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The web experience has improved? You can’t even view a thread any more without being logged in or using a 3rd party site. They’ve actively made the web experi

The web experience has improved? You can’t even view a thread any more without being logged in or using a 3rd party site. They’ve actively made the web experience unusable for most people. But considering they’ve also drastically reduced the quality of content on the platform, one could say they’ve done casual users a favor.

modeless 2mo ago
The login wall predates Elon BTW https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28289263 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28289263
Aurornis 2mo ago
[dead]
dmix 2mo ago
Funny enough, one of the first thing Elon's team did after buying Twitter was remove login gating. There was a big bottom signup CTA on the old Twitter. Then at some point I guess they realized why the old Twitter team did that in the first place (financial pressure for targeted ads) and went harder in that direction to also push for subscriptions. I still disagree with it, since it's a poor first experience. Replying, customized feeds, etc should be enough incentive to sign up for a social media site.
- jacobolus 2mo ago
  The login gating on Twitter was relatively recent (within a year or two, IIRC) before Musk took over, and also relatively mild. Non-logged-in users could still read most tweets, conversations, lists, etc. It was annoying and user-hostile though. When Musk's people took over they very briefly removed any login gate, then very soon after they completely blocked all meaningful non-logged-in access to the site. Which is frankly fine with me: it's a good reason to never visit a place that has become a cesspool of scams, porn, and white supremacist propaganda.
  - BLKNSLVR 2mo ago
    It was a pretty shithouse experience as a non-logged-in user before Musk, but it's a worse experience now. Timelines were all over the place before Musk got his hands on it. And if timelines are all over the place, what's the point? (that was always my view as someone who's not logged in - and as a 'town square', I would have thought that getting its message(s) across to as many people as possible would be a goal. But no, it's just another in-club like all the others. Fuck 'em, walk on by).
  - dmix 2mo ago
    X has gone harder on login gating than the old Twitter they adopted for sure. Reddit also started going in this direction. Instagram has had it for a long time. I suspect selling APIs for AI is playing a big role in that. Reddit locked down their API around the time X started forcing logins (july 2023).
- kennywinker 2mo ago
  Tearing something out only to re-build it a few months later is classic tech industry move fast and break things hubris. Most things exist for a reason, and if you don’t know the reason that doesn’t mean it’s a bad reason - it just means you don’t know the whole story.
  - BLKNSLVR 2mo ago
    I wonder when the re-building part is going to start for all the stuff that DOGE tore out.
    - deleted 2mo ago
      [deleted]
    - kennywinker 2mo ago
      Not just when. Also if.
  - shermantanktop 2mo ago
    Chesterton’s login?
- somenameforme 2mo ago
  They started requiring log-ins when industrial level scraping for LLM data became a thing.
  - ben_w 2mo ago
    if someone shares me a link to x.com, it is literally faster for me to edit the URL to xcancel, even on my phone which makes this awkward, and load that, than to wait for the original URL to load. xcancel does not have a login barrier, nor all the popup messages.
