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Substack Notes Launched

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Re: Substack Notes Launched

#411

Post by LastTrain »

PuppyTailWags wrote: post #42
hersko wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is twitter ruined? My personal experience on the site has not changed much.

Counter anecdote: my personal experience is that the site is less entertaining. I've encountered technical bugs more, such as replies not loading without refreshing multiple times. The "for you" page doesn't show me anything I want to see. The checkmark thing remains super confusing to me. The quality of the ads I've been served have noticeably decreased/gotten more skuzzy.

> The quality of the ads I've been served have noticeably decreased/gotten more skuzzy.

This is my experience as well, and is the thing the higher ups at Twitter should be really concerned about. Low rent.

Re: Substack Notes Launched

#412

Post by nemo44x »

Dalewyn wrote: post #345
daveguy wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm curious why you think Twitter is suddenly authentic and non-manipulative? If anything, it seems worse -- less news more hate.

Over on Japanese Twitter, the sudden shift in the kinds of post getting recommended pre- and post- Musk layoffs were undeniable. No longer were political posts the recommendations, but rather cultural posts such as those concerning games, anime, and manga among others. Most of the Japanese user base welcomed the change, amazed at just how much manipulation Twitter Japan was (or is) doing behind the scenes.

Twitter had de facto commissars in every region that coordinated with their contacts at various activist networks to ensure everyone was coordinated. Musk broke that wheel.

Twitter in the USA is noticeably better too. A few people left but no one cares. So many more interesting voices have been raised.

Re: Substack Notes Launched

#413

Post by claytonjy »

jacooper wrote: post #39
claytonjy wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the hand I know exactly what you mean about Greenwald and Taibbi (and so many other neoreactionary media folks), but it's also where I get great content from economists (Noah Smith, Claudia Sahm, Doomberg) and technologists (our own Simon Willison, Gergely Orosz, Molly White). The media folks are clearly escaping scrutiny and playing to their base, but there are many excellent Substackers in other fields!

Simon willison is on substack? Doesn't he have his own blog?

He does, his substack is a weekly collation of his blog posts.

Re: Substack Notes Launched

#414

Post by nr2x »

nicenewtemp84 wrote: post #391
nr2x wrote: post #341

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean I could buy a very expensive Mercedes and drive it straight into the Bay at high speed. That doesn’t make it a good idea.

Definitely doesn't make it a good idea. But it's still interesting that he's playing with one of the most talked about sites on the internet without really affecting his finances at all. Of all the random things to do with your money, it's not even that bad of an experiment.

He’s just a rich kid pulling the legs off an ant.

I actually find it perverse.

Re: Substack Notes Launched

#415

Post by sleepybrett »

greyman wrote: post #401
rodgerd wrote: post #319

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And Musk seems to be pissing away his non-technical barrier-to-entry just about as hard as he can. He's completely pissed it away. The skills at finessing the demands of different regulatory regimes were some of the first he got rid of, no doubt deriding it as "wokism". Now he's got fines racking up for publishing Nazi shit in Germany, privacy breaches in the EU, and is globally censoring anything that Hindu extrem…

But if we look at the "mainstream" usage, like English-language thought leaders, they are still there, still posting regularly. Like for example in the AI field, all relevant people are on twitter.

In my communities, niche though they are, most people have shifted to masto and have been crossposting to twitter. The replies on masto in general seem more engaged and thoughtful.

Discoverability there is, of course, harder. At least initially, but just like twitter once I see someone making interesting replies, or someone in my follows boosts them, I tend to follow them faster (and drop them faster if their smart reply was a fluke).

Re: Substack Notes Launched

#416

Post by nemo44x »

wpietri wrote: post #348
Pxtl wrote: post #304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm loving Mastodon myself (@pxtl@mastodon.social) but I worry that the UI stumbling blocks caused by the multi-server system and the far-poorer discoverability than what we're used to from Twitter will keep it from growing well -- twitter's algorithmic feed and relevant-to-the-user trending topics and features like that help make twitter feel lively even for a new user even with just a handful of follows. I don't kn…

I think "is X the next Twitter" is the wrong question to ask. When I started working at Twitter (now years ago) my relatives asked me if they should join. And after thinking about it, my honest answer was "no". The only person who needs to be on Twitter is somebody who wants to feel like they're part of a global conversation. Most people just don't and won't. Twitter is only successful because it started in an era wh…

[flagged]

Re: Substack Notes Launched

#417

Post by Tempest1981 »

jascination wrote: post #333
alfor wrote: post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I tried Edge and bing, God awful. You just feel their desire to take control of your experience of the web. On the flip site, made me see how much Google own us all.

What's wrong with Edge? I started using it when Chrome started eating my RAM, it's been mostly unobtrusive and unnoticed, like a good browser should be.

Edge keeps trying to turn on sync-to-Microsoft. I keep saying no. Once, I think it turned it on without asking.

I assume it has more telemetry than Chrome... anyone checked?

Re: Substack Notes Launched

#418

Post by drexlspivey »

spaceman_2020 wrote: post #359
jimsimmons wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You should look up global search volumes and Google share of it. There’s no dent

1. ChatGPT is very, very new, and habits change slowly 2. For non plus users, chatGPT UX is poor with slow responses, captchas and random logouts 3. All of this will eventually change There is no more major growth for Google, which is all that matters to Wall Street. It will go down slowly, but it will go down.

> For non plus users, chatGPT UX is poor with slow responses, captchas and random logouts

There are tons of free custom UIs to chatGPT by now, all vastly superior to OpenAI’s. No captchas or login screens, just paste your API token once and it gets stored in local storage.

Re: Substack Notes Launched

#419

Post by mlindner »

leobg wrote: post #134
mlindner wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If Elon was self-absorbed he'd be buying private yachts or private islands or massive mansions. He wouldn't be constantly talking about existential risks to humanity and trying to come up with ways of fixing them. Is Bill Gates self-absorbed? Much of what Elon Musk does is in a similar vein as the Gates Foundation, though often through for-profit companies.

And also wouldn't deny that he had a threesome Amber Heard and Cara Delevingne. [1] > I think people think these things are generally more salacious than they are. [1] https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/25/style/elon-musk-maureen-d...

I'm not sure what you're saying, but the source is actually him denying it.

> About the contention that he had a threesome with Ms. Heard and her friend Cara Delevingne, Mr. Musk said, laughing, “We did not have the threesome, you know. So I think people think these things are generally more salacious than they are.”

He's laughing at the reporter for even proposing the idea, followed by downplaying it in a way that makes it clear that this was the media being sensationalist for clicks again.

Re: Substack Notes Launched

#420

Post by jabradoodle »

g42gregory wrote: post #188
jpmattia wrote: post #115

It wasn't like Twitter's business had a large technical barrier-to-entry. And Musk seems to be pissing away his non-technical barrier-to-entry just about as hard as he can. Good luck to Substack on eating twitter's lunch! Edit: That said, I've found mastodon (@jpmattia@mastodon.mit.edu) to be a much more pleasant interaction compared to twitter, so I'm curious what the landscape looks like in a couple of years.

Well, he is definitely upsetting some (many) people. But, at the same time, he is getting the new set of people as users. In the last few years, I would not touch Twitter with a ten-foot pole. Mostly because, I could no longer assess the provenance of the posts and the authenticity of their rankings. Is this post popular/important or is this post was put into my stream by Twitter/other entities in order to influence…

This is hilarious, Elon Musk himself spreads random nonsense such as the rumours about Nancy Pelosi's husband's lover.
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