Clubhouse’s Inevitability | Hacker News Reader

Clubhouse’s Inevitability

stratechery.com

167 pointsjger15225 comments

> Make no mistake, most of these conversations will be terrible. That, though, is the case for all user-generated content.

My perception is that Clubhouse is that it's yet-another amplifier for the group of folks who already have a large following and are able to produce quality content. Listening to anything long-form and live risks being a huge waste of time. Audiences are willing to listen to well-known people because it has a higher chance of being interesting at all.

Unfortunately, the feedback I've heard is that the meetings hosted by the rest of the not-so well-known community have been generally terrible. I think people underestimate power of async communication and how it powers discoverability. There's too much noise out there already and very little time to filter it out to discover new content. Especially when the content is only produced live. Growing a YouTube/Podcast audience and growing a Clubhouse audience are going to be very different challenges.

I'm also unconvinced that this is a winner-take-all space. My understanding is that the technology moat here is very narrow compared to what it takes to run YouTube, Twitch, etc. I've already seen several interesting hacks put together by individuals with their own twist to this space.

That said, I'd really like to see the community stop claiming that "Clubhouse will be bigger than X platform!" such as Twitter and LinkedIn.

The question I’m left with is, will Clubhouse be able to scale building communities?

This is a very underappreciated part of scaling community-oriented platforms with user-generated content.

I think another important point being missed is how hard it is to create compelling improvised content. Youtube and Tiktok are amateur productions but the successful creators are still writing and editing. Conversations are going to meander and the absolute worst offense possible for this kind of medium is being boring.

I agree with you, and at the same time, there will still be some people who are newcomers but adopted clubhouse at the right time and will become stars because of it. Maybe they weren't even newcomers, just good at what they do.

So while looking at it from a large numbers angle, yes, the power law applies and winners take all, digging into individual level stories, there will be people who will rise up thanks to the new app.

Not sure what that means, but I do still think there are opportunities here.

I don’t think they have their filtering right at the moment, and they’ll have to find a sweet spot before everyone turns off notifications for good. I’m following Kimdotcom who is an interesting person, but whenever he joins in on something, I’m notified. I like to hear what he has to say, but not every bloody time, especially not at 3am when it’s a German-only speaking club!

Wow, that's discouraging. I thought the barrier to entry would mean better content across the board. But, I suppose that's the difference between a falsely erected barrier to make it seem more special and exclusive, and technical barriers to entry which filter out poor quality content naturally. If "anyone" can create content, most of it will be garbage, and the big names will get further amplified.

Looking at well-funded but ultimately unsuccessful competition in other spaces - Microsoft's Mixer (Twitch) and Google Plus (Facebook) to name two, though there are many others - it's not about the technology moat for consumer-oriented Internet companies, it's about what the technology enables. I've had the ability to have a multi-person phone call (party line of yore) since before the Internet, but oversimplifying what Clubhouse does as a modern implementation of that specific technology belies a belief in Internet company success that it's about having impossible-to-replicate underlying technology and being the only company to offer a thing.

The most validating thing as an entrepreneur is for there to be competition, because it means someone else recognized that you're right - there's a market and a product that can fit that market, and that money can be made off of it.

First time I went on Clubhouse, first got in a room with some Silicon Valley types talking about how to grow your startup. I get enough of that content so left to explore further and found a room with some African Americans discussing the best way to "snort crack from a booty hole". Perhaps it's my sense of humour but I laughed my head off and was immediately hooked. Felt like the Internet of the "good old days". Also I'm comfortable talking on voice from doing a podcast. Actually I usually hook up my Rødecaster Pro for better quality audio.

Some random tips I've found make Clubhouse more entertaining...

- Follow lots of people - don't be like Twitter, Instagram etc. trying to have more followers than follows. The more people you follow, the more diverse your room suggestions become

- From the home screen of the app, scroll down and find the little "Explore" button ... this will take you to more rooms. Smaller rooms tend to be lower down

- If you want to get involved in a discussion, go to the smaller rooms

- Can be interesting to tap on the profile of who "Nominated" someone... and keep tapping until you get to the center of the graph. This is an interesting take on social graphs I think (which I'm guessing they will disable)

- Most of all, get out of your comfort zone, when it comes to your normal interests / ethnicity etc. It's very low friction to talk to anyone and people are largely polite. It's a great to get to know groups of people you'd otherwise avoid and get new perspectives.

