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> There aren't any decentralized alternatives to Facebook, > Google, or Twitter because nobody's been able to ship one. Diaspora and identi.ca(/pump.io) are d

by Joeboy 12y ago

> There aren't any decentralized alternatives to Facebook, > Google, or Twitter because nobody's been able to ship one. Diaspora and identi.ca(/pump.io) are decentralized alternatives to Facebook and Twitter. Admittedly not in fully decentralized sense the author is talking about, but that isn't their problem. People don't use them, because people don't use them.

dublinben 12y ago
Some people do use them though, and they actually work.
- lisper 12y ago
  Diaspora doesn't "work" for the definition of "work" that most people use. Suppose I wanted to join Diaspora. I search for "diaspora" on Google. The first result is the Wikipedia article, and the second is a link to joindiaspora.com. Cool, looks promising, but when I click on the link I find this: "JoinDiaspora.com Registrations are closed" But OK, maybe there's hope: "Diaspora is Decentralized! But don't worry! There are lots of other pods you can register at. You can also choose to set up your own pod if you'd like." So I click on "other pods" and I get sent to a naked list of sites. No explanation, no basis for choosing among them. Many of them in hinky-looking international domains. OK, so I go back and click on "Set up your own pod", which takes me back to joindiaspora.com. At that point I give up. Diaspora may work for hard-core geeks, but it doesn't work for normal people.
  - Joeboy 12y ago
    The "official" diaspora site has always been aggressively self-sabotaging. I don't know why. If you want a reliable, well maintained pod http://diasp.org http://diasp.org should do you.
    - lisper 12y ago
      "Registrations here are closed"
      - mnutt 12y ago
        I'm guessing that language was hard-coded into the landing page and got pushed to diasp.org in an update, and nobody noticed. It looks like you can still sign up there by clicking the signup link.
        lisper 12y ago
        OK, but my point remains: a regular person who doesn't hang out on HN is not going to have a good UX signing up for Diaspora.

by Joeboy 12y ago

dublinben 12y ago

Some people do use them though, and they actually work.

lisper 12y ago
Diaspora doesn't "work" for the definition of "work" that most people use. Suppose I wanted to join Diaspora. I search for "diaspora" on Google. The first result is the Wikipedia article, and the second is a link to joindiaspora.com. Cool, looks promising, but when I click on the link I find this: "JoinDiaspora.com Registrations are closed" But OK, maybe there's hope: "Diaspora is Decentralized! But don't worry! There are lots of other pods you can register at. You can also choose to set up your own pod if you'd like." So I click on "other pods" and I get sent to a naked list of sites. No explanation, no basis for choosing among them. Many of them in hinky-looking international domains. OK, so I go back and click on "Set up your own pod", which takes me back to joindiaspora.com. At that point I give up. Diaspora may work for hard-core geeks, but it doesn't work for normal people.
- Joeboy 12y ago
  The "official" diaspora site has always been aggressively self-sabotaging. I don't know why. If you want a reliable, well maintained pod http://diasp.org http://diasp.org should do you.
  - lisper 12y ago
    "Registrations here are closed"
    - mnutt 12y ago
      I'm guessing that language was hard-coded into the landing page and got pushed to diasp.org in an update, and nobody noticed. It looks like you can still sign up there by clicking the signup link.
      - lisper 12y ago
        OK, but my point remains: a regular person who doesn't hang out on HN is not going to have a good UX signing up for Diaspora.