Earlier quoted context omitted.
You're probably right. I'm going to try and be an idealist for as long as I can though :)
Good luck. I’m rooting for you.
Thank you! I appreciate it.
Nicheless: a micro-blogging platform
51–60 of 129 posts
Re: Nicheless: a micro-blogging platform
#52I say this every time one of these pops up: Just do it yourself. Just get a $5 Linode or a Cloudflare account, make a Hugo/Pelican/whatever site and go. These niche microblogging sites are so small and insignificant that you can never ever trust them to survive (or even persist). Just do it yourself from the very beginning and you'll have a much better time.
Every time this DIY reply comes it misses the fact that the platforms take care of commenting (account management, moderation), something that's more or less impossible for a DIY solution.
Twitter/FB/etc make commenting painless because everyone has an account and is already logged in. This at least has the potential to get to that position. DIY doesn't.
Re: Nicheless: a micro-blogging platform
#53Not a knock on the author. All power to him for doing this. I worked on similar small side projects years ago. But I'm not convinced. And not of nicheless, just of anything attempting to fill the void where Twitter once was. I think some of these services might find their community and build something with network effects but I couldn't tell you which will make it as much as I couldn't say 3 years into Twitter if it would still exist a decade from then.
But something just isn't sitting right with me in this entire space. As I sit and watch the mindless babble of the Twitter billionaire owner and his groupies, it's causing me to fade slowly into the background of life. Spaces for idle chatter turns out to be a total waste of time. Whether it's about movies, gaming or politics, there's really more we could be doing with our time. Twitter is a void and trying to fill that void with another one isn't the answer. I don't really know what the solution is beyond knowing some sort of community platform is definitely missing. But it's likely to focus on some active component, not idle chat.
Re: Nicheless: a micro-blogging platform
#54I say this every time one of these pops up: Just do it yourself. Just get a $5 Linode or a Cloudflare account, make a Hugo/Pelican/whatever site and go. These niche microblogging sites are so small and insignificant that you can never ever trust them to survive (or even persist). Just do it yourself from the very beginning and you'll have a much better time.
Every time this DIY reply comes it misses the fact that the platforms take care of commenting (account management, moderation), something that's more or less impossible for a DIY solution. Twitter/FB/etc make commenting painless because everyone has an account and is already logged in. This at least has the potential to get to that position. DIY doesn't.
> the platforms take care of commenting (account management, moderation), something that's more or less impossible for a DIY solution.
This could be a bug, not a feature if you look at it from indie-bloggers' perspective. The DIY types are not target audience for the solution you're proposing.
There is a space for both 1) Substack-like platforms 2) DIY indie blogs.
Some cool things about DIY blogs:
- Email them! You can make friends by just emailing people. Private conversations.
- No censorship, this is a complex topic but DIY'ers probably consider censorship a bug than a feature.
- Custom design and personality
- Self-hosting pride
Re: Nicheless: a micro-blogging platform
#55Not a knock on the author. All power to him for doing this. I worked on similar small side projects years ago. But I'm not convinced. And not of nicheless, just of anything attempting to fill the void where Twitter once was. I think some of these services might find their community and build something with network effects but I couldn't tell you which will make it as much as I couldn't say 3 years into Twitter if it…
Hey Asim. I appreciate you taking the time to thoughtfully (and elegantly) lay out your thoughts.
At the moment, I don't want Nicheless to perform a similar function to Twitter. I love Twitter and use it daily, but I find it useful as a space to reach a broad audience of people I don't know. An open network with unlimited growth potential.
With nicheless, I want it to be the opposite. A place to follow people you already know, either from real life, or from existing social connections. I want it to be a place for a higher density of thought to be exchanged for a smaller group of people. I've written a bit about it here: https://nicheless.blog/post/mission
In fact, I'm even considering capping the number of people you can 'follow' on Nichless. Maybe it will help create an algorithm free feed of interesting thoughts that spark real life conversations. I don't know yet, but I might experiment and find out.
Let me know what you think?
Re: Nicheless: a micro-blogging platform
#56So we used to have this thing called telnet BBSes in the mid nineties.
Discord is not too similar, but typically with less moderation. Bunch of people talk about stuff in subject based rooms, there’s some administrators looking after the health of the channel. Join or leave rooms, etc. Open source would shield it a bit more from commercial interests.
Social media is simply too big for this, it will always be advertised run because of the size of the audience. Also the viral component and manipulation affect how valuable it can be.
Build and join smaller communities.
Re: Nicheless: a micro-blogging platform
#57Just played around with it, loving the concept so far... great work!
Feature request: dark mode setting :-)
Re: Nicheless: a micro-blogging platform
#58I say this every time one of these pops up: Just do it yourself. Just get a $5 Linode or a Cloudflare account, make a Hugo/Pelican/whatever site and go. These niche microblogging sites are so small and insignificant that you can never ever trust them to survive (or even persist). Just do it yourself from the very beginning and you'll have a much better time.
Every time this DIY reply comes it misses the fact that the platforms take care of commenting (account management, moderation), something that's more or less impossible for a DIY solution. Twitter/FB/etc make commenting painless because everyone has an account and is already logged in. This at least has the potential to get to that position. DIY doesn't.
I actually don’t want comments on my site. No comments, no user database.
HN or Reddit can be my comment site, if anyone actually read my blog :P Or people can write their own blog post in response and host it on their site.
Re: Nicheless: a micro-blogging platform
#59Not a knock on the author. All power to him for doing this. I worked on similar small side projects years ago. But I'm not convinced. And not of nicheless, just of anything attempting to fill the void where Twitter once was. I think some of these services might find their community and build something with network effects but I couldn't tell you which will make it as much as I couldn't say 3 years into Twitter if it…
Hey Asim. I appreciate you taking the time to thoughtfully (and elegantly) lay out your thoughts. At the moment, I don't want Nicheless to perform a similar function to Twitter. I love Twitter and use it daily, but I find it useful as a space to reach a broad audience of people I don't know. An open network with unlimited growth potential. With nicheless, I want it to be the opposite. A place to follow people you alr…
It's a noble goal. I think many an engineer have tried. Even convincing your own social group to try new things is hard so it really has to offer something new or attract a specific type of audience. I think most people's group of well know friends and contacts caps out at 100. So that would be where I'd put a soft limit on follows e.g a little hint that says maybe you want to split this out into sub groups or separate as accounts.
Re: Nicheless: a micro-blogging platform
#60This really resonates with me too. I already have a private Discord with just a few others who are both friends and work in software development, which serves as our closed-network way of discussing software and also a healthy dose of memes and real-life chat.
Ive thought about inviting others who I'm less close to, because I'd welcome their contributions to those discussions, but there is always the fear of adding anyone reducing the trust and transparency present atm. In lieu of that I'd love a nice and easy way to follow the thoughts of those peers and friends, without having to switch between substack blogs, LinkedIn posts, medium posts and a range of other things.
The trouble, usually, is that convincing all of those peers to adopt a new thing for this alone is a hard sell, when we're already so oversaturated on tools and platforms.