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Comment by klyrs | Hacker News Reader

Who wants to read some crummy blog? He once threatened to make a platform to rival twitter's. Instead, he built himself a soapbox. Social media success is tied to engagement. A soapbox is antithetical to that.

Gab was poorly executed, but they had plenty of engagement with people who were "deplatformed" elsewhere. This doesn't show the effectiveness of deplatforming, it shows Trump's lack of vision

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> He once threatened to make a platform to rival twitter's.

True but 1) he's hardly going to code it himself and 2) he's fundamentally not a details or follow-through person. Promises, bluster and threats are his forte. That and bankruptcies.

On the other hand, he's a billionaire, and he could credibly promise to pay for something better-provisioned than Gab long enough for it to be built. He's not known to pay such bills, but people do keep falling for it...

> On the other hand, he's a billionaire,

So he keeps saying. And somehow people keep taking that at face value, despite the "not known to pay such bills" part.

Any social network tied to Donald Trump's name would be a PR disaster because you'd end up with a ton of trolls on it and every controversial post, big or small, serious or not, would be something his opponents would demand he disavow. But strict moderation would also defeat the purpose of the site and alienate his base. So I think the ultimate choice was to have a social network of one person - a blog page on his website. And that's his "platform" now.

> So I think the ultimate choice was to have a social network of one person

Something centred on exactly one person is also very much on-brand.

If he'd made a platform to rival twitter, that would have been another platform.

It does seem interesting that people like Trump, despite their celebrity, have significantly greater reach nowadays via platforms, not via blogs like in the days of the early internet.

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