There is no mention of this in the document, but the timing suggests there may be a GPDR-related factor. It's hard to get consent from users that haven't touched the service for years.
StumbleUpon closing after 16 years, accounts can be migrated to Mix
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Re: StumbleUpon closing after 16 years, accounts can be migrated to Mix
#12StumbleUpon was one of the first web services I came across that actually provided a new and exciting way to traverse the internet. I'll never forget the sense of discovery and wonder and amusement it provided, my only other sources for cool and interesting content were things my friends would share with me or sites I would find via an article/web page. StumbleUpon took me out of my "filter bubble" if you will and in…
Seconded. Many hours in college that I should've spent studying were spent "stumbling". Digg came along, and later Reddit and HN and I spent a lot less time using StumbleUpon, but it was AWESOME for its time.
I was considering dropping Reddit and going back to StumbleUpon, because I realised that it is very hard to use reddit without making it another filter bubble, which defeats the purpose of information discovery. Plus, the fact that SU doesn't have a toxic comment section makes it better imho. I am sad that it is gone.
Re: StumbleUpon closing after 16 years, accounts can be migrated to Mix
#13There is no mention of this in the document, but the timing suggests there may be a GPDR-related factor. It's hard to get consent from users that haven't touched the service for years.
That's an interesting point. I wonder if at some point in the future we'll start getting historical exemptions, similar to those for real world properties with historical value.
It might even free up faster innovation in technical law, since new laws could be as onerous (or not) as lawmakers wish.
Re: StumbleUpon closing after 16 years, accounts can be migrated to Mix
#14I've been mulling a form of charity where instead of closing down a once famous website, you give it to some talented developers in a poorer country to maintain it remotely. There are good developers in third world countries who get paid a pittance for basically busy work. They would certainly appreciate the challenge and money around a service like StumbleUpon. What do you think of this idea and is there anyone doing something like this?
Re: StumbleUpon closing after 16 years, accounts can be migrated to Mix
#15I was working on Website Randomizer at the time when everyone told me it is already done and pointed to StumbleUpon. I abandoned project, which I am a little bit sorry about, but I always liked StumbleUpon and it was great way to discover new things.
Re: StumbleUpon closing after 16 years, accounts can be migrated to Mix
#16I remember using StumbleUpon in my teens, and one site in particular sticks out to me. It was a full-page Flash point-and-click game where you directed a few children across a few different landscapes (IIRC at least a desert and jungle).
It stuck out to me because it was an example of someone making something to be enjoyed, in a time where I had assumed people needed money as a motivator for entertainment to be created.
Re: StumbleUpon closing after 16 years, accounts can be migrated to Mix
#17I've been mulling a form of charity where instead of closing down a once famous website, you give it to some talented developers in a poorer country to maintain it remotely. There are good developers in third world countries who get paid a pittance for basically busy work. They would certainly appreciate the challenge and money around a service like StumbleUpon. What do you think of this idea and is there anyone doin…
"Once famous" websites are rarely ever thrown away completely. They are often scrapped for parts, and any nugget of value that still remains, is sold to the highest bidder. This is often incompatible with letting the service continue running as usual.
For example, the article mentions that the StumbleUpon cofounder is currently working on Mix, and all StumbleUpon accounts will be migrated over to Mix. Most likely, they want to harvest whatever is remaining of StumbleUpon's userbase/reputation, to help grow Mix instead. This will be much harder to do, if StumbleUpon continues operating and slowly degrading.
Re: StumbleUpon closing after 16 years, accounts can be migrated to Mix
#18I've been mulling a form of charity where instead of closing down a once famous website, you give it to some talented developers in a poorer country to maintain it remotely. There are good developers in third world countries who get paid a pittance for basically busy work. They would certainly appreciate the challenge and money around a service like StumbleUpon. What do you think of this idea and is there anyone doin…
It's a great idea, but probably not practical. Turning over ssh keys, data, and legal ownership would be labor intensive and probably expose the current owners to risk.
Re: StumbleUpon closing after 16 years, accounts can be migrated to Mix
#19I've been mulling a form of charity where instead of closing down a once famous website, you give it to some talented developers in a poorer country to maintain it remotely. There are good developers in third world countries who get paid a pittance for basically busy work. They would certainly appreciate the challenge and money around a service like StumbleUpon. What do you think of this idea and is there anyone doin…
I was once involved with a somewhat popular social network that was closing down, and some people in the user community would say this.
It's not really practical, as there are lots of operating costs for hardware, bandwidth, looking after the domain names, DNS, security issues, DOS attacks, dealing with subpoenas from law enforcement, DMCA takedown notices, getting rid of illegal material, the list goes on.
This work is difficult to do well, it's not the kind of thing that "developers in third world countries who get paid a pittance for basically busy work" can actually do successfully. The good developers in those sorts of countries are not doing busy work, they're starting their own social networks or migrating or doing the other things that good developers do.
Re: StumbleUpon closing after 16 years, accounts can be migrated to Mix
#20Earlier quoted context omitted.
Seconded. Many hours in college that I should've spent studying were spent "stumbling". Digg came along, and later Reddit and HN and I spent a lot less time using StumbleUpon, but it was AWESOME for its time.
I was considering dropping Reddit and going back to StumbleUpon, because I realised that it is very hard to use reddit without making it another filter bubble, which defeats the purpose of information discovery. Plus, the fact that SU doesn't have a toxic comment section makes it better imho. I am sad that it is gone.
Urgh, Reddit is indeed an addictive, toxic timesink of a filter bubble. It reminds me of Slashdot, but on a much larger scale.
I have been reflecting on ways to fix it lately. I was imagining something like reddit, but...
1) not completely anonymous / pseudonymous. Maybe a profile photo with you holding a sign with your username for verification (like certain subreddits do), first name, and SMS / phone number verification or something. That's all - not strong firstname / lastname identity like facebook, but also no throwaway accounts.
2) allow people to have a different alias for different subreddits, in a way that they stay separate and can't be easily linked. maybe that means one verification photo per subreddit, and all you really share across subreddits is your username / password. the thing of people looking through post history across different, unrelated subreddits and beating them up in response to their latest post is pretty toxic, and goes against real life where people tend to have a different persona in different contexts.