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

Waze Founder Noam Bardin is starting up a Twitter alternative

post.news

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

211–220 of 228 posts

Re: Waze Founder Noam Bardin is starting up a Twitter alternative

#211

Post by dredmorbius »

avereveard wrote: post #98
mirzap wrote: post #22

How people don't get it - you can't succeed as an alternative to something. You need to build your own thing, find your product market fit with unique proposition. In 5y nobody will know about any of twitter alternatives that are launching these days. IMO even twitter didn't find its product market fit, that's why Musk is breaking it. The more people talk about twitter (in any way) and more people go with "alternativ…

> How people don't get it well, for one, because you're wrong. I mean, it's not like a hard topic to research, a walk in any supermarket should be plenty evidence, even before reaching the cereals section. if you want something more aking technological, you can stop by the mobile phone shelf. and if you insist with software, the choice is so ample whole sites exists just to help people navigate https://alternativeto.…

Sorry, but what's this grocery-market proof you're alluding to?

Re: Waze Founder Noam Bardin is starting up a Twitter alternative

#212

Post by horsawlarway »

yunwal wrote: post #202
horsawlarway wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure - but that's true of every site on the web. Conflating mainstream media's reach with Twitter's is fairly disingenuous, since mainstream media also highlights basically every other platform in similar ways. The brief exception to this is politics - where Twitter was an easy way to get a relevant soundbite from a politician on a topic. I think that era is waning very quickly.

Definitely not true of every site on the web. I tried searching for mentions of hackernews (a relatively large forum, and also vc backed, not independent) on the nytimes website. One result https://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/24/magazine/the-3-10-13-issu... Most media sources aren't embedded in small forums.

I see roughly 400... https://imgur.com/a/QirnOG5

Admittedly - it's fairly certain that some of those will be about ycombinator itself - but I don't really find that outside the scope of the ask - given that many of the hits for twitter are really just following the company drama and not expanding the reach of a single user's tweet.

Re: Waze Founder Noam Bardin is starting up a Twitter alternative

#213

Post by ttul »

jqpabc123 wrote: post #117
ceres wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It consumes a lot of time/effort if you do any sort of active moderation And yet some Reddit mods manage subs with 10s of thousands for… free.

If you want to work for free, Reddit will gladly accommodate. But they also have thousands of very well paid employees. Average salary $150K+.

Indeed they do. And on that team is a massive number of salespeople who are constantly farming the world for advertising dollars and a large team of machine learning engineers helping to ease the burden of moderation.

Re: Waze Founder Noam Bardin is starting up a Twitter alternative

#214

Post by bergenty »

kibwen wrote: post #145
bergenty wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s sounds like everyone has to join specific servers or something. That will never work, it’s too complicated. You need one server that everyone is on.

Having "one server that everyone is on" is precisely what we don't need. Twitter sucks because it's a single room dominated by a bunch of shouting jagoffs, and "that, but federated" isn't any better. Mastodon is nicer because your home instance is small and intimate.

Maybe that’s what we need but it’s definitely not what people want and it will never succeed in its current form. The whole motivation for a lot of people is to get their voice out to as many people as possible, not to indulge their interests in specific niches.

Re: Waze Founder Noam Bardin is starting up a Twitter alternative

#215

Post by hengestone »

Haven't seen discussed yet, but for me the killer feature would be the ability they mention to be able to pay for individual "articles". I.e. maybe a federated micropayment news feed where i don't have to subscribe to NYTimes AND WaPo, AND (many others), but only pay pennies for individual stories.

Re: Waze Founder Noam Bardin is starting up a Twitter alternative

#216

Post by bedhead »

KerrAvon wrote: post #49
bedhead wrote: post #26

[flagged]

[flagged]

There is no right wing media ecosystem. There is Fox, which I’ve literally never once in my life watched and have made fun of for two decades. Then there are a bunch of rinky-dink outlets no one even knows. There is however, a giant, ubiquitous, controlling ecosystem of liberal media and news and information outlets who we all used to rely on for being at least pretty much objective which I’ve grown insanely f-ing sick of and find beyond disgraceful (they’re all now far worse and more shameful than Fox ever was) since around 2016

Re: Waze Founder Noam Bardin is starting up a Twitter alternative

#217

Post by bedhead »

macspoofing wrote: post #56
KerrAvon wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

To be fair - OP isn't wrong. There has been a lot of "pearl-clutching" about nothing-burger issues since 2016. This era has throwbacks to the 80s moral-majority/church-lady culture, with a sprinkling of "The Satanic Panic" and "McCarthyism".

Yup. Everything flipped. The left is the new religious right only on steroids.

