

App.net: The Country Club of the Internet? - tessr
http://tessrinearson.com/blog/?p=516

======
crazygringo
> _It’s [HN] also boring as hell. It’s an echo chamber, a bubble._

Funny... the reason I like HN is because the comments are actually well-
thought out and interesting.

I honestly can't understand how Twitter, with it's character limit and lack of
threads, can provide more "interesting" "discussion".

~~~
jessepollak
I agree. I think that there are _a lot_ of situations where homogeneous
interests/views can preclude interesting conversations, but I don't think HN
is a place where this applies.

The reason is, while HN may be filled with all people who like startups--in
fact, it may be primarily white males--so many people know so many different
things, and have so many different perspectives, that I consistently fin
conversations of a higher quality than anywhere else on the Internet.

I agree with the OP that we should try not to limit who can participate in a
forum because of high barriers of entry, but I'm extremely skeptical that said
limitations actively lower the quality of conversations on a site like HN.

~~~
jmduke
_The reason is, while HN may be filled with all people who like startups--in
fact, it may be primarily white males--so many people know so many different
things, and have so many different perspectives, that I consistently fin
conversations of a higher quality than anywhere else on the Internet._

I think this is true only with regards to sort of the 'classic' elements of
HN; discussions of technical matters, startups, and overall just strong advice
is wonderful and keeps me coming back to the overflowing well.