If you want to connect hit me up on @harryfcks in the app.

not sure why their race matters

It doesn’t it’s just that for me, living in Zürich Switzerland, it’s a type of conversation I would never get to hear / be part of

I'll give my thoughts. Although the wording seems clunky at first, the GP is actually identifying something really important about the growth of Clubhouse as a platform. Similar to Twitter, which has Black Twitter [0], Latino Twitter, etc, it seems that Clubhouse will also build these kinds of communities.

When a chief concern about Clubhouse is lack of diversity, I think this is pretty meaningful. What I'm more interested in seeing though, is if Clubhouse can also incorporate class diversity without betraying its brand of exclusivity.

Note: I'm not on Clubhouse and don't want to be.

[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Twitter

It doesn't, in and of itself. Here it's a proxy for a certain social or cultural group.

To me it's interesting because it seems to reflect how innovation in things like music tends to migrate from ethnic African groups to the white middle class.

Please consider that there is a world outside of the US. This dismissive attitude towards the rest of the world is what makes the way of living of a lot (actual billions) of people get excluded when US companies create things.

it sounds like audio only version of chatroulette.

I guess so but that it’s groups not 1-on-1 probably means people behave better. Also video is a higher barrier entry in terms of awkwardness etc

except chatroulette was random and didn't really have user accounts?

Unless chatroulette became something different than the video window 1:1 with random people and usually phallic symbols... did I miss something?

Very very different from chatroulette, in my opinion.

> Can be interesting to tap on the profile of who "Nominated" someone... and keep tapping until you get to the center of the graph.

Wow, this was fascinating. There was a weird dichotomy on mine. If I clicked on my straight, white, male friends, in almost every case the chain ended in just one or two clicks with an OG user.

If I clicked on anyone else (minority, women, etc), it was a long chain of people that usually involved a long string of black men and women.

My own chain was an exception, having been invited by a minority woman and going through that long chain of black men and women. Even though I'm friends with a bunch of those straight white guys with short chains. But I never asked for an invite when they were all advertising invites on Facebook. I only joined when my friend insisted and sent me an invite.

I don't know what any of that actually means, I just found it really interesting.

Is this signaling or what? What straussian message are you sending: don't accept invites? Sorry for the obtruse comment but feel lost.

The message is: I did this, and this is what I found.

I think you may be looking for something that isn't there.

reasonable thanks. You're probably right

Just checked. My chain is white guy invited by minority male invited by minority female, invited by minority female, invited by ...

Still not sure how this is relevant.

You're unsure about why social connections (in the form of invites) on a social network are relevant?

The artificial constraint of invites is relatively temporary and in the long run arguably potentially irrelevant.

Say we agree that in the short run, the "phenomenon" of clubhouse makes the artificial construction of "who's in the room" material and detrimental. Then the question to you is: who is harmed and to what extent?

This is perhaps a bit philosophical.

I found that if I went higher a few levels from me, the sideways, then everyone was either an internet marketer, some form of influencer, or startup “guru”.

Maybe it’s just my local graph, but it turned me off somewhat

How do you manage the notifications? I'm only following like 40 people but have change my notifications down to the lowest setting.

Even at infrequent, it notified me every 30 mins in the last 18 hours... while I was sleeping too. Just wild.

I don't use the notifications - have them disabled. I just dip in when I have time and see what's happening. May not be the best strategy but works for me.

Can be interesting to tap on the profile of who "Nominated" someone... and keep tapping until you get to the center of the graph. This is an interesting take on social graphs I think.

The first time I saw this kind of thing was on lobste.rs, where they call it the “user tree”: https://lobste.rs/u

On both Clubhouse and lobste.rs, surfacing the invite tree makes users more mindful of who they invite. To an extent, they’re vouching for that person, and can be held responsible if that person misbehaves.

Does anyone know what social network first exposed invite trees? I assume it can’t have originated recently with lobste.rs.

Plenty of p2p communities have been doing something similar for years. If you invite someone to the forum, and they get banned, you get banned too... or at least have your privileges revoked for some time.

Torrent sites have been doing invite trees for a long time. The oldest I personally remember was OiNK (2004).

