Don't build your castle in other people's kingdoms • Hacker News Board

Re: Don't build your castle in other people's kingdoms

#91

Post by eldavido » Thu, Nov 04, 2021, 6:29 PM UTC

jnwatson wrote: post #52

This is the libertarian fantasy: just build the entire platform yourself and you don’t have to deal with the pesky decisions of other companies. Yes, you have to choose your dependencies carefully, but where does it end? Steam could go away tomorrow. The game engine you license could go out of business. Your hosting provider, your DNS provider could kick you off. If you don’t entertain new platforms, you are leaving…

Nailed it. This article is a textbook example of why STEM people shouldn't be so quick to dismiss things like political science.

What we're talking about here is governance -- laws, norms, and fairness. Nobody lives on an island. Even on land that's "yours", you're still reliant on things like roads, water pipes, and other shared public infrastructure. You don't like how someone's running things, vote them out or leave, but don't pretend you're better off doing everything yourself. "Self-sufficiency is the road to poverty" as a famous economist said.

Incidentally I've been watching the walking dead again (season 8) and a lot of this stuff is the subject of the show. It's definitely had some rough patches but at its core, it's a show about how to build communities and large-scale civilizations, and what effects various leadership styles have on each society's long-term prospects. Very relevant.

Re: Don't build your castle in other people's kingdoms

#92

Post by caylus » Thu, Nov 04, 2021, 6:36 PM UTC

teddyh wrote: post #6

One thing about domain names: Choose both a registrar and top-level domain for your domain name carefully. Neither your registrar nor your chosen TLD registry should be in the habit of suspending domains at the drop of a hat, or be at risk of going out of business suddenly. For TLDs, I have said before¹ that if you mostly trust your local government, your national ccTLD should suffice. In fact, it should be your defa…

Note that .us and several other ccTLDs have the unfortunate disadvantage of not allowing "private registration", forcing you to either expose your real name, address, phone number, and email, or violate their terms by providing fake information and risking suspension for that reason.

Re: Don't build your castle in other people's kingdoms

#93

Post by zild3d » Thu, Nov 04, 2021, 6:47 PM UTC

999900000999 wrote: post #54

My counter argument is it can be nearly impossible to build an audience outside of a kingdom. Many popular YouTubers will try and splinter off and create websites where they can monetize better. I'm even subscribed to one of these websites because I really do want to support the Creator, but I still consume almost all of their content on YouTube. YouTube makes it very easy to upload something and for people to consum…

thats why the article has

> Rule #2: SHAMELESSLY USE THE OTHER KINGDOMS JUST LIKE THEY ARE USING YOU!

Re: Don't build your castle in other people's kingdoms

#94

Post by c_joly » Thu, Nov 04, 2021, 6:57 PM UTC

josephcsible wrote: post #79

okhuman wrote: post #49

This message applies to your repo on Github too.

Not nearly to the same extent, though. It's easy to move your repo over to GitLab or Savannah or something if need be.

Except when folks use the github url of their repository as their homepage I guess.

Re: Don't build your castle in other people's kingdoms

#95

Post by Nasrudith » Thu, Nov 04, 2021, 6:58 PM UTC

zeteo wrote: post #64

999900000999 wrote: post #54

My counter argument is it can be nearly impossible to build an audience outside of a kingdom. Many popular YouTubers will try and splinter off and create websites where they can monetize better. I'm even subscribed to one of these websites because I really do want to support the Creator, but I still consume almost all of their content on YouTube. YouTube makes it very easy to upload something and for people to consum…

Historically almost everyone built their castles in someone else's kingdom. The barons may have complained a lot, but in practice they were much more likely to build another palace in the capital than in some remote swampy place where the king's writ ran less.

Well given feudalism even chances are the count or baron's castle wound up somebody else's kingdom or empire by force if they had it beforehand.

