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Comment by Me1000 | Hacker News Reader

This is disappointing because often times people link to threads on Twitter but if you’re lucky enough to not get a login wall, the full thread wont be visible without logging in. (Which I’m not going to do)

I really wish people would just stop linking me to twitter (or better yet, stop using it altogether).

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It's a terrible site though and calls to disallow submissions from there (in comments here) were common going back well before Musk took over, so the Twitter dislike originated independently of anyone's views about him.

Dislike is not priority or let say common denominator. Problem is that X/Twitter cannot be viewed without login. This was not the case before.

It used to be widely disliked even before the additional newer problem you mentioned.

In fairness, before Nitter (or even Musk) there was a highly inconsistent guest browsing policy on Twitter. One week you could read entire threads without logging in, the next week every inbound link would redirect to the registration page. Before Nitter I just stopped clicking Twitter links entirely, because I never knew if it would show any content.

At this point, submitting screenshots of a thread you like would unfortunately be more accessible. Shocking that we have to say that about static text content, but here we are in 2024...

It sucks. I don't want to use twitter but it's where people post. Nitter fulfilled my lurker only use case.

Same.

If we're lucky this will discourage HNers from linking to Twitter at all.

Especially those stupid blog-like formatted ones.

That's a net positive then

Why not make an account if you want to read it?

I refuse to login to twitter for ethical reasons. If someone links me to a tweet I assume it’s because they thought I’d find it interesting. It’s a thoughtful act which deserves a little bit of effort on my part, so I’m willing to change the domain to see it. I’m not willing to login though. It’s a principle thing.

Not the OP but: because I've never wanted to post there and as far as I'm concerned there's no compelling reason I should need one and I'm so offended by Musk and his attempt to force me to get one that I would rather not read it than let him succeed.

1. Don’t want to give Twitter their personal phone number

2. Twitter SMS system can’t deliver to personal number on my network so can’t create account.

3. Banned from Twitter already.

4. Hate Elon.

5. Ethics (various reason)

6. Privacy

7. A lot of work to read a hot take

8. Social media is addictive. The site gives you crack when you log in.

9. Chinese Firewall (and in some occupied lands it may be a crime to use Twitter)

10. Too many logins for shit already.

11. NSFW bot accounts trying to chat you up

12. Uncomfortable agreeing to their terms of service. (e.g. according to their own summary as well of the text, you are not permitted to learn from the experience of using their mobile app, e.g. about app design principles, because it is "solely for the purpose of enabling you to use and enjoy the benefit of the Services.")

Having to make an account to read a website sounds idiotic.

Why should twitter be special in that regard?

It's not so you're essentially promoting the idea that we should have to make an account to read any website, which is idiotic.

Twitter isn't special in that regard. Not having Facebook or Instagram does the same thing or at least you get a very limited view. I think it's all bullshit as those networks exist because of the people are posting as a means to share.

It’s special in its utterly hypocritical espousing of Twitter as some digital “town square” led by “free speech absolutists”.

Many places require an account, many even paid like New York Times but you have all other social media offering limited views to facebook, instagram, tiktok with signing in.

All of those are just as stupid and should not be linked on HN.

I can happily just not read the tweet. There’s no FOMO if the pool of worthwhile posts is getting smaller, not larger

Why make me create an account if I want to read e.g. announcements of government organizations? Many of these publish only to Twitter and don't have an RSS feed.

Twitter can't both be the de-facto successor of RSS and a walled garden enforcing signups for read-only users.

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