If I was a successful billionaire, and I didn’t want any competition, I would tell all the young smart people to go play in a different field
Do things that don't scale, and then don't scale
41–50 of 216 posts
Re: Do things that don't scale, and then don't scale
#42> Could it be bigger? Sure. But at some point — maybe even before 1,000 people — the vibe breaks. The intimacy evaporates. You stop recognizing names. People talk less because it’s harder to know who’s listening. Growth would make it worse, not better. > > Some things work precisely because they’re small. I'd argue this is true for social networks like Facebook actually. There was a magical period in Facebook between…
You could run something like Facebook but in tiny shards. It would be better. And require 1/1000th of the engineering workforce.
I can see many way where you can only follow (and be followed) by 1000 people would be better in many way. An audience of 1000 isn't monetizable so the network wouldn't be poisoned by ads ("sponsored content" AKA "sponcon").
Re: Do things that don't scale, and then don't scale
#43In my double life as an actor, I've written some software that greatly simplifies the main day to day task of running a talent agency. Its ~15 users love it to death, but that's it, it has a total of ~15 users. It's my happy little project.
Could it be useful to more people? Almost certainly, and at some point I considered running it as a service, and I even had a few trial users. But then I realized that dealing with GDPR compliance and the like wasn't going to be as fun, so in the end it remained an internal project.
Re: Do things that don't scale, and then don't scale
#44I agree that not everything has to go huge. I don’t see how ChatGPT has anything to do with this though.
Re: Do things that don't scale, and then don't scale
#45> Could it be bigger? Sure. But at some point — maybe even before 1,000 people — the vibe breaks. The intimacy evaporates. You stop recognizing names. People talk less because it’s harder to know who’s listening. Growth would make it worse, not better. > > Some things work precisely because they’re small. I'd argue this is true for social networks like Facebook actually. There was a magical period in Facebook between…
The problem I see is that people naturally compartmentalize, and Facebook basically disallows that.
I’m sure we all have people we sometimes talk politics with, and people we completely avoid the subject with. If both of those groups see my posts, how is that supposed to work? Well, it doesn’t. The typical outcome seems to be that people mentally compartmentalize, posting stuff intended for a particular group, but everyone sees it and it all goes to hell.
There are some people whose company I enjoy whose Facebook posts are basically an unending stream of “people who don’t support Trump are evil/stupid/garbage.” And I’m thinking, you realize that includes several people you supposedly like? I’m sure they have a group of people with whom they talk shit about the political opposition, and another group where they stick to other topics, but both groups end up seeing the stuff and it’s just alienating.
Re: Do things that don't scale, and then don't scale
#46> There’s an old startup mantra — probably from the early Airbnb or Y Combinator days — that goes: “Do things that don’t scale.” Yes, it was posted again just the other day: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44913359
It's definitely the first result on Google and sort of ruins any credibility of the article.
Re: Do things that don't scale, and then don't scale
#47> Could it be bigger? Sure. But at some point — maybe even before 1,000 people — the vibe breaks. The intimacy evaporates. You stop recognizing names. People talk less because it’s harder to know who’s listening. Growth would make it worse, not better. > > Some things work precisely because they’re small. I'd argue this is true for social networks like Facebook actually. There was a magical period in Facebook between…
Facebook around 2008 was pretty cool. Just me hanging out with my irl friends. And then relatives started joining and it became more like a dinner with your extended family.
I thought Google+’s Circles was a good idea.
Re: Do things that don't scale, and then don't scale
#48Earlier quoted context omitted.
You could run something like Facebook but in tiny shards. It would be better. And require 1/1000th of the engineering workforce.
I can see many way where you can only follow (and be followed) by 1000 people would be better in many way. An audience of 1000 isn't monetizable so the network wouldn't be poisoned by ads ("sponsored content" AKA "sponcon").
[deleted]
Re: Do things that don't scale, and then don't scale
#49Ekşi Sözlük (eksisozluk.com) has always been like that, and it still is. People wait over 4–5 years just to become a user, while non-users can only read. It remains one of the biggest websites in Türkiye, yet the design is still very simple, with only one or two new features added over the years. It reached more and more users, but it never really scaled in true meaning. It still like a weekend project
Interesting and lovely to see ekşi sözlük getting mentioned on HN (even though I remember seeing ssg on HN before if I remember correctly).
I'm curious if there are any similar (in the vein of Douglas Adams' "Guide to the Galaxy") websites with a geographically wider adoption, basically its English version.
I remember İTÜ Sözlük changing its brand to Instela to go somewhat global. But looks like they failed.
I also remember seeing a "Guide" in some Douglas Adams related website, but it wasn't really an active website as far as I remember.
Re: Do things that don't scale, and then don't scale
#50But what if everything scales but what if no matter how complicated how obscure how mundane how niche what if everything I mean everything scales