I don't understand the hype, I gotta be honest.

I enjoy podcasts and audiobooks, too. I listen to technical and political podcasts regularly, and sometimes I try other genres when I don't feel like learning or getting disappointed by politics.

I heard people talking about Clubhouse, they were all like "wow, amazing, revolutionary". They told me I would need to watch my screen time, because they are 10 hours a day on Clubhouse. I asked them to explain to me why they enjoy it, I didn't get it but wanted to try anyway.

I got an invite, and tried the app. What a disappointment that was, I tried to follow interesting people and content, checked out what my friends were following, listened in on multiple rooms, stayed long and hoped something worthwhile would happen, but no, nothing really happened.

Boring content, from people who are mostly neither funny, nor insightful (which is fine, most people are not extraordinary, it's not a personal attack or something, it's just that the top "talkers" already rose to the top via TV shows and podcasts).

The constant reminders on LinkedIn about past discussions on the platform that I would be interested in is even more annoying, as I can't just open the talks later.

I'm sure there are good conversations there but the noise to signal (value) ratio at clubhouse is just very very low.

There are many uses cases, but one of them *might be as a potential solution to current social media polarization.

Imagine putting radical liberals and conservatives or loyal Taiwanese and Chinese in the same room AND be able to participate in the discussion.

The value Clubhouse brings is the ability to start a dialogue to understand the other side that we are often blinded from - empathy through conversation from multiple viewpoints.

Civil discussions that were never possible can now be (abuses are quickly reported and kicked out). Of course we will have to see the long term repercussions of this technology that only time can tell.

> empathy through conversation. "Let's have a talk"

why is it that clubhouse will do anything differently than what a FB post does? AKA devolve into mindless attacks in the comments sections about the way you look in your profile pic, your race/ethnicity, etc.

is the difference simply..because it's voice? i think it's naive to think this is some new mindblowing tech considering a few points: a. it's invite only b. it's populated by tech oriented people.

the only people that benefit from this are yuppies and already well off people. i want to hear opinions from the lower class too which i can guarantee are 100% not on clubhouse and are instead busy dealing with real life problems instead of talking about them on some VC backed app touted as the greatest revolution by mostly vapid social media sites (read: linkedin, producthunt, etc)

i realize its a pessimistic POV but at this point in my life and all my years in tech..i'm tired of hearing how some random social media app is going to change the world for the better again and again. but also, i would LOVE to be proved wrong one day.

> is the difference simply...because it's voice?

I am not sure if you have seen the difference from communication via text only vs. voice/video. (ex: work or relationships). The later clears so much misunderstandings.

For those who choose not to talk or ask questions, you can just listen in. But instead of a tube of biased information fueled by an AI algorithm (most social media today), you get to have a diverse group of people (up to 5k and expanding) all in one room, each able to participate.

It is a two-way real-time dialogue, like in a conference panel discussion or an university class where the professor is lecturing, but also facilitating discussion among students. ex: https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=harvard+justice

As for the invite only and tech oriented people, it is done for now to cope with bandwidth due to server limitations and also to have content quality control. It will be open to all eventually, they are still figuring it out. HN is an example of the complexities of moderation to maintain quality.

Of course the human brain is going to be naturally biased and the development of content recommendations will eventually led to the same tribal mentality problem, but this is to be seen on how the creators moderate the platform to avoid the disasters from the past.

I don't really know how Clubhouse works. But why would radical liberals and conservatives ever want to talk with each other unless forced to? Seems from most other parts of the internet that people like to surround themselves with like-minded people.

When the topic of the discussion decides who wants to participate.

Like a debate: From non-serious as "cereal is soup" to "Do degrees/college dictate success?" and "Taiwan is part of China" (these actually happened)... The moderators can control the room but can also be reported by participants if he/she violates the guidelines- not sure how abuse is verified though. There is mutual accountability.

This is a good idea and one I'm about to debut shortly. Our guests will be highly rated journalists from across the political spectrum so that it is less likely to devolve into vitriol and rather is insightful people talking about their view on an important issue.

Out of curiosity when did you join CH? I find the the app differs by month, it was good for me for exactly one month. I think the predominate culture shifts so much as waves of people join, and they're not very good at allocating people into their respective tribes. So people churn when it's no longer their cup of tea.

