The Problem with Clubhouse | Hacker News Reader

The Problem with Clubhouse

vice.com

9 pointsgbourne8 comments

I followed Seesmic from the beginning. Think video chats way early. Tried repeatedly to get an account. All the VC's were using it and chatting incessantly on Twitter about it. They kept changing the app as well as the business model. Were they just following advice from the VC's?

Caught in the Silicon Valley echo chamber? They had celebrity appearances as well. Eventually they closed without ever having opened it up. Made me think they would have found out much earlier they didn't have something. Either that or they never found out the VC experts were wrong and they did have product market fit.

I have to wonder if ClubHouse is following a similar track. It's actually too hyped right now.

Has anybody actually used this app? It sounds like hell, like someone said, it will be like Twitter, except with actual yelling.

I got an invite. The UI I found a bit confusing and at first I didn't see much value. Closed the app and the next day got an alert the Ashton Kutcher and Adam Grant had a live chat. Tuned in and was interesting. However, the live nature just doesn't fit my schedule. I prefer async listening.

Somebody showed me the app several weeks ago and gave me an invite. Yes I have used the app and I have to say that it is overhyped. With around ~2 million active users on iOS only and has the same VC shilling it to the media to drive up hype and it's somehow worth $1B is already nonsensical.

It is like Zello but has a nicer UI, less users (165 million on Zello) and VC funded (Zello is bootstrapped).

With Facebook and Twitter attempting to copy and release their own Clubhouse competitors, I don't see how Clubhouse can survive as is with the invite only system when their competitors can easily copy them to bankruptcy.

> I don't see how Clubhouse can survive as is with the invite only system when their competitors can easily copy them to bankruptcy.

Maybe if Clubhouse went all-in on being a virtual gated community where you had to pay for access and the subscription fee was high enough to not only cover expenses but provide a sense of exclusivity. If all of the hoi-polloi are using Facebook's version of Clubhouse, there might be value in the original Clubhouse if using it means not having to be around working-class schmucks like me.

"as is with the invite only system when their competitors can easily copy them to bankruptcy"

Funny but same could have been said about Facebook or Gmail back in 2004. May be the invite only system is not a bad way to start. Just a thought.

Nobody's invited me, which suits me just fine since I don't have an iPhone and liked the internet better when it was all text.

I haven't looked into this much, but isn't this just talk radio on the internet? If there are fundamental differences here, I would like to understand.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com