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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

#221

Post by karlzt »

commoner wrote: post #8
mattrighetti wrote: post #4

I've noticed this too, but that's also the reason why I use Nitter [0]. I'm also a bit lazy so I've also setup a redirector plugin to automatically redirect every twitter link to Nitter, been happy since then. [0] https://nitter.nl

Nitter is great. The Privacy Redirect extension can automatically redirect your Twitter page loads to Nitter: https://github.com/SimonBrazell/privacy-redirect If you are on Android, you can also use the free and open source Fritter client to view tweets and browse Twitter without an account: https://fritter.cc

On Android there's also: https://framagit.org/tom79/nitterizeme. Get it on F-Droid.

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

#222

Post by that_guy_iain »

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.

> Twitter sells eyeballs. Do they pay me to visit their site? To tweet?

No, they provide you with a service free of charge with the open knowledge that they pay for it by selling your attention.

This is Quid pro quo.

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

#223

Post by saagarjha »

dnissley wrote: post #203
saagarjha wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Twitter specifically positions itself as a space for public conversation, and is sometimes the only place where people like world leaders and government organizations post their content. Blocking posts behind a login wall seems, at least to me, antithetical to their past messaging.

So the question then becomes: Is there anything wrong with them deciding to go a different direction than their past messaging? Or should they forever be beholden to it?

No, but those who valued Twitter for that mission may not anymore.

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

#224

Post by evanelias »

ciupicri wrote: post #219
evanelias wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the other hand, for example Tumblr never implemented a login wall, and as a result a large majority of tech folks (including most HN commenters) completely misunderstood the product. It's primarily a social network, but that's never clear if your only exposure to Tumblr is some random blogs, some of which use blog themes that have usability issues. Most of Tumblr's functionality is literally invisible to you if yo…

Why should I understand Tumblr or any other product? I and others as well were happy with just reading the ramblings of other Internet users. As for the other side, publishing your texts or photos on the Internet for others to view, isn't enough?

> Why should I understand Tumblr or any other product? I and others as well were happy with just reading the ramblings of other Internet users.

I mean, no one's forcing you to. That's my point though!

Casual web visitors to the public-facing (no account needed) portion of the product simply aren't exposed to the majority of the product, and have a sub-par experience as a result. This reduces the likelihood of the product being successful. Some products try to solve this with a hard login wall, but that's problematic for both casual viewers as well as a portion of the content creators. There's no good solution.

In the example of Tumblr, even if you just want to consume content without posting anything, the reading experience is much better in the logged-in dashboard (newsfeed / activity stream) vs separately visiting random blogs that all have different themes.

> As for the other side, publishing your texts or photos on the Internet for others to view, isn't enough?

If you want to just publish photos, you can use a product that specializes in this, rather than choosing a combination publishing site / social network where the community interaction is inherently a huge part of the product.

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

#225

Post by _-david-_ »

AutumnCurtain wrote: post #34
digitalsushi wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On a cell phone, I can type "best driveway shovel" on my phone, and it will take me to google. Google will have an overlay that tells me searching for the best driveway shovels is better in an app. I close that overlay. The first hit is twitter. The second is reddit. I skip twitter. I get an overlay telling me to install a reddit app, or continue in the website. I click continue in website. There is an overlay tellin…

Old.reddit.com is the only remotely usable form of the website and seems to have none of the obnoxious popups.

Last time I checked i.reddit.com was pretty usable.

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

#228

Post by lostdog »

evanelias wrote: post #224
ciupicri wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why should I understand Tumblr or any other product? I and others as well were happy with just reading the ramblings of other Internet users. As for the other side, publishing your texts or photos on the Internet for others to view, isn't enough?

> Why should I understand Tumblr or any other product? I and others as well were happy with just reading the ramblings of other Internet users. I mean, no one's forcing you to. That's my point though! Casual web visitors to the public-facing (no account needed) portion of the product simply aren't exposed to the majority of the product, and have a sub-par experience as a result. This reduces the likelihood of the pro…

> Casual web visitors to the public-facing portion aren't exposed to the majority of the product, and have a sub-par experience as a result.

No, their experiences are perfectly fine.

Maybe the company believes that monetization is worse when account-free users read the site, but being account-free is an ideal experience for the majority of users. Companies love to lie about this, both externally and internally.

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

#229

Post by lostdog »

dnissley wrote: post #204
factotvm wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For me, it’s because I’m on my work machine. I don’t move my personal credentials to my work machine. (In fact, I moved over to my phone to write this comment.) We could discuss that aspect—sharing accounts on computers that don’t belong to me—but that’s why I’m often thwarted from reading content. I have the account, just not on me.

Any reason not to create a work twitter account?

Because you need another email and phone number?

The obvious solution is still for Twitter to not suck.

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

#230

Post by hitpointdrew »

saagarjha wrote: post #123
torginus wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Twitter specifically positions itself as a space for public conversation, and is sometimes the only place where people like world leaders and government organizations post their content. Blocking posts behind a login wall seems, at least to me, antithetical to their past messaging.

> Blocking posts behind a login wall seems, at least to me, antithetical to their past messaging.

If you are a space of “public conversation”, then banning users is also antithetical to that end.

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