Previously on Hacker News in 2016 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12231101
Hello: A new social network founded by Orkut's creator
121–130 of 215 posts
Re: Hello: A new social network founded by Orkut's creator
#122The service looks like a ripoff of Instagram (loves, not likes) and Reddit (communities).
What problem is the site exactly trying to solve?
I had to spend the better part of a month trying to hound my friends to use Signal. I am not going to waste time for a service that's not even worth the effort.
Re: Hello: A new social network founded by Orkut's creator
#123Earlier quoted context omitted.
Easy enough to fake your user agent. Or is it a native app with extra security / checks?
I thought we were talking about phone numbers. They're not impossible to obtain in bulk, but that's much harder than faking user agents.
If they wanted to verify my phone number, text me a code. That isn't a problem. It's the app install requirement we're talking about. Which both gives them access to some data on your phone, and also means only Android and iOS users can sign up.
(On Android, Hello gets access to your contacts, your rough location, the ability to read and modify your storage, use your camera, and view your Wi-Fi connections)
Re: Hello: A new social network founded by Orkut's creator
#124Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's worse... Once you've signed up through mobile, you can use it from any browser. Makes you wonder why it wants you to sign up on mobile... Wants your phone number? Wants access to you contacts?
What else? I assume that the whole reddit thing is the same. Install our app so we can suck your phone dry of your personal data.
You do not need to install the reddit apps ever. You can sign up, and use it, through their web interface.
In fact when I use reddit from my phone (through Firefox) I force it to use the non-mobile version as I find it much faster (as long as you open every link in a new tab).
Re: Hello: A new social network founded by Orkut's creator
#125Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's worse... Once you've signed up through mobile, you can use it from any browser. Makes you wonder why it wants you to sign up on mobile... Wants your phone number? Wants access to you contacts?
A perfectly good explanation is deterring spammers.
I'm frankly not interested to be part of an exclusive social media thing where only people who have phones can participate.
Re: Hello: A new social network founded by Orkut's creator
#126The service looks like a ripoff of Instagram (loves, not likes) and Reddit (communities). What problem is the site exactly trying to solve? I had to spend the better part of a month trying to hound my friends to use Signal. I am not going to waste time for a service that's not even worth the effort.
Exactly.
Everyone thinks that the main competitor for building communities is Facebook.com. But fbook.com does not build communities, they digitize existing ones.
So all these new apps come out with "better facebooks" not realizing (or accepting) that they already exist as Twitter, Reddit, and Instagram. These existing platforms are very good at true connection and community building.
How does "Hello" fit into that?
Re: Hello: A new social network founded by Orkut's creator
#127Oh no! Not again! Seriously! We don't want another social network. It's time to go nuclear! Protect your data, history and everything. The time for the machines to take over is imminent! Your data is the key!
Re: Hello: A new social network founded by Orkut's creator
#128Please do not put something like a chat or messenger. I have 6 apps to communicate, each type of person has a different channel to speak.
Re: Hello: A new social network founded by Orkut's creator
#129The social network I'd like to try is this: * Funded by subscriptions. * Free from ads. * Since it is not ad dependent, yes, it can also provide a chronological timeline. * Two post types supported: Text and Photo. Because sometimes a photo does tell a thousand words. * Links to websites not supported in posts. Avoids viral proliferation of dumbed down politics, fake news, or stupid memes. If you want to get to the w…
I'd add to that: - Decentralized - Designed with strong privacy and anonymity of its users in mind
Anonymity? Why be on a social network at all in that case? You might as well just maintain a blog.
Re: Hello: A new social network founded by Orkut's creator
#130The social network I'd like to try is this: * Funded by subscriptions. * Free from ads. * Since it is not ad dependent, yes, it can also provide a chronological timeline. * Two post types supported: Text and Photo. Because sometimes a photo does tell a thousand words. * Links to websites not supported in posts. Avoids viral proliferation of dumbed down politics, fake news, or stupid memes. If you want to get to the w…
> Funded by subscriptions
This sounds like it might be a good idea because it seems like it would remove the incentive to monetize personal information, but in practice it creates a barrier to adoption and makes the social network kinda useless.
I joined a subscription-based social network that was designed for expats [1]. It was by all-accounts well-designed, well-managed and had everything going for it. But no one in my circles are part of it, and the event lists were really thin because the network was really thin (and I live in one of the largest cities in the U.S.). It does "work" for some definitions of work, but it isn't very successful (though there seems to be enough people on it to make it sustainable--I wonder about retention rates past year 1).
I suspect the things on your list were conceived based on your circumscribed experiences and are not what the general market really wants. It could work in a more niche setting, but you'd have a hard time scaling the business model.