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Tell HN: Twitter is growing increasingly unusable without an account

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Re: Tell HN: Twitter is growing increasingly unusable without an account

#101

Post by torginus »

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #5

> Unfortunately twitter is going the direction of quora, pinterest, facebook, and medium Don’t forget Reddit. Reddit’s login pop-ups are more aggressive than Twitter’s for me. > Now you can perhaps read ten tweets or replies to a linked tweet without an account before the same thing occurs Perhaps an unpopular opinion, but I don’t think any company is obligated to provide unlimited access for free without an account.…

I disagree. When Reddit, Quora, Medium, Twitter started, they have posed themselves as privately owned public spaces, much like Wikipedia. This was the 'social' contract they presented to users.

They built their monopolies on top of the goodwill of users. I'm pretty sure that subject matter experts who wrote extremely long-winded and well-researched articles on Roman battle tactics, did not do so with the intent, that some nebulous internet money-man could charge $5/month in the future to view the articles they wrote for free.

All these internet companies are essentially engaging in rent-seeking behavior, but are trying to boil the frog only slowly, so they don't get swept away by the tides of user discontent.

Re: Tell HN: Twitter is growing increasingly unusable without an account

#102

Post by jeffbee »

I cannot confirm. In Chrome, I visited Twitter in an incognito tab. I clicked each of the trending topics in turn, and held down the 'j' key to scroll through 1000s of tweets. There is a standing login/signup button at the bottom of the page but at no time was there some kind of pop-up.

Re: Tell HN: Twitter is growing increasingly unusable without an account

#103

Post by baking »

I'm getting more like 4 or 5 before the pop-up. Problem is when I sign-in I only get one additional tweet. Plus I have to deal with all the extra screen clutter. I'm trying to read about the upcoming blizzard and I'm cursing Dave Epstein for posting a picture of a tree when all I want are his potential snowfall maps. Just switched to nitter.net. End of rant.

Re: Tell HN: Twitter is growing increasingly unusable without an account

#104

Post by mattdeboard »

specialist wrote: post #60
that_guy_iain wrote: post #52

Honestly, this seems like the most entitled thing ever. You want to use someone else's stuff for free but you get annoyed that they want you to have an account.

Twitter sells eyeballs. Do they pay me to visit their site? To tweet? Is Twitter entitled to my attention? In only narrowly proscribed ways that maximize their own benefit? Quid pro quo.

> Is Twitter entitled to my attention?

If you're using Twitter, yes, because you are explicitly entitling them to it

> In only narrowly proscribed [sic] ways that maximize their own benefit?

Yes

Re: Tell HN: Twitter is growing increasingly unusable without an account

#105

Post by npongratz »

nickysielicki wrote: post #48
PragmaticPulp wrote: post #5

> Unfortunately twitter is going the direction of quora, pinterest, facebook, and medium Don’t forget Reddit. Reddit’s login pop-ups are more aggressive than Twitter’s for me. > Now you can perhaps read ten tweets or replies to a linked tweet without an account before the same thing occurs Perhaps an unpopular opinion, but I don’t think any company is obligated to provide unlimited access for free without an account.…

No company even comes close to the transition that Reddit did that took them from a {clean,simple,dense,power-user friendly} interface to a horrible user-hostile shit show that it is now. The average Reddit user has to reach for a custom third party app on their phone or a browser plug-in that hacks a redirect to the old or third party interface. Quora doesn’t hold a candle.

To be fair, one company did: Digg. And that's why no one uses or remembers Digg anymore.

Re: Tell HN: Twitter is growing increasingly unusable without an account

#107

Post by kbsspl »

torginus wrote: post #101
PragmaticPulp wrote: post #5

> Unfortunately twitter is going the direction of quora, pinterest, facebook, and medium Don’t forget Reddit. Reddit’s login pop-ups are more aggressive than Twitter’s for me. > Now you can perhaps read ten tweets or replies to a linked tweet without an account before the same thing occurs Perhaps an unpopular opinion, but I don’t think any company is obligated to provide unlimited access for free without an account.…

I disagree. When Reddit, Quora, Medium, Twitter started, they have posed themselves as privately owned public spaces, much like Wikipedia. This was the 'social' contract they presented to users. They built their monopolies on top of the goodwill of users. I'm pretty sure that subject matter experts who wrote extremely long-winded and well-researched articles on Roman battle tactics, did not do so with the intent, tha…

internet was supposed to be the savior. these sites were the vanguard of the brave new world.

instead it was the worst sellout ever, using the greatest power in time, to build megaliths that have humongous power of distortion.

yes, it hurts. and it should. much more. but they manage to make people to 'move on'.

in the end. we forgot. It's always about power.

Re: Tell HN: Twitter is growing increasingly unusable without an account

#108

Post by nobleach »

goodpoint wrote: post #39
PragmaticPulp wrote: post #5

> Unfortunately twitter is going the direction of quora, pinterest, facebook, and medium Don’t forget Reddit. Reddit’s login pop-ups are more aggressive than Twitter’s for me. > Now you can perhaps read ten tweets or replies to a linked tweet without an account before the same thing occurs Perhaps an unpopular opinion, but I don’t think any company is obligated to provide unlimited access for free without an account.…

> I don’t think any company is obligated to provide unlimited access for free without an account No no no, companies should not be allowed to this kind of bait and switch: 1) provide a free service 2) gain market dominance, push out competitors, and turn into a necessity for millions of users 3) create lock-in and exploit the userbase Essential public utilities are regulated (properly, in many countries) to avoid thi…

It was never free. The bill was simply footed by investors who believed at some point, a viable product would bring in revenue. Sure, it was free TO YOU, (it still is) but do we really think the network provider, the servers, the administration, the code maintenance are something they are obligated to provide out of the goodness of their hearts?

Re: Tell HN: Twitter is growing increasingly unusable without an account

#109

Post by caseysoftware »

Which is a problem if you've ever had an account suspended. Creating a new account can get you perma-banned for "trying to bypass suspension"

Government agencies and officials should be banned from using any broadcast platform which requires you to log in to see/hear what they've posted.

Re: Tell HN: Twitter is growing increasingly unusable without an account

#110

Post by nobleach »

bigdict wrote: post #106

Is it just me or in the past couple weeks it felt like Twitter actually went the opposite way, allowing normal access again (no popups) like before?

It looks like they're A/B testing some stuff. Clear your cookies and refresh the page. You may get a different experience.
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