Another twitter thread that should have been a blog post...
You're absolutely right. I find it incredibly frustrating that network effects and game theory mean we're stuck with sub-optimal solutions to problems just because "everybody else uses it". Twitter thread long-posts are just one example.
I would love to see some proposals for legislation designed to mitigate user-base monopolies. Products should be competing on features, price, and performance; not on who happened to acquire the most users first.
Facebook, Twitter, Slack, Office, iMessages, etc. are just a few examples of products that are market leaders not because of the quality of their product, but because they happened to capture large enough user bases to spur network-based growth.
I have no idea what this legislation would actually look like (or how disastrous the unintended effects would be), but at first blush I'm imagining something along the lines of compulsory interoperability requirements. The devil is in the details of course...
To defend twitter: each tweet in the thread has to have a point, something compelling about it - and in this case, an image with each. The limitations of twitter force the author to write concisely (as opposed to blogs, where paragraphs can be as rambling and long-winded as the author pleases). The medium also allows persons to reply to any individual tweet - performing a similar role as threaded comments on a site like HN, but more focused. Twitter is an ideal format for short-to-medium length content like this.
> Twitter is an ideal format for short-to-medium length content like this.
So you do enjoy having text broken down in small pieces inside an interface that's obviously made for short messages, with ads on the side, and replies right in the middle of the main body of the text?
All right. I guess we have different standards of readability.
Twitter isn't nearly as difficult to use as some people like to make it out to be. My biggest petpeeve on Twitter. Is 30 different replies of "@ThreadReaderApp unroll".
I do enjoy having text broken down into small, coherent pieces - whether it be a tweet or a paragraph. Twitter enforces it, blog platforms do not. While neither twitter nor blog platforms can enforce writing quality, length limits at least prevent the most egregious run-on sentences.
> with ads on the side,
Twitter doesnt have ads for me on any device - app or browser, computer or phone. Blogs generally have ads (that circumvent my blocker) or empty white space (where ads had been) on every device. Twitter has centred text on my laptop (comparable to most blog platforms), or the text fills my full screen width on my phone (better than most blog platforms).
> and replies right in the middle of the main body of the text?
I don't see replies in the main body of the text. I can click on any given tweet to see the various replies, but otherwise the author's tweets remain in an unbroken chain.
Although reading is more comfortable (for me) in a blog post, posts also tend to have way more junk before it gets to the point. I.e.: recipe posts, entertainment news, etc...
edit: I agree with you though. This should have been a blog post.