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Twitter is threatening to sue Meta over Threads [pdf]

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Re: Twitter is threatening to sue Meta over Threads [pdf]

#121

Post by ksaj »

JohnFen wrote: post #117
ksaj wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know the specifics, but the license included with that code will specify what can and can't be done with it. ~~Not all open source is free to use in your own code base. Sometimes it is open sourced for review purposes.~~ Edited: the last line is incorrect.

> Sometimes it is open sourced for review purposes. Huh? I'm not aware that it's possible to open source something without, you know, making it OSS. Am I mistaken, or are we talking about two different meanings for "open source"?

Sorry, you are right. The issue I was thinking about is that there are different OSS licenses, and they have different requirements for use. Attribution and open sourcing any changes you make to the original code base are an examples.

The agreements for opening code up for review purposes only is indeed not OSS, despite the word 'open' often being used there.

I started off sound, then diverged. The part of Twitter that was open sourced will have a license spelling out what you need to do (if anything) in order to use the code. The review part is a different thing.

Re: Twitter is threatening to sue Meta over Threads [pdf]

#122

Post by eptcyka »

itsdrewmiller wrote: post #120
molave wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Makes sense. However, I hope no one takes this the wrong way and hire too many people to starve competitors of talent.

This idea floats around but is not practical. Here's a comment thread about it with some numbers: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32413948

Pretty sure that was FAANG's approach, until the interest rates returned to normal.

Re: Twitter is threatening to sue Meta over Threads [pdf]

#123

Post by upon_drumhead »

ajorgensen wrote: post #87
smoldesu wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What use is a follower graph if it doesn't correlate to the accounts on your platform? They have pushed this claim without evidence and Meta has denied them outright. The onus is on Musk's team to produce proof now.

I'm not sure I follow. I'd estimate there's less than a 25% overlap between my Twitter social graph and my Meta (instagram + facebook) social graph. If I was going to build a system to recommend accounts to follow it sure would be handy to know what accounts you followed on the platform most related to the one I'm building. Again I have 0 evidence of anything as I've said and of course its on Musk's team to prove it…

I believe

> What use is a follower graph if it doesn't correlate to the accounts on your platform?

Is asking about the point of scraping your Twitter social graph if they can’t actually align it with accounts on the platform. If you follow foo bar on Twitter, it doesn’t mean that foo bar on threads is the same foo bar. The Twitter social graph is useless unless to try to map to meta accounts.

Re: Twitter is threatening to sue Meta over Threads [pdf]

#124

Post by adam_arthur »

whateverman23 wrote: post #116
adam_arthur wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not particularly interested in Twitter itself, I just disagree that many of the products we use today require a large number of developers. Its easy to find many examples of apps that were challenging to build even just 10 years ago, that are somewhat trivial now. That trend will only continue. OpenAI only had ~100 employees at one point. You don't need 100s of operations people if you move from on-prem to server…

I see it as four categories, from least employees to most: 1. Desperately trying to make short term cash, and are trying to do their best with fewer employees than needed to maintain the current product. (Twitter is here). 2. Enough staff to maintain the current product, but not significantly innovate. 3. Significantly more than needed to maintain the current product, leaving room for people to work on non-core produ…

Do you agree or disagree that techproducts today are easier to build than 15 years ago?

Everything else is irrelevant. Technology drives abstractions which drive deflation by allowing fewer people to produce more goods. This has been proven and observed for thousands of years

Companies can thrive while overemploying people, but eventually they get undercut by one that doesn't

Re: Twitter is threatening to sue Meta over Threads [pdf]

#125

Post by sroussey »

adam_arthur wrote: post #105
whateverman23 wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not really possible to say how many people are "working on" Threads, I bet. Threads is using Meta infrastructure. Should all those employees count towards Threads employees? How about HR? Legal? Internal tools? Building staff? Security? etc etc.

I'm not particularly interested in Twitter itself, I just disagree that many of the products we use today require a large number of developers. Its easy to find many examples of apps that were challenging to build even just 10 years ago, that are somewhat trivial now. That trend will only continue. OpenAI only had ~100 employees at one point. You don't need 100s of operations people if you move from on-prem to server…

> You don't need 100s of operations people if you move from on-prem to serverless, for example

This statement really leaks a lack of experience with large systems.

