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Comment by VonGuard | Hacker News Reader

100% agree. Leave Facebook and social. IRC is much better. Frankly, context is the issue. My group of friends should not intersect with some other random group of friends. Content should remain within its context. Sharing to everyone is the worst thing possible. It just causes huge conflicts from different contextless people clashing over content the original poster usually considers harmless. Like, if anti-vaxers stayed in their own little groups, it might not be such a problem, but their content gets posted to everyone in everyone's networks, and the meme virus spreads, lacking the important "the people saying these things are fucking idiots" context.

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This is pretty much what Google+ had/ failed due to.

If only relevant content is shared within a 'circle', people appreciate it, sometimes ignore it, and move on. Consistent controversy and drama is avoided, which just so happens to be a key driver of social media engagement.

> IRC is much better.

IRC is too technical for many people I know, but they are willing to use, or are already using Discord.

The only problem with Discord is that it is closed. Otherwise, it's a truly excellent platform.

In many ways, the problem with Social Networks isn't algorithms or whatever, it's the scale, and being on a small server with at most 50-100 other people is an incredible experience. I've met so many interesting people from around the world who wouldn't have the technical skills to navigate the IRC world, and I didn't have to blow up my brain in the process.

The problem with discord isn't that it's closed, it's that you don't own your own data.

The difference between open and closed is meaningless for the cloud. Give me the raw storage used by any piece of software and I can knock out a script that will serve it. Give me any open source network and without the data you have a ghost town no one will use.

I said closed, not closed source. Closed in the exact sense you are talking about: you don't own your data, you can't transfer in or out with ease, and you can't bring your own user agent without breaking the ToS.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Closed_platform

IRL is even better :)

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