Comment by asim | Hacker News Reader

Comment by asim | Hacker News Reader

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Not a knock on the author. All power to him for doing this. I worked on similar small side projects years ago. But I'm not convinced. And not of nicheless, just of anything attempting to fill the void where Twitter once was. I think some of these services might find their community and build something with network effects but I couldn't tell you which will make it as much as I couldn't say 3 years into Twitter if it would still exist a decade from then.

But something just isn't sitting right with me in this entire space. As I sit and watch the mindless babble of the Twitter billionaire owner and his groupies, it's causing me to fade slowly into the background of life. Spaces for idle chatter turns out to be a total waste of time. Whether it's about movies, gaming or politics, there's really more we could be doing with our time. Twitter is a void and trying to fill that void with another one isn't the answer. I don't really know what the solution is beyond knowing some sort of community platform is definitely missing. But it's likely to focus on some active component, not idle chat.

Hey Asim. I appreciate you taking the time to thoughtfully (and elegantly) lay out your thoughts.

At the moment, I don't want Nicheless to perform a similar function to Twitter. I love Twitter and use it daily, but I find it useful as a space to reach a broad audience of people I don't know. An open network with unlimited growth potential.

With nicheless, I want it to be the opposite. A place to follow people you already know, either from real life, or from existing social connections. I want it to be a place for a higher density of thought to be exchanged for a smaller group of people. I've written a bit about it here: https://nicheless.blog/post/mission

In fact, I'm even considering capping the number of people you can 'follow' on Nichless. Maybe it will help create an algorithm free feed of interesting thoughts that spark real life conversations. I don't know yet, but I might experiment and find out.

Let me know what you think?

It's a noble goal. I think many an engineer have tried. Even convincing your own social group to try new things is hard so it really has to offer something new or attract a specific type of audience. I think most people's group of well know friends and contacts caps out at 100. So that would be where I'd put a soft limit on follows e.g a little hint that says maybe you want to split this out into sub groups or separate as accounts.

Yup, that's an interesting idea. Will keep a note of it when I decide to run the experiment. Thank you!

This is an excellent idea, I love the thought you have put into it.

A cap is also great, I've been a member of a wonderful social network that employs this stance, 10,000 all in, every year they open it up by deleting dead accounts. It keeps it running fine.

More power to us, through your project.

Thank you, Benji!

> Spaces for idle chatter turns out to be a total waste of time. [...] There's really more we could be doing with our time

Really? Is this such a bad thing? Sometimes i just want to take a break from 110% productivity and have some idle, mindless chatter.

If I go to the pub and chat with friends I'm not wasting my time.

A lot of time is lost to Twitter. I don't think it ends up being like the social norms of your small group of friends that go to the pub. How big is that group? How do you converse? From personal experience it's vastly different.

As you said in your previous,

> Twitter is a void and trying to fill that void with another one isn't the answer.

You are 100% spot on something here, something that's well known but usually goes undiscussed.

As madeofpalk said,

> Sometimes i just want to take a break from 110% productivity and have some idle, mindless chatter.

That's true - so do I (although I usually opt for a chat with a friend, or for some mindless RealRacing).

But for the majority of Twitterheads, Twitter has become synonymous with the public square, with results that verge on (or fully reach) the toxic.

Here, I'm thinking of Sam Vaknin's position on the question of toxicity:

Pt. 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dmXcjvL9VSc

Pt. 2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m38W8glySGw

Now, one may say that Vaknin isn't important, or that he's too self-important, or whatever. But his analysis (and he's not unique on that) concludes that such social media platforms have a corrosive effect on the individual and on society.

If nothing else, it's a system that essentially echo chambers you, and preys on vulnerabilities in the standard human psychological make up to maximize profit.

Not to mention that it's a private platform, and very specifically not a 21st century version of the agora/public forum.

I think that on principle private enterprises shouldn't be permitted to usurp the public sphere.

As I read your last point all I can think is, no one owns the earth, why should private companies own the digital space. It's frustrating when you can see the problem but not offer a solution. Mostly because the ideas are many but to execute is a multi decade endeavour. Not to get too serious but we're effectively talking about a problem that effects humanity and we now have a clown running the show. Elon is doing great things with his other companies and maybe he even finds a way to fix Twitter but it doesn't feel like he doesn't it with any sort of grace or humility, it doesn't feel like he shares the problems of humanity given his wealth and status. The disconnect makes it hard to trust him or root for him especially when it's at the expense of others as we can see by his public trolling on twitter. That's right, yes he's a troll. With over 100M followers...

The irony is the fact that I have the time to write this highlights the dangers of idleness.

Hey, shoot the breeze, idleness deserves praise! (https://harpers.org/archive/1932/10/in-praise-of-idleness/)

> we now have a clown running the show

Nah not a clown, not even a Watchmen-esque Comedian.

If anything, he's a very conscious agent of (Capital-C!) Chaos, like the Joker.

Or, again, just another CIA puppet, who knows - dot dot dot :)

Thanks for writing it, though.

Maybe our brains need idle time between intense bouts of thought and flow. And if that bit of writing doesn't contribute to, say, a certain 50k novel challenge for the month, well--now it's really wasted!

Let's go create something today. Or nothing. It's totally up to us.

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