    - defrost 2mo ago
      Of all the many ways to automate that redirect, https://einaregilsson.com/redirector/ https://einaregilsson.com/redirector/ isn't bad. Redirect: https://x.com/* to: https://xcancel.com/$1 and Redirect: https://twitter.com/* to: https://xcancel.com/$1 ( also reddit to old.reddit, various cdn image servers to deliver hi-res versions, etc )
      - ben_w 2mo ago
        Interesting. That won't work for me directly (iOS), but it made me search around and find this, which has xcancel in one of the screenshots: https://apps.apple.com/de/app/redirectweb-smart-url-router/id1571283503?l=en-GB https://apps.apple.com/de/app/redirectweb-smart-url-router/i...
- solid_fuel 2mo ago
  I was hardly a heavy twitter user before acquisition but I recall generally being able to read threads and reply chains without logging in. I’m not sure exactly when that changed, but it completely destroyed what little use the platform had left to me.
- bamboozled 2mo ago
  I actually agree, they did the world a favor walling themselves off. The vile trash would be shared way more otherwise.
superze 2mo ago
The whole experience is extremely frustrating. I quit x as it became unbearable bad and not functional. It's really a shame what Elon did to x but it's exactly what cancer billionaires do. Whoever says x is good is out of his mind.
gilthelander 2mo ago
All of your complaints are true of present-day Reddit. It has become completely unusable.
- dd8601fn 2mo ago
  In related news, I heard they’re locking down old.reddit.com now
  - inigyou 2mo ago
    They are. Requires Persona verification to view NSFW.
lesinski 2mo ago
Have you tried viewing Instagram or TikTok logged out? They all do this
- Banditoz 2mo ago
  Doesn't mean Twitter should've followed suit.
- EagnaIonat 2mo ago
  Bluesky doesn't. I dropped X shortly after Elon took over. Around the time the neo-nazi spam increased. I also blocked it so I can't accidentally go to the site. Nothing of value was lost. Bluesky is like the early days of Twitter and I have a better control of my feeds. [edit] I see the X bots are unhappy.
  - conradfr 2mo ago
    In France the left is slowly coming back to X ahead of the presidential election because they noticed they speak in a void (journalists don't care about Bluesky) and also they all blocked each other in the purity battle. They still hate Musk though. Personally I think they all suck for different reasons.
    - EagnaIonat 2mo ago
      > In France the left is slowly coming back to X ahead of the presidential election Do you have a citation on that?
      - brigandish 2mo ago
        People are still allowed to share their experience and opinions without citations being a requirement.
        EagnaIonat 2mo ago
        I never said they weren't. Although if its a personal opinion, then it can't really be taken as fact. The claim seemed off, so I was curious where it came from. A google search, it's an alleged claim by Nate Silver posted on X from a year ago. Recent post from Nate is that X is rigged. https://protos.com/nate-silver-says-x-is-rigged-musk-cries-bulls/ https://protos.com/nate-silver-says-x-is-rigged-musk-cries-b... That seems to suggest that it's Far right.
HaloZero 2mo ago
I mean a lot of sites do it unfortunately. Reddit is trying to push to it (if they don't already?), Pinterest does it, unfortunately user-generated content is worth more nowadays for user monetization, ads and preventing AI bot scraping. Can't fault them for it too much.

