Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Show HN: Pieces – Social network for people

try.piecesof.me

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 68 posts

Re: Show HN: Pieces – Social network for people

#41

Post by domo__knows »

annjose wrote: post #34

Good work! I am hopeful for a social network that is not craving to increase engagement and going viral. I posted a sample but and created a profile. But when I went to the Docs tab in my profile, it says... Doc Not Found The doc "how-to-use-pieces" could not be found

I THINK I fixed it... should be up in 10 minutes. The reason: the try.piecesof.me flow creates a profile in a sort of exists-but-also-doesnt-exists state. Made a change so that the doc is viewable in that middle state. But anyone who claimed it, before and now, would've been able to see the doc.

Thanks for trying it out though and I hope to see you on the platform.

Re: Show HN: Pieces – Social network for people

#42

Post by domo__knows »

OhSoHumble wrote: post #38
vivzkestrel wrote: post #28

- i see a 100 social networks advertised daily on reddit, HN etc - the biggest challenge you are facing is overcoming the double network effect - in order for any of em to take off, you need to get me and my friends and their friends and so on - one way to do this is to start a social network only for a small niche. could be anything. startups only! designers only etc and scale it up one category at a time to let the…

I actually strongly disagree with this. This is how many social media sites have failed. I don't know if alternative social media can ever scale as large as Reddit. Tildes.net and Lemmy both have similar activity to Hacker News and I'd consider them both "successful." The truth is that Reddit, Instagram, Facebook, etc are not websites used to drive connections between human beings; they're media machines meant to cre…

I think "want" is a strong word here. The way I have been explaining this to my friends is that back in the day, you had a phone to call your friends and a TV to find out the news. But what if your phone was your TV and your TV was your phone? This is what present day social media is.

I think most social media/networks now are terrible for keeping in touch with people we want to hear from. I was listening to a podcast with the musician Zedd and he mentioned that in the golden days of Facebook, he could post that he was doing a show in Toronto (or any city) and every person in Toronto who followed the Zedd Facebook page would come see him. Nowadays. he could do a post about being in Toronto and his Toronto fans will be like, "wait, why didn't I know you were in Toronto? I totally would've gone!"

Ironically, I've been enjoying IG now because I have PIECES as my place to share memories. I went to Coachella and magically IG started recommending me a ton of cool Coachella content. I open my IG now and it's a ton of World Cup content. Last month it was all Knicks content. Yet when I posted about PIECES on my Facebook, neither my aunts, uncles, or cousins saw that their family member created something he was proud of. I reached out by DM to tell them about it.

This is what happens when social platforms get to use ad revenue to fund their moon shots. All they have to do is turn on more ads to get the needed capital to fund their AI and -verse bets. As another user pointed out, The Social Contract we published isn't foolproof as a basis to assure our members that PIECES will be any different than incumbent social networks. But it's certainly a start.

Re: Show HN: Pieces – Social network for people

#44

Post by benonsocial »

Interesting idea, but I'm pessimistic about spawning any type of social media. I feel like a few of these types of sites start with good intentions, but eventually devolve into yet another metric to generate clout or revenue. Merely supporting advertising on such a platform already opens the door to the same problem that every other social media company has.

Re: Show HN: Pieces – Social network for people

#45

Post by OhSoHumble »

domo__knows wrote: post #42
OhSoHumble wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I actually strongly disagree with this. This is how many social media sites have failed. I don't know if alternative social media can ever scale as large as Reddit. Tildes.net and Lemmy both have similar activity to Hacker News and I'd consider them both "successful." The truth is that Reddit, Instagram, Facebook, etc are not websites used to drive connections between human beings; they're media machines meant to cre…

I think "want" is a strong word here. The way I have been explaining this to my friends is that back in the day, you had a phone to call your friends and a TV to find out the news. But what if your phone was your TV and your TV was your phone? This is what present day social media is. I think most social media/networks now are terrible for keeping in touch with people we want to hear from. I was listening to a podcas…

Yeah, I apologize for how restrictive "want" is - I'm not sure what the appropriate word is in this context. It's more that content engagement is what drives web traffic regardless of whether or not users express desire for human connection. The social part of social media doesn't drive website expansion - content does. We love it. Yum, yum, yum.

I think if you sit a lot of people down and ask them "would you rather have cat videos or the potential to meet new friends (or maintain connections with old ones)" and people will say the want the latter but reward platforms that give them the former.

Old Facebook was maybe closer to the ideal of connecting people but Meta realized that it just doesn't drive ad revenue or engagement so they refactored it to better suit ad delivery streams and put more effort into Instagram (because it's better suited for that type of revenue model).

Re: Show HN: Pieces – Social network for people

#46

Post by jph »

Good work. I signed up @joelparkerhenderson. It's unclear to me how to start using Pieces because the site says I'm awaiting approvals.

I understand the point of that for unknown accounts; perhaps you could consider faster FTUX by leveraging my other existing social accounts? E.g. GitHub, GitLab, Codeberg, LinkedIn, Reddit, etc. And/or enable me to browse public accounts or example content in the meantime?