Their solution seems to be these high profile interviews held by investors of the app, almost like HBO would have GoT to get the weekly engagement up.

I'd really like to see what their engagement and retention numbers are, because after a few days on Clubhouse I just deleted the app. Just a bunch of nonsense conversations, many of which were led by people that sell the snake-oil of how to become successful in business and life, whereas their major accomplishment seems to be being known for selling that snake-oil. Sometimes there was a random celebrity talking about things they couldn't speak all that eloquently about (reminded me of the classic Dave Chappelle "I want some answers that Ja Rule might not have right now" [1]).

At least Twitter and Instagram felt fun when they started. Clubhouse just felt boring.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mo-ddYhXAZc

They sure do seem to be investing a lot in viral advertising though.

It is the reality of any information platform that you have the risk of running into snake-oil sellers. That is the challenge of quality content control.

I got maybe 10 min of value after spending 10 hours on clubhouse. I am pretty much done with it.

And thus, I really need to be very blunt about this: I hate Clubhouse. It’s full of self-loving people who already have a huge audience somewhere else and now found a new way to recruit even more followers. Sorry for being so negative about something which I believe is actually innovative.

Is it a bit better than Twitter? On Twitter influencers only interact with other influencers. If you don't have a large following but post an insightful comment you're lucky to get a like.

I suspect the people that love Twitter will love Clubhouse as well. As other commenters already mentioned, it’s geared towards those that are slightly self important.

And I think that's OK. For some people, they hate reading and writing or recording video or editing audio, so CH can provide a platform for some people who love being in vocal group discussions, whether hosting, speaking, or even listening, and can bring lots to that segment.

I personally love to read things because I think I can read rather fast and I have friends who hated even text messages, preferring voice notes, because they don't want to read/type so much.

I also agree there's the social dynamics you mention, just think the communication format appeals to some more than others.

I do see some value in Clubhouse. My spouse has been using it to hold open conferences with other professors, but they're seeding the room with a number of pre screened academics, their grad students, postdocs, etc. Then it's open for those that want to drop it.

It's nothing you couldn't have done with Ventrilo way back in the early 2000s, but I guess CH has a brand and people just browsing. It also seems inevitable though that their kind of content will remain a minority and it comes down to if CH will offer you the discover tools you need to weed through all the crap to find the discussion room on the topic you personally give a shit about.

Also apparently a bunch of top ranked academics got to hear me curse bilingually because my spouse was talking and rolled into the kitchen right as the drain hose came off the garbage disposal and dumped dirty water on my face. Loving the new garbage disposal though.

> but they're seeding the room with a number of pre screened academics, their grad students, postdocs, etc.

And only those that have iPhones?

> Make no mistake, most of these conversations will be terrible. That, though, is the case for all user-generated content. The key for Clubhouse will be in honing its algorithms so that every time a listener opens the app they are presented with a conversation that is interesting to them. This is the other area where podcasts miss the mark: it is amazing to have so much choice, but all too often that choice is paralyzing; sometimes — a lot of times! — users just want to scroll their Twitter feed instead of reading a long blog post, or click through Stories or swipe TikToks, and Clubhouse is poised to provide the same mindless escapism for background audio.

This seems to be a good nutshell of Clubhouse and it's popularity.

> The key for Clubhouse will be in honing its algorithms so that every time a listener opens the app they are presented with a conversation that is interesting to them.

I think Netflix and YouTube have proven how hard this is. Watch a couple of the wrong shows and you a doomed forever it seems. It's a bit like Echo Chambers too. [0]

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Echo_chamber_(media)

Youtube is astonishingly bad. I watched a Jordan Peterson talk just to see what all the fuss is about and now there's at least a clip of him in damn near every video Youtube recommends. And this is despite me actually watching aerospace related videos almost exclusively.

if you are logged in, you can go to your watch history and delete the entry for it, that does something to get it out of the algorithm. But yes, YT really likes to latch onto you watching a single thing once.

I almost exclusively pay attention to updates from creators I've subscribed to. I'm more sure that YT will eventually remove subscriptions in an effort to college TikTok than I am that the sun will come up tomorrow.

I wonder if the algorithm has not detected that somehow people watching Jordan Peterson were spending more time watching Youtube, and so it is gently nudging you into that direction.