modeless 2mo ago

The login wall predates Elon BTW https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28289263 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28289263

Aurornis 2mo ago

[dead]

dmix 2mo ago

Funny enough, one of the first thing Elon's team did after buying Twitter was remove login gating. There was a big bottom signup CTA on the old Twitter. Then at some point I guess they realized why the old Twitter team did that in the first place (financial pressure for targeted ads) and went harder in that direction to also push for subscriptions. I still disagree with it, since it's a poor first experience. Replying, customized feeds, etc should be enough incentive to sign up for a social media site.

jacobolus 2mo ago
The login gating on Twitter was relatively recent (within a year or two, IIRC) before Musk took over, and also relatively mild. Non-logged-in users could still read most tweets, conversations, lists, etc. It was annoying and user-hostile though. When Musk's people took over they very briefly removed any login gate, then very soon after they completely blocked all meaningful non-logged-in access to the site. Which is frankly fine with me: it's a good reason to never visit a place that has become a cesspool of scams, porn, and white supremacist propaganda.
- BLKNSLVR 2mo ago
  It was a pretty shithouse experience as a non-logged-in user before Musk, but it's a worse experience now. Timelines were all over the place before Musk got his hands on it. And if timelines are all over the place, what's the point? (that was always my view as someone who's not logged in - and as a 'town square', I would have thought that getting its message(s) across to as many people as possible would be a goal. But no, it's just another in-club like all the others. Fuck 'em, walk on by).
- dmix 2mo ago
  X has gone harder on login gating than the old Twitter they adopted for sure. Reddit also started going in this direction. Instagram has had it for a long time. I suspect selling APIs for AI is playing a big role in that. Reddit locked down their API around the time X started forcing logins (july 2023).
kennywinker 2mo ago
Tearing something out only to re-build it a few months later is classic tech industry move fast and break things hubris. Most things exist for a reason, and if you don’t know the reason that doesn’t mean it’s a bad reason - it just means you don’t know the whole story.
- BLKNSLVR 2mo ago
  I wonder when the re-building part is going to start for all the stuff that DOGE tore out.
  - deleted 2mo ago
    [deleted]
  - kennywinker 2mo ago
    Not just when. Also if.
- shermantanktop 2mo ago
  Chesterton’s login?
somenameforme 2mo ago
They started requiring log-ins when industrial level scraping for LLM data became a thing.
- ben_w 2mo ago
  if someone shares me a link to x.com, it is literally faster for me to edit the URL to xcancel, even on my phone which makes this awkward, and load that, than to wait for the original URL to load. xcancel does not have a login barrier, nor all the popup messages.
  - defrost 2mo ago
    Of all the many ways to automate that redirect, https://einaregilsson.com/redirector/ https://einaregilsson.com/redirector/ isn't bad. Redirect: https://x.com/* to: https://xcancel.com/$1 and Redirect: https://twitter.com/* to: https://xcancel.com/$1 ( also reddit to old.reddit, various cdn image servers to deliver hi-res versions, etc )
    - ben_w 2mo ago
      Interesting. That won't work for me directly (iOS), but it made me search around and find this, which has xcancel in one of the screenshots: https://apps.apple.com/de/app/redirectweb-smart-url-router/id1571283503?l=en-GB https://apps.apple.com/de/app/redirectweb-smart-url-router/i...
solid_fuel 2mo ago
I was hardly a heavy twitter user before acquisition but I recall generally being able to read threads and reply chains without logging in. I’m not sure exactly when that changed, but it completely destroyed what little use the platform had left to me.
bamboozled 2mo ago
I actually agree, they did the world a favor walling themselves off. The vile trash would be shared way more otherwise.

superze 2mo ago

The whole experience is extremely frustrating. I quit x as it became unbearable bad and not functional. It's really a shame what Elon did to x but it's exactly what cancer billionaires do. Whoever says x is good is out of his mind.

gilthelander 2mo ago

All of your complaints are true of present-day Reddit. It has become completely unusable.

dd8601fn 2mo ago
In related news, I heard they’re locking down old.reddit.com now
- inigyou 2mo ago
  They are. Requires Persona verification to view NSFW.

lesinski 2mo ago

Have you tried viewing Instagram or TikTok logged out? They all do this

Banditoz 2mo ago
Doesn't mean Twitter should've followed suit.
EagnaIonat 2mo ago
Bluesky doesn't. I dropped X shortly after Elon took over. Around the time the neo-nazi spam increased. I also blocked it so I can't accidentally go to the site. Nothing of value was lost. Bluesky is like the early days of Twitter and I have a better control of my feeds. [edit] I see the X bots are unhappy.
- conradfr 2mo ago
  In France the left is slowly coming back to X ahead of the presidential election because they noticed they speak in a void (journalists don't care about Bluesky) and also they all blocked each other in the purity battle. They still hate Musk though. Personally I think they all suck for different reasons.
  - EagnaIonat 2mo ago
    > In France the left is slowly coming back to X ahead of the presidential election Do you have a citation on that?
    - brigandish 2mo ago
      People are still allowed to share their experience and opinions without citations being a requirement.
      - EagnaIonat 2mo ago
        I never said they weren't. Although if its a personal opinion, then it can't really be taken as fact. The claim seemed off, so I was curious where it came from. A google search, it's an alleged claim by Nate Silver posted on X from a year ago. Recent post from Nate is that X is rigged. https://protos.com/nate-silver-says-x-is-rigged-musk-cries-bulls/ https://protos.com/nate-silver-says-x-is-rigged-musk-cries-b... That seems to suggest that it's Far right.

HaloZero 2mo ago

I mean a lot of sites do it unfortunately. Reddit is trying to push to it (if they don't already?), Pinterest does it, unfortunately user-generated content is worth more nowadays for user monetization, ads and preventing AI bot scraping. Can't fault them for it too much.