Discussions that include fanboyism of any kind (politics, education, and Apple
v. MS v. Google chief among them) are aggravating. But bad parts don't negate
good parts.

~~~
jessepollak
Agreed, but increasingly I find that HN actually does a pretty great job of
limiting the number of posts that involve any sort of fanboyism that you
mention. Many may get submitted, but the community doesn't seem interested in
bringing _that_ many of those posts (compared to other news sites/communities)
to the front page.

------
biesnecker
"I think that diversity of thought is more refreshing."

Given that Facebook (attempts to) model our existing social networks, and that
the vast majority of people socialize with people of significantly similar
cultural and socio-economic backgrounds, this diversity of thought is already
(for the majority) a lie. We don't go to Facebook to see how the "other" lives
-- we go there to get updates on friends that are comfortingly similar to
ourselves.

The people that are willing to pay app.net's admission fee are going to
largely be people who socialize with other folks who are willing to pay
app.net's admission fee. It's no different than the clientele at a high end
restaurant, and the existence of such restaurants hasn't precluded the
existence or utility of lower end restaurants.

------
mechanical_fish
Yes, HN is a special-interest group. I actually liked it better when it was
even _more_ narrowly focused, back when it was mostly YC-funded companies and
their friends, plus spies like myself. [1] It was probably even _more_
"boring" then, for people who were not me: There were fewer contributors and a
lot more focus on a particular subset of startups. It was even called "Startup
News".

But what of it? It is not the job of any one site on the web to represent the
whole world. That's what the rest of the web is for. Use that navigation bar!

Meanwhile, of course Twitter is exactly as diverse as you want it to be: It's
much bigger, which is balanced because you control the mix of who you read.
You can tweak your follower list to be fun and interesting. On the flip side,
it's quite possible to tune your Twitter experience to be far narrower than HN
ever has been. It's up to you.

As for App.net, yes, here in its earliest stages it definitely excludes people
who can't afford $4.25 a month. [2] And that is too bad. Perhaps even unjust.
However, dare I point out that in the USA it's pretty darned low on the list
of unjust things: I literally just spent more than $4.25 in _one day_ riding
public transit, which suggests that Boston is, in a sense, at least 30 times
more exclusive than App.net. [3] I'll reserve my supply of righteous anger for
high rents, soaring medical costs, usurious check-cashing outfits, high
broadband costs, and state university tuitions, I think.

(The biggest injustice of a $4.25 monthly fee is that it excludes people from
places where US$4.25 is a lot of money. Here we must hold out hope that prices
will fall over time. Which they almost certainly can do: It takes more money
to invent a thing than to run it at scale.)

\---

[1] Flaw Number One of the "country club" analogy is that country clubs don't
publish their internal discussions to globe-spanning message boards where
anyone can read them, including those of us who aren't yet computer scientists
and don't have YC startups.

[2] Flaw Number Two of the "country club" analogy is that country clubs are
considered snobbish not merely because they cost a lot, but because you can't
necessarily join one simply by paying the fee. They reserve the right not to
admit you even if you pay. AFAIK App.net does not, although presumably they'll
boot you for policy violations.

[3] Oh, you think you'll save money by driving? Have you priced the parking in
Boston lately? Calculated the per-mile cost of operating your car?

------
mistercow
HN is a circle-jerky echo chamber? Really? I can't really disagree strongly
enough with this.

Back when I was a reddit junkie, I found that my use of the site was actively
making me unhappy. Sure, people came from more diverse backgrounds, but the
structure of the community encourages rhetorical maneuvering and brutal
riposte. The problem was that I was _good_ at it, and I was really addicted to
the absurd emotional attachment that I had to watching people agree with me.
Of course, that attachment went both ways, but as with most experiences, the
negative experiences were more mentally prominent than the positive. The
result was that I felt bitter a lot of the time, and when I channeled that
bitterness into acerbic responses, I was _rewarded_. This is not good for the
soul.

This, I think, illustrates two important points about exclusivity.

First, the cutthroat nature of high-karma commenting on reddit is in many ways
a direct result of the site's laissez faire voting. Anyone can downvote
anyone, and the exact total of those votes is then shown to everyone. I made
this problem worse by writing Reddit Uppers and Downers, which shows the
upvote and downvote counts separately. Two subtle but important ways that HN
elevates the discourse are by reducing the information presented by voting,
and by regulating the downvote privilege. One could decry this as "elitism",
but I think the positive effect it has on discussion should not be
underestimated.

Second, my problem became worse as the reddit community became less exclusive.
Arguably, this could have been my own inability to cope with a broader variety
of viewpoints, but I think the famed Eternal September problem was the larger
issue.

The most rapid decline was in the use of downvotes. The guideline that it
should be reserved for unproductive comments became ignored more and more with
time. This effect was infectious even for established users, and the result
was that the downvote button became a "dislike" button.

And more gradually, the level of discourse suffered as well. When I joined,
reddit was a place where unusual and/or controversial opinions sparked
interesting conversation. When I left, soon after the advent of the "sexual
content relating to minors" rule, arguing that maybe the rule was a tad too
broad would often get you labeled as a pedophile.

And the thing is, I still like seeing a comment get upvoted on HN. But what
makes me _happy_ is when someone disagrees with me and is willing to put
thought into telling me _why_ , and, if I'm lucky, actually _convinces me to
change my position_.

If you want to maintain that scenario, you need to make sure that new members
of the community are instated gradually enough that the community's principles
aren't compromised. If that comes at the cost of a little intellectual
diversity, then so be it.

------
cargo8
I think "gatekeeping" may be a bit of a strong term for what's happening here.

I get where she is coming from, and it is something that should be
acknowledged by the users of the site. The key point here is that the GOAL of
App.net is not to cater to a different market (those able and willing to pay
$50 to have an ad-free real-time network with control over their data).

This is just the economic impact of charging something for a service - it will
limit the audience that will buy/use the product.

In particular, I think the comparisons to Hacker News and Quora are exactly
what it will be like. Quora is a fantastic Q/A site, and as much of a fan as I
am, it still has not reached the completely 'mass market' that yahoo answers
is used by. In the same sense, Hacker News has very different content on
average than, say, Reddit.

So long as the content creators (users) of App.net realize their audience and
the effects that have been created by the circumstances and economics of the
network, then it will still make sense.

So perhaps the call here should be for people simply to realize that App.net
will never be Twitter. And /maybe/ that's a good thing.

------
d21
Reading this made me wonder why so much concern about segregation due to 50
dollars as an entry fee. You already have segregation on an important part of
the world population in terms of:

-access to electricity -access to a computer-like device -access to an internet connection' -free time to participate in social networks

as far as battles against segregation go there seems to be a considerable
number of more important causes.

------
Apocryphon
"I’m sure that a post bashing HN will be very well received on HN."

Actually, she's right. HN is nothing if not constantly self-introspective, and
in the wild fast-paced world of startups, there's no such thing as bad
publicity. I'm almost certain that HN as a whole will appreciate the
attention.

That said, the way the article brings up HN seems to be a red herring. The
barrier of entry to HN is far lower than that of App.net.