The efficiency loss for going to some serverless regime and the costs associated would be astronomical. My god…

Re: Twitter is threatening to sue Meta over Threads [pdf]

#126

Post by jkmcf »

nicolashahn wrote: post #104
dingosity wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My completely uninformed opinion is Zuck looks kinda ripped. Even though Musk is heavier and taller, I think Zuck could take him. But Newsweek, that bastion of factual reporting on objective reality, says London bookies are giving Musk better odds: https://www.newsweek.com/elon-musk-mark-zuckerberg-cage-figh...

Musk has like 6 inches and 60lbs on Zuck

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JFR030IfE2o

I can't find the video I wanted to. It was a breakdown of some big guy who didn't know how to fight go up against someone much smaller but knew some boxing. The little guy backs up, moving laterally away from the big guy's primary hand. After the big guy throws a punch and gets himself off balance, the little guy knocks him out with one good punch to the jaw. Lights out.

Re: Twitter is threatening to sue Meta over Threads [pdf]

#127

Post by ajorgensen »

upon_drumhead wrote: post #123
ajorgensen wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure I follow. I'd estimate there's less than a 25% overlap between my Twitter social graph and my Meta (instagram + facebook) social graph. If I was going to build a system to recommend accounts to follow it sure would be handy to know what accounts you followed on the platform most related to the one I'm building. Again I have 0 evidence of anything as I've said and of course its on Musk's team to prove it…

I believe > What use is a follower graph if it doesn't correlate to the accounts on your platform? Is asking about the point of scraping your Twitter social graph if they can’t actually align it with accounts on the platform. If you follow foo bar on Twitter, it doesn’t mean that foo bar on threads is the same foo bar. The Twitter social graph is useless unless to try to map to meta accounts.

I would venture to guess that 80%+ of the handles are the same on both, enough for the graph to be useful especially for the more popular accounts. If not I bet there’s enough other metadata to do a decent job of mapping them it doesn’t have to be perfect just good enough to get the recommendation engine going. At least enough to bootstrap a recommendation algorithm that is geared more toward primary accounts that create text based content.

Re: Twitter is threatening to sue Meta over Threads [pdf]

#128

Post by whateverman23 »

adam_arthur wrote: post #124
whateverman23 wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I see it as four categories, from least employees to most: 1. Desperately trying to make short term cash, and are trying to do their best with fewer employees than needed to maintain the current product. (Twitter is here). 2. Enough staff to maintain the current product, but not significantly innovate. 3. Significantly more than needed to maintain the current product, leaving room for people to work on non-core produ…

Do you agree or disagree that techproducts today are easier to build than 15 years ago? Everything else is irrelevant. Technology drives abstractions which drive deflation by allowing fewer people to produce more goods. This has been proven and observed for thousands of years Companies can thrive while overemploying people, but eventually they get undercut by one that doesn't

You're conflating two different topics:

1. "Its easy to find many examples of apps that were challenging to build even just 10 years ago, that are somewhat trivial now."

Correct. It's easier now to build apps that we used 10-15 years ago.

2. "Do you agree or disagree that techproducts today are easier to build than 15 years ago?"

Incorrect. Tech product complexity has increased in many ways in the last 15 years (and the increase in complexity is larger than the decrease in complexity we talked about above).

-- Regulation. COPPA regulations strengthened significantly around 10 years ago. Europe's GDPR went into effect in like 2016. Those are just a couple popular ones. Remember when Amazon just didn't collect sales tax? Sure makes things easier! And remember, those laws are constantly changing. If NJ raises their sales tax, you better have someone paying attention. If Europe comes up with a new privacy law, you better have enough people to drop everything and implement everything that's needed.

-- Scale + globalization. Myspace topped out at like 100 million active users around 15 years ago. Facebook is 30 times that size now! That scale comes with complexities most don't think about. How do you report user video ad income to the IRS-equivalent in Andorra? I don't know, but you now need to know at Facebook's scale!

Re: Twitter is threatening to sue Meta over Threads [pdf]

#129

Post by ethanbond »

Loughla wrote: post #68
justapassenger wrote: post #46

It's decades old tactic from Musk. One of the things he's really great at is SEO. He is trying to shift narrative from Threads hyper growth to whatever random lawsuit he's threatening them with.

Bingo. Any story involving the name Musk and Twitter is better than a story involving JUST Threads. NOT to get too political - but - people like Musk and Trump and their ilk are just the natural progression of the PR focused United States culture. Spin and story are just as good as skill and intelligence. Being able to control a narrative is a superpower that leads to massive connections, wealth, and power. This is w…

"Amusing Ourselves to Death" by Neil Postman is an excellent deep dive into this dynamic and how unbelievably toxic it is for our society.
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