Re: Waze Founder Noam Bardin is starting up a Twitter alternative

#218

Post by yunwal »

horsawlarway wrote: post #212
yunwal wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Definitely not true of every site on the web. I tried searching for mentions of hackernews (a relatively large forum, and also vc backed, not independent) on the nytimes website. One result https://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/24/magazine/the-3-10-13-issu... Most media sources aren't embedded in small forums.

I see roughly 400... https://imgur.com/a/QirnOG5 Admittedly - it's fairly certain that some of those will be about ycombinator itself - but I don't really find that outside the scope of the ask - given that many of the hits for twitter are really just following the company drama and not expanding the reach of a single user's tweet.

Couldn’t find a single other mention of the specific website. I don’t think talking about the company counts, since we’re talking about how much things that circulate on Twitter make it in the news. I can point you to 1000s of tweets that have been in nytimes articles, but only 1 hackernews post

Re: Waze Founder Noam Bardin is starting up a Twitter alternative

#219

Post by wifistrong »

afavour wrote: post #160
mirzap wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Difference here is that we don't see people leaving at massive scale. Maybe it's to early. Anyway, I think chances are 50-50 twitter succeeds in re-launch. I wouldn't be surprised of any outcome. But I would be surprised to see something else explodes in popularity just because it's twitter alternative.

The issue is that if you wait until people start leaving it's too late. The bet here (and IMO it's a fair one) is that Twitter will continue to degrade as a service and eventually people will start leaving. If your alternative is up and running by then you've got a chance of capturing users.

Who says people aren't already leaving?

Re: Waze Founder Noam Bardin is starting up a Twitter alternative

#220

Post by mxuribe »

jeremyjh wrote: post #157
mxuribe wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Technically its the Fediverse, not just Mastodon. But, your point still stands 100% that there exists mechanisms in place already to achieve what this new thing is proposing to do. Of course, to each their own; if Mr. Bardin has the time/resources, i guess good luck to him. Though, I do wish smart folks like he and others would help move forward the existing protocols like ActivityPub, or participate in efforts like…

I just spent 30 minutes trying to figure out the best way to follow my interests on Mastodon. I had to figure out which instance to use, and the most popular ones cannot keep up with the traffic surge right now. And then I don't know how much the instance matters, can I follow a hashtag across all instances? It seems yes, but I spent time figuring this out. How much time will the average twitter user invest into this…

@jeremyjh I genuinely appreciate your comments! Allow me to kindly respond...

> ...best way to follow my interests...

If you're still stuck on the topic of following interests, may i direct your attention to the following website: https://fedi.tips/how-to-use-mastodon-and-the-fediverse-basi...

And, once you have completed that section, i invite you to click around the different sections available at the top nav of the above website. I have no affiliation, but have found it handy to give out to newcomers to the Fediverse - regardless if such newcomers are using the Mastodon *software*, or pixelfed, or funkwhale instances, etc. The "Beginners Start Here" area of the website is a section i highly suggest you and all newcomers to spend time reviewing.

> ...How much time will the average twitter user invest into this?

I'm detecting in your statement that there is an assumption that the commercial socials (e.g. Twitter, Facebook, etc.) and the Fediverse have the same goals....but i believe they differ. Most instances on the Fedi are cool with being village-sized communities that can easily interconnect with all/many other village-sized communities...The Fedi's goal is not to have a single, massive commercializable silo. There is no such overacrhing goial to scale up at all cost, as might exist for commercial services. While, there are no doubt paid Fedi instances that legitimately are commercial by their definiton and operation, their goals are not as audacious as the entities coming out of Silicon Valley. So, if some newcomers struggle during onboarding, while i never want to see people struggle, maybe its not the end of the world if newcomers have to invest a little time in learning the ways and customs of what amounts to a new world for them.

> ...I'm just...skeptical it can take off...

You have every right to your opinion of course! That being said, as I noted above, the Fedi cares less if it "takes off". Its goals are more about quality of connections rather than numbers of connections. Richer and more fulfilling interactions are sought after, while brazen increases of follower counts are not.

I should also clarify facts here: Mastodon - the software and initial instance/server - only started life late 2016. While the greater Fediverse (that mastodon is only one part of) has been in existence since around 2008. Yes, that's right, none of this is new! Not the networks, nor the latest wave of newcomers. So, while you (and some other newcomers) doubt this will take off - well before this latest wave of newcomers - there have been already millions of active users interacting with each other for almost a decade and a half.

If you're willing to invest a little time/effort, then please by all means do participate on the Fediverse, and enjoy. But, if you don't think it is worth it, that's fine too; no harm, no foul.

Post reply on HN