a nightmare (and is why I never really got into twitter). If you are just focused on engagement it probably doesn't matter. I only accepted how twitter works in my head when I realized it's just like its namesake: a bunch of birds all cheeping in a cacophony. Not necessarily to each other, just in a way to become known and try to stand out. >Same reason every long YouTube video starts with a flash-forward “coming up” clip now Not really a fan of those either. If it's <10 minutes, I'm going to see it soon, if it's more than like, 30 minutes, then the en media RES better strongly resonate with the thesis, otherwise it's just a strange proprechy I'll forget long before it comes true. >People can rant all they want about the way information is presented these days, but we’ve come to do things this way because it works. We do it this way because coporate billionaires shoved ads down everyone's throats to pretend it works. I've never heard anyone say Twitter is efficient, not even in its heyday. Twitter wasn't meant to be this facade of a forum/community center, it was meant to emulate a tickerboard you see on the side. But as I've seen from 3 decades of Javascript, people will in fact hammer a square peg into a circle hole rather than migrate to the actual square hole. As is, we do things this way because we're selfish and all want to be noticed. And Twitter has a lot of eyeballs.