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Jimmy Wales has quietly launched a Facebook rival

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Re: Jimmy Wales has quietly launched a Facebook rival

#351

Post by newsbinator »

simias wrote: post #339
cortesoft wrote: post #303

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of the reasons that reddit can avoid 'blog spam' is because as a centralized service, they can control user registration and take measures to prevent bots from signing up for thousands of accounts and upvoting their spam. How would this be prevented in a decentralized system? Spammers would join the network, create thousands of bots, and upvote all their spam.

Reddit doesn't really avoid anything as far as I can tell. A lot of the content in the big subreddits is more or less well concealed "organic advertising". The upvote system is also basically useless on reddit these days, the site is way too big to enforce any kind of etiquette and people gladly upvote empty one-line quips while they'll bury anybody expressing any form of vaguely dissenting opinion. It's frankly toxi…

One of the things I prefer about HN is people seem to use the downvote button more often as a "this is a poor quality contribution" vote, rather than a "my opinion differs from yours" vote.

Re: Jimmy Wales has quietly launched a Facebook rival

#352

Post by pault »

bluecalm wrote: post #348
AndrewStephens wrote: post #300

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There already is a decentralized Reddit where subreddits are called websites and anyone can start one and run it as they please. What Reddit and similar sites bring to the table is a single pool of authenticated users. Once a user is logged into Reddit, posting on different subreddits is frictionless. Even with oauth and the like, it is hard to replicate that with a distributed set of sites.

You can't upvote though. One of the nice things same Reddit is that you can go to a subreddit about something you want to learn about and sort for the most popular posts from last year (for example). Some kind of system like that for websites could become a killer feature.

You could treat a link to the post as a proxy for an upvote, and then rank posts based on how many other posts link to them. Of course you wouldn't be able to charge for this service so you'd have to sell ad space on the front page.

Re: Jimmy Wales has quietly launched a Facebook rival

#353

Post by godelski »

paulddraper wrote: post #331
ansible wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel that Costco is worth it just based on bulk-buying toilet paper, dish detergent, and such.

I have Costco premium or whatever the highest one is. Consistently great quality + deals. Right now they're selling a Costco-sized box of 1,500 Legos for $40.

Also get the executive. At the end of the year you get back 2% or $60, whichever is higher. So if you can front the extra $60, there's no reason to not do it.

Re: Jimmy Wales has quietly launched a Facebook rival

#354

Post by blondin »

basch wrote: post #99
wtmt wrote: post #62

I checked it out by creating an account. It detected my country as India, and showed the price to jump the waitlist (currently at 60k) as $12.99 a month or $100 a year. Contrast this to (using current conversion rates from INR to USD): * Netflix here starts at $2.8 for the cheapest (mobile only, single screen) plan and has its highest plan (4K, four screens) at $11.2 a month. Netflix is considered so expensive that a…

Part of Prime is getting you to give them $120 membership fee so you feel youre getting some kind of bonus buying from them ("free shipping") which reduces comparison shopping. I'm probably not going to buy $100/year memberships to costco, walmart, amazon, and target, even though im half way there and really tempted to pull the trigger on another. The membership fees almost pay for themselves just in preventing me fr…

oh wow!! can't amazon create a social network of buyers?

Re: Jimmy Wales has quietly launched a Facebook rival

#356

Post by distances »

basch wrote: post #99
wtmt wrote: post #62

I checked it out by creating an account. It detected my country as India, and showed the price to jump the waitlist (currently at 60k) as $12.99 a month or $100 a year. Contrast this to (using current conversion rates from INR to USD): * Netflix here starts at $2.8 for the cheapest (mobile only, single screen) plan and has its highest plan (4K, four screens) at $11.2 a month. Netflix is considered so expensive that a…

Part of Prime is getting you to give them $120 membership fee so you feel youre getting some kind of bonus buying from them ("free shipping") which reduces comparison shopping. I'm probably not going to buy $100/year memberships to costco, walmart, amazon, and target, even though im half way there and really tempted to pull the trigger on another. The membership fees almost pay for themselves just in preventing me fr…

I agree Amazon Prime is a trap. Without it the free shipping starts at around €29. That alone makes me bundle my purchases, which hinders impulse buying.

Based on observing Prime members I feel most people would be much better off without the subscription.

Re: Jimmy Wales has quietly launched a Facebook rival

#357

Post by signal11 »

AndrewStephens wrote: post #300
ratfaced-guy wrote: post #294

What I want is a decentralized Reddit not under the control of advertising needs. Reddit redesign has been bad for quality content. I actually find Reddit to be a better source of information and knowledge than Google at this point, mostly because Google has been inundated with paid blog-spam. It's a bit harder to get away with that in Reddit (for the time being, and for whatever reason).

There already is a decentralized Reddit where subreddits are called websites and anyone can start one and run it as they please. What Reddit and similar sites bring to the table is a single pool of authenticated users. Once a user is logged into Reddit, posting on different subreddits is frictionless. Even with oauth and the like, it is hard to replicate that with a distributed set of sites.

It’s a little more than just auth. Websites have different codes of conduct, different attitudes to humour/off topic content, and crucially different moderation and user safety policies. Remember on most random web forums you have no idea who can see your IP address (if anonymity is important).

Much of this is true on Reddit too, except mods seeing your IP address, but most of the important info is consistently in the subreddit sidebar.

Re: Jimmy Wales has quietly launched a Facebook rival

#358

Post by bcrosby95 »

cjsawyer wrote: post #322
jacquesm wrote: post #314

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Once upon a time, yes.

It’s easier now than ever. The difference is that normal people don’t venture off the big websites now.

Some might say the difference is that normal people are using the internet.

Re: Jimmy Wales has quietly launched a Facebook rival

#359

Post by ZainRiz »

AndrewStephens wrote: post #300
ratfaced-guy wrote: post #294

What I want is a decentralized Reddit not under the control of advertising needs. Reddit redesign has been bad for quality content. I actually find Reddit to be a better source of information and knowledge than Google at this point, mostly because Google has been inundated with paid blog-spam. It's a bit harder to get away with that in Reddit (for the time being, and for whatever reason).

There already is a decentralized Reddit where subreddits are called websites and anyone can start one and run it as they please. What Reddit and similar sites bring to the table is a single pool of authenticated users. Once a user is logged into Reddit, posting on different subreddits is frictionless. Even with oauth and the like, it is hard to replicate that with a distributed set of sites.

I disagree. What Reddit brings to the table is:

1. Easy sharing: Subreddits, which are an easy location to share interesting information about a common topic. Creating your own website is an order of magnitude harder, especially if you want to allow anyone on the internet to post to it

2. Discoverability: You can easily discover subreddits information related to your interests. Reddit's ability to aggregate the various information sources and present options that users find interesting is the biggest reason lurkers&voters (90% of it's users) keep returning.

Re: Jimmy Wales has quietly launched a Facebook rival

#360

Post by ZainRiz »

newsbinator wrote: post #351
simias wrote: post #339

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reddit doesn't really avoid anything as far as I can tell. A lot of the content in the big subreddits is more or less well concealed "organic advertising". The upvote system is also basically useless on reddit these days, the site is way too big to enforce any kind of etiquette and people gladly upvote empty one-line quips while they'll bury anybody expressing any form of vaguely dissenting opinion. It's frankly toxi…

One of the things I prefer about HN is people seem to use the downvote button more often as a "this is a poor quality contribution" vote, rather than a "my opinion differs from yours" vote.

Also, you need a lot of rep to get the right to use the downvote button, which also removes a large chunk of the would-be-downvoters
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