That's for sure what's happening. On a personal level it's extremely annoying because a machine is trying to manipulate my behavior for its own benefit.

It is what it is. That same recommendation engine does wonders for music.

For controversial stuff etc, it's better to watch it in incognito. And really any topic that you're not actually interested in. I watched a few minecraft videos to figure out a redstone thing I was working on, and my recommendations were flooded with garbage minecraft videos.

I think it is likely an attempt to beat the echo chamber. If your interests are niche, the only ways to avoid showing content that is, well, cliched is to latch on to the one offs and show a small percentage of those, or show truly random content. The former likely gets much better results.

Honestly at this point while logged in I only watch videos about scientific and technical subjects. Anything else I go incognito so it won't mess up my recommendations.

I have the impression that the algorithm sees that you watched something a little more popular in general and latches into that trying to bring you to a larger more generic cluster. Same thing happens with music, for me.

Try watching something like "how to fix a washing machine"; you do this several times a week for the rest of your life, right?

What is maddening is that Netflix when it was just DVDs it was IMO it was pretty amazing discovery wise. I felt like the users folks posting reviews were amazing at suggesting movies / giving you a good feel for the film. But maybe it was because those folks didn't have a background motivation to push, like advertising dollars or etc.

Or maybe it was an eternal September problem or just the fact that DVDs meant there was more content that could be found, but I've not found anything as good as the old school Netflix community reviews.

Meanwhile amazon is convinced I'm a woman and won't leave me alone about that ... Google is convinced I love a college football team that is in fact a rival because I google something about them once in a blue moon .... Trump was really interested in me filling out a happy birthday card for his wife (nope, that's creepy)... and they stand to make money on that, a still get it wrong.

The library was far better when it was DVDs. They didn't have the licensing problems they do now.

Yeah the volume of good quality but not well known films available was huge.

Now those seem lost... they're often in a limbo where they only exist in DVD form now, but not streaming.

Agreed.

I used to watch quite a few older and newer movies when it was a DVD service. Now, I just get all of their branded content shoved down my throat with little if any options beyond that. Search is inconsistent at best.

I've been thinking about canceling my subscription for a while now as I feel the value of Netflix just isn't there any more.

To me, the value of these streaming services are probably 1/3 their actual price, so like many I split the account with a half dozen people. It's gotten to the point where the scale is shifting further and further, and I'm streaming content gratis using bittorrent rather than the actual platform that I have an account with because sometimes it's easier and faster to get straight to the content without being bombarded. Not to mention the latest Hulu dark pattern, where something will be labelled as "available on Hulu," then you go and look and it's only available on the Hulu plan that costs as much as your old cable bill.

Have they removed films from the DVD side of the business?

I used it until a few years ago, it seemed the same as ever back then. Now we just have more options through various services for streaming, vs waiting on DVD.

One of the reasons I like podcasts is there are no surprises. I subscribe to a carefully selected list of shows that I really like.

It’s like every single social network pitch since Facebook succeeded. Take existing form of content (podcasts), tweak it a little, make it easier to produce and let almighty algorithms generate billions for you.

> Clubhouse is an invitation-only audio-chat social networking app launched in 2020 by software developers Alpha Exploration Co. As of December 2020, it was valued at nearly $100 million. On January 21, 2021, the valuation hit one billion US dollars.[1]

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clubhouse_(app)

So a bunch of party lines? Doesn't seem that worth getting excited about, certainly doesn't seem worth a billion dollars when Discord basically does the same thing already.

And it works on more than one OS.

”Further, SIO has determined that a user’s unique Clubhouse ID number and chatroom ID are transmitted in plaintext, and Agora would likely have access to users’ raw audio, potentially providing access to the Chinese government.”

I'm curious as to how this happens - are app comms not SSL ?

I never gave it much thought but I assumed that, like the adoption of SSL everywhere for websites, all apps spoke only SSL ... does the app store not enforce this ?

1. ToS violation to record and publish shows without 'written' consent of all the people in the room (which is effectively not enforceable)

2. iOS only

3. Invite only

4. Not ADA compliant (leaves out deaf folks)

5. Buggy

6. Centralized

7. You can't easily delete your account

I personally tried it and deleted it. No thanks.

> ToS violation to record and publish shows without 'written' consent of all the people in the room (which is effectively not enforceable)

That seems to provide an extreme means of selective enforcement.

