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Apparently Pinterest has half a billion users[1], presumably significant number of those appreciate those search results. I am also going to guess that there i

Apparently Pinterest has half a billion users[1], presumably significant number of those appreciate those search results. I am also going to guess that there is little overlap between those 500M users with HN's 5M users[2] or Kagi's 43K users[3]. So while those results-gated-behind-logins might seem annoying to us, we are in the minority. [1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/463353/pinterest-global-mau/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/463353/pinterest-global-... [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33454140 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33454140 [3] https://kagi.com/stats https://kagi.com/stats

kjs3 2y ago
Man I hate to say you're completely right, but you're completely right. I remember years back being in some social thing where someone was railing on social media and pontificated "absolutely noone wants what Facebook is", and I grudgingly had to retort "you don't want Facebook, but a half a billion people (at the time) obviously do". Read the room.
- graemep 2y ago
  Many of us are reluctant users. There because our friends our communities are. I would love FB to go away. I am the admin of two FB groups, both UK home education related (one about exams and qualifications, the other for single parents). I do it because I feel I should help the community (especially as the crappy commercial groups that target the same audience), which is made up of non-technically inclined, mostly middle aged women - i.e. FB's core demographic. I cannot remember the other demographic nos offhand, but its 95% women in the exams group, and 98% in the other (and both have 1% other/did not say), and the age profile reflects the fact that people have school age (or just over, in the 16 to 18 age group) children. I had actually planned to try and push the community towards forums, but with the Online Safety Act in force that is not a risk I am inclined to take. My cousin runs a family group where she shares photos and wishes people happy birthday. I would prefer her to use WhatsApp but she is the one running it. A lot of my friends post family news, important things like births and deaths and weddings on FB.
  - kjs3 2y ago
    Many of us are reluctant users. I understand what you're saying, but my own observation is "many of us" == "a tiny minority". "There because our friends our communities are" is exactly it...our friends and communities don't care as long as FB and the other social media cesspools are the default. I too have tried to get various relations to not make me log into social media to be part of their life, and I get some variation of "oh, you weird little infosec guy, that's way too much work and it's good enough for all of us".
harrall 2y ago
I like Pinterest a lot. I find art, tattoo ideas, home decor, concrete/wood builds, clothing fits, wedding themes… It’s like a one-stop-shop when you need some fresh ideas on design.
- djhn 2y ago
  It also has a ludicrously smooth and fast UX and makes it possible to access the high resolution original photographs (up to 100+ megapixels) by modifying url parameters.
  - qingcharles 2y ago
    I use Pinterest a ton. What param can I use to extract the original res?
    - djhn 2y ago
      Images are served from i.pinimg.com/ and the url params can be changed from "[0-9]+x(\/[0-9a-f]{2}){3}\/[0-9a-f]{32}\.jpg" to "originals/(\/[0-9a-f]{2}){3}\/[0-9a-f]{32}\.(jpg|png)".
      - qingcharles 2y ago
        Awesome, thank you.
eddythompson80 2y ago
I remember a few years before Pinterest’s IPO, there were random statistics flowing around about how unique of a demographic Pinterest had compared to the rest of the internet. It’s mostly female dominated compared to the rest of the male dominated internet. Not just any female demographic either, but upper middle class, high income, young women †. There was simply no other online service that had that as its main demographic to the degree that Pinterest did. I remember thinking that must be a really attractive target for online advertisers and maybe I should keep an eye out for the IPO. Luckily I forgot. Its stock has been mostly lackluster. †: hell son that was during my dating years. I was going on a lot of dates with women specifically in that demographic. Once I got to know a woman I would research her on google while narrowing my search to Pinterest. Out of 20 or so women I recall there were only 2 that didn’t have Pinterest accounts. The rest had, very active, Pinterest accounts.
randomNumber7 2y ago
Interesting. I didn't even know pinterest is a legitimate site. I just assumed it is som SEO scam from looking at the website for a few seconds.
- thih9 2y ago
  Try it, you may like it. I use it for collaborative visual brainstorming with real life projects (e.g. fashion or photo ideas) and it works well for that purpose.
- Ridir 2y ago
  It's a great tool for finding inspiration and creating moodboards. Tangentally, IIRC the setting for the next Elder Scrolls game was all but confirmed after some creative at Bethesda accidentally made public a Pinterest collection with weapons and armor from the medieval arab world.
- qingcharles 2y ago
  It's actually a fantastic site. I use it for bookmarking images every day for future projects.