Re: Show HN: Pieces – Social network for people

#47

Post by altmanaltman »

ajsnigrutin wrote: post #35
altmanaltman wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the whole influencer trend ruined it. You literally gave people an incentive to be as loud as possible so they can make as much money as possible. Where is the incentive to connect? Also, Social media sold us the idea that hey you can stay in touch with everyone! But in reality, what is gave people was a new form of communication in broadcasting. In real life, you always directly interact with people or group…

Sure, i might want to follow an influencer or two and look at their videos, but I want my "feed" to be "social", so people i choose to follow, be it real life friends, or even influencers, but not "random" content from sources I don't follow. I have a lot of friends who have moved abroad, changed jobs, had kids, etc., and social networks gave me all that info, plus I could contact them in a "lighter" way than taking…

From my personal point of view (because this is subjective of course) but like there was never any point of caring about any of those people to me. It just wasn't a good enough use of my time and the algorithims are literally desinged to make me addicted and suck away my attention. I couldn't care less if Ben who i met at work 10 years ago and havent spoken to in over 7 is having a kid or moved to Spain or whatever. I made a consious choice to step away from that and really care what I was doing with my attention which again imo has lead to better results and not a lot of social degradation (i dont think my irl social life would be different if i was on social media)

Re: Show HN: Pieces – Social network for people

#48

Post by dofm »

domo__knows wrote: post #37
dofm wrote: post #19

A “social contract” that one party changes at will and then just announces the changes is not a contract (or social) in any meaningful sense. It’s just terms and conditions with a different name. If you want people to see it as a different thing, it needs to be a different thing.

While I understand what you're saying, what's the alternative? For an early platform to come out and say, "this is exactly how we're going to operate until the end of time and if we change our minds we'll... dissolve ourselves?" IMO The Social Contract that we publish is a step in the right direction. If you're on IG and you look at your feed in 2018 vs 2026, you can tell that something has changed dramatically but t…

I agree, but since you will have to change it, I'm just saying it's not a contract if it changes from one side.

So, e.g.:

- make it more quasi-contractually binding on yourself, in some principled, innovative way: establish a member user group, consult with them before changing it and give them the freedom to publish the minutes of the meeting, or establish some other meaningful cost of changing it

- or just call it "What we mean when we say 'social network'" or something, otherwise it's about as good as "Don't Be Evil".

Re: Show HN: Pieces – Social network for people

#49

Post by pelagicAustral »

catapart wrote: post #24

The more I see of social media, the more I'm convinced that it's not really a fulfilling way to share and socialize on the internet. I've come to believe that anything that can platform every voice on the planet forces noise to drown out signal. Since you've actually started a social media site, I wonder if you have any insight on that? You say you believe in this project; what is it that you think is valuable about…

I think forums were, and are still largely the solution to the social issue, as you very well describe them... That's why there are still a few out there that thrive in their niches.

The problem is that way back when, circa 2005, all these places were kind nerd, and at that point in time being a nerd was still not something to be proud of, so for most people "the internet" was MSN and Fotolog, and today's internet for most of this cohort is still just an evolution of that stuff (Whatsapp and Facebook), and the newer generation didnt even get to know what the forum-scene was...

So anything people produce today, is either a replacement for nerd forums, which does not need replacement, or the social media that as crappy as it is, just works... The only new social media that is thriving is copies of other platforms that have become too much of an echo chamber to bare, so now we need another echo chamber but one for the other 50%.

I think that's why we see so many riffs on social media, people trying to make a breakthrough on things like, decentralized, more secure, less moderated, more moderated, crypto, paid, X-only, etc

And the reality is that nobody that is hooked, or cares about social media gives a shit about any of that, they want the feed, the masses want what they already have, and everybody else is just looking to be the next vBulletin watercooler reinvention.

Re: Show HN: Pieces – Social network for people

#50

Post by neogodless »

domo__knows wrote: post #36
vivzkestrel wrote: post #28

- i see a 100 social networks advertised daily on reddit, HN etc - the biggest challenge you are facing is overcoming the double network effect - in order for any of em to take off, you need to get me and my friends and their friends and so on - one way to do this is to start a social network only for a small niche. could be anything. startups only! designers only etc and scale it up one category at a time to let the…

It's pretty late tonight and thankfully HN has re-front paged this to my surprise so I'll just talk openly. The playbook that you lay out is basically the playbook every social network has come up with... and where are we now in 2026? Has that playbook produced anything good? The niche social networks don't work and will never grow beyond their niches. Everyone is trying to start the niche thing, but ultimately, phot…

> I guarantee you that in the next five years there's going to be a huge exodus out of the incumbent networks

Are you willing to change your mind on this?

What evidence do you have this will happen?

It does seem that social networks can have some generational stickiness. Wrestling my family away from Facebook feels like a lost cause. But younger relatives are more active on Instagram and some other options.

But I don't see what would trigger an exodus given that everything you and I might not like about the existing social media incumbents hasn't been enough to drive people away en masse so far.

Post reply on HN