Gab is now the 647th most popular website in the US, explosive 90 day growth | Hacker News Reader

Gab is now the 647th most popular website in the US, explosive 90 day growth

alexa.com

57 pointsKLexpat29 comments

I wonder how far the bifurcation of the Internet will go. Gab, Parler, Voat, etc. are all just the beginning in my mind.

Netflix is fragmenting into Disneyplus, HBO , etc. Facebook and Twitter are fragmenting into a bunch of different 'alt' services

These companies will get completely crushed if the stock market decides that even a company with the scale of facebook can't establish a permanent moat from new entrants. A bit of a MySpace moment happening again

> Netflix is fragmenting into Disneyplus, HBO , etc.

HBO is older than Netflix, as are most of the media companies opposing Netflix. Netflix was first in streaming, but streaming is just a delivery mechanism, the real product is the content and (but for a one-off) they haven't radically transformed that. Netflix isn't “fragmenting", movies and serialized shows are moving from TV/Cable (and, recently, theaters) to streaming for delivery.

I don't get how a bifurcation is supposed to work, Ukrainian grand mothers are supposed to choose between America First and (American only) Black Lives Matter?

Pretty much. America First Streaming is using RedWhiteBlue Hosting, FreedomDNS, etc. and BLM Streaming is using Antifa Hosting, DefundPoliceDNS, etc.

And for the rest of us who are caught in the middle, those above options are all that we have.

Imagine if restaurants only had Kosher and Halal food, but no longer make "regular" food because "regular" people will reluctantly eat Kosher or Halal, but Kosher and Halal customers will not entertain "regular" food.

So the entire stack all the way down becomes bifurcated due to political beliefs.

https://nassimtaleb.org/2016/08/intolerant-wins-dictatorship...

Voat is dead and Parler seems to be mostly dead, so they're not off to a great start.

parler is not mostly dead. what are you talking about? they just found new hosting.

I just checked the app and every request is still failing to connect. I suppose what I'm talking about is the whole, their service not working thing.

"Mostly dead", per Princess Bride, allows the possibility that they will return to life.

Voat is dead, but there's Ruqqus and Poal to name a few.

Gab, Ruqqus, etc. have shot up. Parler also rose astronomically, but they have to find a new host now. Off to a great start, honestly.

This is not a "bifurcation of the internet", just different websites/apps used by different people, which really is what the internet has always been about.

Fragmentation of the internet is rather e.g. the Great Firewall of China.

Website does not load for me. Stuck on:

Checking your browser before accessing Gab.com

This process is automatic. Your browser will redirect to your requested content shortly.

Gab is growing rapidly in a historic exodus from Big Tech, and fending off sophisticated attacks that seek to silence and censor your ability to Speak Freely. While we work to scale up there will be periods of growing pains, slowness, and even downtime. We would appreciate your patience and support during this.

> Checking your browser before accessing Gab.com

That's a CloudFlare banner. Gab needs to pay attention to what's happening now or they will be dropped as well.

Yeah, Cloudflare has already shown that it does cancel customers (https://blog.cloudflare.com/why-we-terminated-daily-stormer/)

I wonder if other large tech companies have realized that since the ALCU, other EU government leaders, and major political institutes have started questioning the power of Apple, Google, and Amazon to do this, they might not want to be in the crosshair of what happens next...

https://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/gab.com#section_traffic a day later it's at #537 in the US

Oh dear ... good luck to their moderation team.

Be unlawful or be made in furtherance of any unlawful purpose. User Contributions must not aid, abet, assist, counsel, procure or solicit the commission of, nor constitute an attempt or part of a conspiracy to commit, any unlawful act.

Unlawfully threaten.

Incite imminent lawless action.

I'm not gonna take any sides on Gab/Parler/et al but I do find the events of the past few days, and will find the next few weeks, absolutely fascinating from a technology and social perspective.

I'm relatively young, even by internet standards (26), but I can't think of any other mass exodus from an online site/platform like this. Was the move from Digg to Reddit this drastic? I don't remember Myspace going out of style this fast once FB opened up.

Seeing my boomer relatives flock to these obscure platforms has been really interesting. I'm also curious if there will be any sort of post mortem from any of these companies once the traffic stabilizes. My guess is probably not since from what I've been able to gather, all of these fringe sites tend to be run by a handful of people and not full teams of developers. Writing a post mortem may give their online opposition hints into whatever new infrastructure they cobble together and contribute to further shenanigans. It's the same reason we didn't seem a post mortem after Iowa 2020 or the DNC hacks in 2016 I would guess.

Does anyone expect a real drop in market share for the iPhone over the next 12-18 months if Parlor can't get back on the App store?

Again, just fascinating stuff to watch from an outside perspective.

A North American exodus of a political subset off these tech platforms is irrelevant in 2020 because all of the companies reached global scale. Maybe back in 2005 this would have mattered, but it is totally not enough today.

IIRC most ad revenue from social media is the US by far. It would be a very big wallop.

Do you really think Gab or Parler is going to have any ad revenue? When marketing teams are (rightly) concerned about appearing on Hannity or Rachel Maddows you think they are going to dedicate any spend to these sites? Maybe gold scams and prepper packs, but there will be no loss in ad revenue by the major players to any of these minor right-wing sites.

Even if Gab or Parler don't take revenue, the users who leave Facebook and Twitter will still no longer be advertised to on those platforms, so that's still a revenue drop for the incumbents.

> Seeing my boomer relatives

You can write "baby boomer" or "people over 55" or similar to avoid using a pejorative term.

I think baby boomers are not as fragile (as some other "groups") and don't get offended by someone calling them a name.

There is no one kind of person in a generation. But, I have noticed that baby boomers tend to tout the philosophies of grit and self reliance of their elders while being as self indulgent as possible.

Therefore they expect others to suffer quietly or be seen as weak, while any restriction of their own desires is tyranny.

https://www.fatherly.com/love-money/baby-boomer-parents/

I’m 63, and though I have seen it used in memes I never thought of it as a pejorative. Maybe in a mild joking sort of way? Are people really insulted by this?

Almost every case I've seen has used the word in a dismissive, ageist fashion. I think it's similar to mild ethnic slurs like "yank", "limey", "frog", where the target has similar or higher status.

At best it is lazy writing, and most commenters on HN write better than this.

See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OK_boomer

Well, people have stopped using it literally, so I don't see what it can be except a pejorative for subjectively "old" people, usually. If you actually argue that people younger than about 55 aren't boomers, you'll just be told that's not what the word means any more.

If you are a boomer, then I agree, why should you feel insulted?

> Does anyone expect a real drop in market share for the iPhone over the next 12-18 months if Parlor can't get back on the App store?

No.

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