kjs3 2y ago

Man I hate to say you're completely right, but you're completely right. I remember years back being in some social thing where someone was railing on social media and pontificated "absolutely noone wants what Facebook is", and I grudgingly had to retort "you don't want Facebook, but a half a billion people (at the time) obviously do". Read the room.

graemep 2y ago
Many of us are reluctant users. There because our friends our communities are. I would love FB to go away. I am the admin of two FB groups, both UK home education related (one about exams and qualifications, the other for single parents). I do it because I feel I should help the community (especially as the crappy commercial groups that target the same audience), which is made up of non-technically inclined, mostly middle aged women - i.e. FB's core demographic. I cannot remember the other demographic nos offhand, but its 95% women in the exams group, and 98% in the other (and both have 1% other/did not say), and the age profile reflects the fact that people have school age (or just over, in the 16 to 18 age group) children. I had actually planned to try and push the community towards forums, but with the Online Safety Act in force that is not a risk I am inclined to take. My cousin runs a family group where she shares photos and wishes people happy birthday. I would prefer her to use WhatsApp but she is the one running it. A lot of my friends post family news, important things like births and deaths and weddings on FB.
- kjs3 2y ago
  Many of us are reluctant users. I understand what you're saying, but my own observation is "many of us" == "a tiny minority". "There because our friends our communities are" is exactly it...our friends and communities don't care as long as FB and the other social media cesspools are the default. I too have tried to get various relations to not make me log into social media to be part of their life, and I get some variation of "oh, you weird little infosec guy, that's way too much work and it's good enough for all of us".

harrall 2y ago

I like Pinterest a lot. I find art, tattoo ideas, home decor, concrete/wood builds, clothing fits, wedding themes… It’s like a one-stop-shop when you need some fresh ideas on design.

djhn 2y ago
It also has a ludicrously smooth and fast UX and makes it possible to access the high resolution original photographs (up to 100+ megapixels) by modifying url parameters.
- qingcharles 2y ago
  I use Pinterest a ton. What param can I use to extract the original res?
  - djhn 2y ago
    Images are served from i.pinimg.com/ and the url params can be changed from "[0-9]+x(\/[0-9a-f]{2}){3}\/[0-9a-f]{32}\.jpg" to "originals/(\/[0-9a-f]{2}){3}\/[0-9a-f]{32}\.(jpg|png)".
    - qingcharles 2y ago
      Awesome, thank you.

eddythompson80 2y ago

I remember a few years before Pinterest’s IPO, there were random statistics flowing around about how unique of a demographic Pinterest had compared to the rest of the internet. It’s mostly female dominated compared to the rest of the male dominated internet. Not just any female demographic either, but upper middle class, high income, young women †. There was simply no other online service that had that as its main demographic to the degree that Pinterest did. I remember thinking that must be a really attractive target for online advertisers and maybe I should keep an eye out for the IPO. Luckily I forgot. Its stock has been mostly lackluster. †: hell son that was during my dating years. I was going on a lot of dates with women specifically in that demographic. Once I got to know a woman I would research her on google while narrowing my search to Pinterest. Out of 20 or so women I recall there were only 2 that didn’t have Pinterest accounts. The rest had, very active, Pinterest accounts.

randomNumber7 2y ago

Interesting. I didn't even know pinterest is a legitimate site. I just assumed it is som SEO scam from looking at the website for a few seconds.

thih9 2y ago
Try it, you may like it. I use it for collaborative visual brainstorming with real life projects (e.g. fashion or photo ideas) and it works well for that purpose.
Ridir 2y ago
It's a great tool for finding inspiration and creating moodboards. Tangentally, IIRC the setting for the next Elder Scrolls game was all but confirmed after some creative at Bethesda accidentally made public a Pinterest collection with weapons and armor from the medieval arab world.
qingcharles 2y ago
It's actually a fantastic site. I use it for bookmarking images every day for future projects.