Because Twitter is fine. If you ignore the fud, the experience on Twitter hasn't changed at all.
The probability of bankruptcy is rising the longer Musk is in control which would likely cause it to shut down completely!
Ask HN: Why isn't anyone creating or promoting an alternative to Twitter?
21–30 of 54 posts
Re: Ask HN: Why isn't anyone creating or promoting an alternative to Twitter?
#22I wonder how much people are secretly just hoping Twitter dies with no replacement. Skepticism about social media is basically the default position for educated professionals now, who are likely to already have distanced themselves from Facebook. The Twitter users I know would be happy to get rid of it, if not for the perceived career benefits (likewise with LinkedIn). When Twitter no longer offers any ladder-climbin…
I want to have place where I can follow some people's written content without being "friends" with them.
Re: Ask HN: Why isn't anyone creating or promoting an alternative to Twitter?
#23I actually had a really good idea for a social media site this month, just before Elon bought twitter. I've been working on the idea a bit, but without a strong network effect it might not go anywhere. People flocked to Twitter because of who was there.
Re: Ask HN: Why isn't anyone creating or promoting an alternative to Twitter?
#24Honestly, because I don't see what problem Twitter is solving in the first place. Twitter popped into our reality as the winner in a time when social media was launching and everyone wanted to be a voice on the internet. And for that it works and thrives on its own momentum. But I'm not sure being a voice on the internet is actually a problem the needs a solution now that social media has matured and many people are…
Sure social media has matured but there are still millions of people who use twitter so the demand is clearly still out there.
There are thousands of people who post on titter and millions who just use it as an unimportant and replaceable news stream.
Re: Ask HN: Why isn't anyone creating or promoting an alternative to Twitter?
#25There are a lot of alternatives popping up: BlueSky, Mastodon, Farcaster, nostr. There are also some older protocols that people are still building on like secure scuttlebutt. I've written about some of the differences of these protocols here: https://mirror.xyz/mattdesl.eth/_F9vQAUeeBB9AJNwMNaE_G5kTcl1...
That was a good read for me - someone who has heard of Mastondon and ActivityPub but hasn't really grokked the tech and definitely didn't know other alternatives.
Re: Ask HN: Why isn't anyone creating or promoting an alternative to Twitter?
#26I actually had a really good idea for a social media site this month, just before Elon bought twitter. I've been working on the idea a bit, but without a strong network effect it might not go anywhere. People flocked to Twitter because of who was there.
I have one as well. What's your killer feature?
Mine is that it is invite-only, and if you break the rules, the person that invited you and everybody else they have invited gets booted from the platform. Apart from that, the only other rule is don't be illegal, don't spam, and post whatever the hell you want.
I don't mean it to replace Twitter. It's more like a social experiment. If there are permanent social consequences to being twats, what would a social network be like? Also, given this major risk, you'd only invite people you really know or trust.
I'm still ironing out the details of this thing. We'll see if I'll ever get to build it.
Re: Ask HN: Why isn't anyone creating or promoting an alternative to Twitter?
#27Truth social ?
Re: Ask HN: Why isn't anyone creating or promoting an alternative to Twitter?
#28No post body was provided.
Re: Ask HN: Why isn't anyone creating or promoting an alternative to Twitter?
#29I wonder how much people are secretly just hoping Twitter dies with no replacement. Skepticism about social media is basically the default position for educated professionals now, who are likely to already have distanced themselves from Facebook. The Twitter users I know would be happy to get rid of it, if not for the perceived career benefits (likewise with LinkedIn). When Twitter no longer offers any ladder-climbin…
I want to have place where I can follow some people's written content without being "friends" with them.
I follow Nitter feeds with Thunderbird.
Re: Ask HN: Why isn't anyone creating or promoting an alternative to Twitter?
#30I actually had a really good idea for a social media site this month, just before Elon bought twitter. I've been working on the idea a bit, but without a strong network effect it might not go anywhere. People flocked to Twitter because of who was there.
I have one as well. What's your killer feature? Mine is that it is invite-only, and if you break the rules, the person that invited you and everybody else they have invited gets booted from the platform. Apart from that, the only other rule is don't be illegal, don't spam, and post whatever the hell you want. I don't mean it to replace Twitter. It's more like a social experiment. If there are permanent social consequ…
I'm going the way Twitter used to be going towards, that is, enforcing good social behavior. I'm specifically going to work on identifying unjustifiable hate/bullying and moderating/banning those users. That will be the killer feature, and part of that will be in the techniques to do so efficiently and justly.
Like yours, mine is also a social experiment, but I don't care if not everyone wants a place like that. I know that at the very least a lot of people do. Still, without enough users it would die.
Right now this isn't a priority for me to build, but the code could be useful for other projects too, so why not.