I have a lot of thoughts about it and would love to chat :)
Ask HN: What social media site could replace Twitter?
191–200 of 361 posts
Re: Ask HN: What social media site could replace Twitter?
#192The vast majority of commenters here fundamentally misunderstand what Twitter is, or rather what it has become. It's not a "social network" anymore. I mean, it is in the technical sense - you and I can both sign up for an account. But what it is today is an elite coordination mechanism, and Twitter became this because it was the first of it's kind and some sort of momentum or technological inertia put us where we're…
wtf is an "elite" anyway? The richest people in the world ... but not the ones that agree with me? The politicians ... but not the ones on my side? The athletes ... except for my team?
Elite can also mean a person or group of people that is better at something than others, there's some obvious overlap with the definition above, but it is less useful in the context of political elites, which we are mostly talking about in the context of Twitter.
Re: Ask HN: What social media site could replace Twitter?
#193I have a problem with this fundamental thinking of what "site" should replace it. This is exactly why I'm an ActivityPub geek, because it's not one site, it's sites. It's many softwares and many sites. Now I'm not claiming it will replace twitter, or that it's easy to use for most people. I can say for a fact that it is not, I see twitter users come over confused all the time. But regardless I think the concept of fe…
Re: Ask HN: What social media site could replace Twitter?
#194Earlier quoted context omitted.
What a completely pointless and banal digression into divisive politics when nobody asked for it.
But what the fuck is an "Elite" anyway?
Re: Ask HN: What social media site could replace Twitter?
#195Re: Ask HN: What social media site could replace Twitter?
#196I have a problem with this fundamental thinking of what "site" should replace it. This is exactly why I'm an ActivityPub geek, because it's not one site, it's sites. It's many softwares and many sites. Now I'm not claiming it will replace twitter, or that it's easy to use for most people. I can say for a fact that it is not, I see twitter users come over confused all the time. But regardless I think the concept of fe…
Re: Ask HN: What social media site could replace Twitter?
#197the story about missile strikes on Ukraine pop up last night on Twitter via BBC News's tweet. you can get the latest news/tweet from on the ground reporters. i don't know which social media platform can give me this type of update.
Re: Ask HN: What social media site could replace Twitter?
#198Earlier quoted context omitted.
somehow I skipped Digg altogether. Like I knew the site existed, but simply didn't enter my sphere of browsing.
The point combyn8tor is trying to make is that there was an exodus from Digg to Reddit and it happened rapidly. Digg didn't fade away as others did.
There are always people threatening to move, but rarely does it happen (remember Voat?)
Digg is an outlier IMHO.
Re: Ask HN: What social media site could replace Twitter?
#199I think the "blue check" verification on Twitter is its most powerful asset. The most important people in the world (culture icons, heads of state & companies, and subject matter experts) congregate there to share their thoughts. Personally I think Twitter would work best if it was left to be just that. I don't think anyone really cares about what I have to say, for example. I'm just some random guy who works at a so…
You care about what you have to say, and this phenomena at scale is why Twitter succeeds. The "important people" came after Twitter succeeded. And I'd argue that "their thoughts" amount to little more than a mixture self promotion, virtue signaling, and an occasional hot take. Twitter is likely more valuable to them than they are to Twitter, which is probably the driving factor behind the recent change. Validation ch…
It's not that reasonable once you consider who the current verified state is actually assigned to:
- People with huge fanbases like popstars - sure, they'll pay.
- "Normal" people who are verified and known in a community? Unlikely - they're who twitter wants stay and write on the platform to keep others there. People should be paying to read them, not the other way around.
- Journalists / others verified because of their work - depends. But someone did a quick calculation for keeping everyone from a single publication verified (from WaPo I think) and the cost of that was basically unrealistic. (can't find the tweet, I'll link for specific numbers if I find it)
So if they want to destroy the "verified" brand and tax pop stars - that will bring money and alienate users.
Re: Ask HN: What social media site could replace Twitter?
#200Isn't Mastodon pretty much a drop-in replacement for Twitter? And it has the advantage of being distributed and it supports Fediverse cross-platform sharing (with Friendica, GnuSocial, etc). I'm on Friendica so I can follow people on both Mastodon and Diaspora (which would be the drop-in replacement for Facebook). Still, I think we need something better. I'd like to see a social network with all of that, and support…
Wouldn’t that be something of quality between usual youtube and facebook comments? If all comments here on HN were from all over the internet, would you even sign up? (If you perceive HN as “social shares” of course).