~~~
tessr
Hah, well, I was surprised to get even FOUR upvotes. Good to know, I guess...?

Anyways, I had meant to bring up HN as more of an example of a bubble--both
because it has an exclusive attitude (which is exemplified in part by a non-
zero barrier to entry) as well as a self-selecting user base.

~~~
lucisferre
I'll give you another one. Not sure I agree completely though. Most popular
communities do deteriorate in the quality of the discussion over time (even
this one, spend some time here, you'll see pretty quickly).

The truth is I think it is important for people to "choose" to be real
consumers of the services (yes even content services) they feel provide value
to them. Otherwise what's the incentive to do anything but pander to the
masses to get "eyeballs". Most importantly, there is clearly room for both
models, what your post suggests is a false dichotomy.

------
datalus
Does this mean it's too late for me to get together my op-ed piece about
App.net's "segregating" policies?

Seriously, though, do we know if the $50 upfront is only for this early stage
or is that also the plan for when it goes live to the public? I would think
there'd be a subscription option...

~~~
wmf
I hear the subscription price will be... $50 per year. But seriously, I would
hope Dalton is open-minded about the future evolution of his business model.

~~~
datalus
Well, for the kickstarter-like campaign they ran, $50 in one lump sum makes
sense. I would hope when it's live, they would also offer a monthly payment
plan as well.

------
dtmmax33
Why the white male bashing? That is a very narrow minded view and I really
hope that you can grow and see beyond race and gender. It is a big world out
there and I recommend you go out and explore.

------
md224
The bottom line here is that almost everything has a cost. You can pay with
money (App.net) or you can pay with freedom (Facebook / Twitter). Is there a
third way besides pure charity?

~~~
mc32
I was about to say the same thing. I also don't understand some of the
direction of the complaint. The people she knows who signed up were male, and
that's unfortunate because? Her female friends were not being dicouraged from
signing up, were they? I have no idea why the anecdotal self-selection would
be bad. Would it be disappointing if most of her readers were female? Or would
it be unfortunate if most poeople visiting substance-abuse support communities
were substance abusers?

Ok, so it's unfortunate that as far as she knows males signed up. But then,
it's also bad that there is a $50 cost to entry. It's a qualitatively bad site
(it's all these self-selecting guys), but I'd like it to be easier (dollar-
free) to join a site I thought was the wrong direction in social?

If app.net is successful, what would prevent others from creating their own
interest-driven sites? It's not as if reddit, flickr, etc. have unified users
sharing and seeing everything anyway. People who go to those sites generally
spend their time in/with specific groups. Just because "it's open" and there
is free access does not ensure that people from disparate groups within those
sites interact and share ideas. People in many sites tend to gravitate towards
like-minded people or at least similarly-interested people.

Diversity of thought is a great goal, but in practice, people seldom look for
people to genuinely question their beliefs.

~~~
csense
I'm reading a little between the lines here. But I think this is what her
answers would be:

> The people she knows who signed up were male, and that's unfortunate
> because?

A lack of diversity is a fundamental evil.

> Her female friends were not being di[s]couraged from signing up, were
> th[e]y?

Females must equal males in all things. Otherwise it's DISCRIMINATION by the
GRAND EVIL SEXIST PIG CONSPIRACY.

> Would it be disappointing if most of her readers were female?

No. A mostly-female community is empowering. A mostly-male community is a
sexist boys' club. THIS RULE HOLDS REGARDLESS OF ALL FACTS, REASONS, AND
MITIGATING CIRCUMSTANCES.

> But then, it's also bad that there is a $50 cost to entry.

CAPITALISM AND MAKING MONEY are evil under all circumstances. In the future,
everyone will work for the government, and all will be sweetness and light.
Despite the fact that this was tried and failed miserably, as anyone who knows
anything about the past 100 years of world history can tell you.

> I'd like it to be easier (dollar-free) to join a site I thought was the
> wrong direction in social?

The world owes me a handout. Obviously.

> If app.net is successful, what would prevent others from creating their own
> interest-driven sites?

OH NOES MORE CAPITALISTS IT'S SPREADING

------
lwat
If App.net is anything like HN then sign me up!