Re: Don't build your castle in other people's kingdoms

#96

Post by vanviegen » Thu, Nov 04, 2021, 6:58 PM UTC

notTheAuth wrote: post #90

esjeon wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just bait and switch. You don't have to be loyal to the platform that helped you grow, because it has been using you from the beginning. It has always been a mutual relationship, but people somehow realized it late. YouTube being the most profitable platform only means that people will consider it as /a/ primary target, but nothing prevents them from using other platforms. As long as the cost is justifiable, multi-pl…

Agreed. Just put your commercials on YT, Twitch, but always link to your wallet; whether it’s Patreon or a tshirt store elsewhere. Decouple. Take advantage of network effects. Model income generation wide and deep. It’s all about extending social geometry.

If Google was a bit more like Apple, all of these things wouldn't be allowed under YouTube's TOS.

Re: Don't build your castle in other people's kingdoms

#97

Post by 6510 » Thu, Nov 04, 2021, 7:02 PM UTC

adventured wrote: post #82

colinmhayes wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well it's easy to say "don't build your castle in other people's kingdom", but when 95% of people live in someone else's kingdom and like it there it's much harder to actually pull that off. The author laments content creators trying to bring viewers into their discord or twitter instead of personal website but conveniently ignores the fact that people are much more willing to go to and likely to return to sites they…

> when 95% of people live in someone else's kingdom Everyone lives in someone else's kingdom, except those people who own kingdoms. Articles like these, repeated on HN year after year because they represent popular fantasies (and are thus always voted to the front page), are universally misleading and wrong. Challenge someone to list how they plan to build a successful business, starting from scratch, outside of exis…

> Challenge someone to list how they plan to build a successful business, starting from scratch, outside of existing kingdoms.

I'm not about to share that information, sorry.

Re: Don't build your castle in other people's kingdoms

#98

Post by Hithredin » Thu, Nov 04, 2021, 7:02 PM UTC

But..., that's the way to conquer the welsch. It worked well

Re: Don't build your castle in other people's kingdoms

#99

Post by Nasrudith » Thu, Nov 04, 2021, 7:06 PM UTC

riidom wrote: post #4

anm89 wrote: post #3

This lesson extends to almost everything in life. Too many people wrap up their goals and aspirations to things that are really someone elses thing at the end of the day. It frequently doesn't end well. This is a really great article.

Definitely, it's not only about games, and not even only about marketing your content of whatever topic on SM. Somewhat also applies to buying your stuff mostly on Amazon, hurting your local business. Or any other business that also knows how to deliver its stuff inside a package to your door. (Just in case it wasnt obvious: Not my blog, just following it)

Seriously that talking point of "buying stuff on Amazon hurts your local businesses" is such an incredibly false dichotomy. The stuff on Amazon has long often been from a local business, often one you haven't heard of because of its obscure but cheap location.

And that is before getting into the other trade fallacies, opportunity costs, and relative advantages.

Re: Don't build your castle in other people's kingdoms

#100

Post by allemagne » Thu, Nov 04, 2021, 7:06 PM UTC

jnwatson wrote: post #52

This is the libertarian fantasy: just build the entire platform yourself and you don’t have to deal with the pesky decisions of other companies. Yes, you have to choose your dependencies carefully, but where does it end? Steam could go away tomorrow. The game engine you license could go out of business. Your hosting provider, your DNS provider could kick you off. If you don’t entertain new platforms, you are leaving…

Calling this article a "libertarian fantasy" seems unfair. The author does explicitly recommend entertaining new platforms, but being prepared with a backup plan for when these platforms are no longer viable for whatever reason.

Where does it end? They call out these options as presumably being "safe enough":

- A website on a domain you own - A mailing list - Own and license your Intellectual Property - Sell your merch on your site - Your own reputation

We can extend this logic to an unrealistic degree and do nothing but make your game/app/service completely agnostic to any platform in every way, but we can acknowledge that such perfection is unattainable without throwing out the value of being platform-agnostic in realistic ways.