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Farewell, Periscope

periscope.medium.com

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Re: Farewell, Periscope

#51

Post by karmicjustice99 »

ChuckMcM wrote: post #23

This, I suppose, is unexpected. It reflects a similar fate of a lot of technology plays that grew fast. I would like to reflect however on this comment in the article -- "The truth is that the Periscope app is in an unsustainable maintenance-mode state, and has been for a while. Over the past couple of years, we’ve seen declining usage and know that the cost to support the app will only continue to go up over time."…

I disagree. It is NOT your job to fix any of this sh*t given the way you are rewarded and grow your career in BigCorp is by shipping new features and growing the customer base. Cost saving or optimization is barely ever an important priority in any tech organization BigCorp that wants to attract and retain talent because most developers wouldn’t want to work there - there would likely also not be delicious food in the cafes and kitchens either. Startups similarly spend money extensively to attract talent and keep them, not by being cost, efficiency and order focused.

Re: Farewell, Periscope

#52

Post by karmicjustice99 »

bonoboTP wrote: post #41
kelnos wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you are an engineer and you start moving up into senior leadership roles, understand that this is your job Product wants new features and new products, and they want them now. Sales wants new features and new products, and they want them yesterday. Finance people want everything to be cheap, but since most engineers have no idea how to prove to them with actual hard data that it's cheaper in the long run ship fe…

> Interesting that you mention Google, since it has a reputation for being more engineering-focused that most companies. From what I read on HN (perhaps not a representative sample, but...), it seems like Google has a culture of "build something cool to get promoted and then stop caring about what you built because maintenance doesn't get you promoted any further". If true, I think that very easily explains Google's…

It is not. It is only getting worse. Src: recently departed Googler.

Re: Farewell, Periscope

#53

Post by jholman »

TT3351 wrote: post #43
bonoboTP wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be less subtle: it's to eliminate competition. If my neighbor has a nice big cow, it's not crucial for me to obtain that cow for myself; it suffices that it die, while my cows live.

Nitpick but this implicitly requires I buy-in to a zero sum system

No, it does not.

Just mathematically the thing you said is clearly false. Suppose I say that, for some system, the return to each player is a function of the number of players: r(n) = 100 / (n+1). One player makes 50, two players make 33 each for a total of 66, three players make 25 each for a total of 75. Clearly not zero-sum, but I can still move up in the world by killing someone else's cows.

One might observe that much of the world is like this; not truly zero-sum, but with payoff matrices that incentivize hurting or helping strangers.

Note that almost all traditional microeconomics is this kind of curve-following system, one way or another. I'm not saying that kind of economics is right or wrong, just that it's a very traditional model, worth understanding as a starting point.

Re: Farewell, Periscope

#54

Post by romwell »

gk1 wrote: post #13
jodrellblank wrote: post #8

> " We’ve brought most of the core capabilities of Periscope into Twitter. [...] We’ve learned so much, shared incredible experiences together " Another one for "Our incredible journey" https://ourincrediblejourney.tumblr.com/

Unlike the announcements in "Our incredible journey," this one seems fairly honest and to-the-point. Considering the years of effort that went into Periscope it's reasonable for them to reflect on that time in a positive way.

>Considering the years of effort that went into Periscope it's reasonable for them to reflect on the work that their users have invested into that platform to make the founders rich only to be sold for profit in a positive way

FTFY

Re: Farewell, Periscope

#55

Post by romwell »

divbzero wrote: post #18
moonbug wrote: post #16

What's Periscope?

Twitter’s standalone app for live video streaming.

It hasn't been Twitter's until Twitter bought it a few years back.

It's yet another one of the acquire - erase stories deserving a spot on Our Incredible Journey blog.

[1]https://ourincrediblejourney.tumblr.com/

Re: Farewell, Periscope

#56

Post by theptip »

TT3351 wrote: post #43
bonoboTP wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be less subtle: it's to eliminate competition. If my neighbor has a nice big cow, it's not crucial for me to obtain that cow for myself; it suffices that it die, while my cows live.

Nitpick but this implicitly requires I buy-in to a zero sum system

What is being described is a net-negative sum strategy. Value is destroyed, and the monopolist is able to extract more rent because there is less competition.

Re: Farewell, Periscope

#57

Post by theamk »

TT3351 wrote: post #43
bonoboTP wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be less subtle: it's to eliminate competition. If my neighbor has a nice big cow, it's not crucial for me to obtain that cow for myself; it suffices that it die, while my cows live.

Nitpick but this implicitly requires I buy-in to a zero sum system

Nitpick on nitpick: .. or it could be a complex non-zero-sum game.

A kills B's cow, so that milk supply decreases, price increases, and C pays more to A for the milk.

Re: Farewell, Periscope

#58

Post by throwmeaway0909 »

I haven't seen anyone else mention this yet, so maybe I'm completely out to lunch, but it's possible that Periscope had similar issues that PornHub (et al) had to deal with recently but, due to all of the reasons they mentioned in the article, are choosing simply to shut down rather than invest in heavier moderation.

If you look at the top streams worldwide on any slow news day, a moderate to high percentage will be OnlyFans models doing self promotion. Periscope bans nudity, so there is a non-zero human cost to moderate this. And with declining numbers in general, the amount of moderation needed goes up relative to the overall userbase.

I'm also convinced that there is a Periscope "underground" where people anonymously share and promote truly illegal content via private streams (where the only "private" aspect is the URL). In the past, Periscope may have been able to turn a blind eye because it's not visible through the app, but with increased scrutiny on illegal content, the easiest and cheapest way to deal with it is to shutter the service.

Re: Farewell, Periscope

#59

Post by plif »

ChuckMcM wrote: post #23

This, I suppose, is unexpected. It reflects a similar fate of a lot of technology plays that grew fast. I would like to reflect however on this comment in the article -- "The truth is that the Periscope app is in an unsustainable maintenance-mode state, and has been for a while. Over the past couple of years, we’ve seen declining usage and know that the cost to support the app will only continue to go up over time."…

> When I was at Google it amazed me how many pieces of infrastructure were 'hot messes' in the sense that the people maintaining them didn't really know anything about how they worked, just how to run a test and revert if they broke. But there was no senior leadership pushing to understand the component interfaces and how the 'fleet' was at risk or interconnected. Just a bunch of fiefdoms. And inevitably people who kept things complicated so that they were "irreplaceable" for their own job security anxieties.

This is the curse of a large bureaucracy. It seemed like Google was immune to this for a while, perhaps due to the engineering culture, but it's only a matter of time when there's enough money and organizational inertia at play. Once things reach a boiling point, the transformational programs pop up, and the cycle continues.

Re: Farewell, Periscope

#60

Post by draw_down »

throwmeaway0909 wrote: post #58

I haven't seen anyone else mention this yet, so maybe I'm completely out to lunch, but it's possible that Periscope had similar issues that PornHub (et al) had to deal with recently but, due to all of the reasons they mentioned in the article, are choosing simply to shut down rather than invest in heavier moderation. If you look at the top streams worldwide on any slow news day, a moderate to high percentage will be…

Come on
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