In my eyes, the workaround is simple.

At the beginning of a session, tell everyone you're recording and give them a link to sign consent form and ask anyone who doesn't to leave the room. By staying, they implicitly agree.

There is also local jurisdiction laws around this too which make it impossible to cover all cases.

I'm not a lawyer of course, but it seems like a valid defense at least.

8. Requires giving them access and uploading your contact list to invite friends.

I never uploaded my contacts, nor would I have.

But it is highly encouraged by the app, for sure.

Of course it is.

It builds their social graph.

Having built a dating site just before Tinder launched, that only used FB for auth, we had hundreds of millions of connections within weeks. It was a trove of data as we could sort matches based on it on the theory that people in your 'friend circle' are more likely to match with.

Probably good that the site didn't last due to founder issues.

Funny thing is my app was rejected because of this feature and I remove it because I understand how invasive it was. Told Apple about this (Clubhouse), they acknowledged they will look at it and they didn’t do anything in the end. Double standards I guess when you have VC backing.

What is going on with this article? Usually I expect really well thought out pieces from Stratechery. Clubhouse definitely has marketing down I guess.

But in the article there is literally not a single mention of Discord, why not? Discord has been providing me the exact experience described here. I’ve had really interesting conversations with strangers on Discord, people are much more civil in disagreeing if it’s not text based! And what about twitch, “Just chatting” is definitely a competing product here in the 1 to many category.

On one hand, I get it, especially in the covid era when social interaction is curtailed. On the other, I am really damn tired of hearing about it. It seems like Clubhouse's membership is comprised of people who either want to be followers or influencers, neither of whom I am all that interested in meeting or hearing talk for several hours. And the intention is apparently to replace or supplement a podcast diet, but I have yet to find a podcast that is more valuable to me than audiobooks. The only live speakers I've seen and learned anything from were academics. Maybe they are on Clubhouse or will be eventually? I haven't used it so maybe I'm missing something.

> Clubhouse is far better suited than podcasts to discuss events as they are happening, or immediately afterwards

Seems like an anti-feature. Why would I want to listen to half-informed takes on current events which will be outdated soon after? Inherently ephemeral stuff like sports commentary I could understand at least, perhaps that's really the only sensible use case.

But I guess that's asking the wrong question anyway - all these platforms are optimized for wasting your time, after all.

Isn't that the purpose of 24 hour news streams like CNN?

Moments after Tesla's purchase of 1.5B of Bitcoin was announced, I opened Clubhouse, and sure enough, at the top was a pretty massive room discussing the move. Quality of information wasn't remarkable, but as a "radio show on demand" it was very entertaining.

Why is sports commentary different? I love watching Twitch streams commenting real world events live.

I am a strong sell on ClubHouse at a $2b valuation. Just like Medium and Quora, once the masses are allowed on, the noise will get too high and the signal will get lost.

Twitter is full of noise yet somehow I get decent enough signal to be a daily active user. Does Clubhouse achieve this independently or is this a hard problem and Twitter could clone Clubhouse features and somehow solve this problem?

Twitter already cloned Clubhouse last week: https://onezero.medium.com/the-case-for-twitter-spaces-b57b6...

You can make pretty much the same argument for Chatroulette (yeah, yeah, minus the oh, but audio allows us to multi-task). I am surprised Ben Thompson of all people thinks the necessity to be live is a plus. Async consumption (sitting on the potty, commute, smoke break, in bed scrolling yourself to sleep) is where your tiktoks and snaps and grams get consumed. The other thing that makes me willing to wager this goes the Chatroulette and Google Plus way is the male skew. I'd also like to coin a neologism for the inevitable narcisstic bloviation that will come to flood Clubhouse -- micdics

The world is not exclusively asynchronous. There are lots of use cases centered on live, especially around events. As Ben Thompson mentioned Locker Room which is Clubhouse for sports. I think live is a great format for these and no surprise it replicates live talk radio which has been around since the 1920s.

Agree there are quite a few events that are live, but not enough for the next-big-social-platform. Also agree online version of live talk radio can and will happen. Just don't see that slice being big enough for it to be anything more than live podcasts. How do audiences scale? How do conversations scale? With Twitter, Instagram, I shallow-follow a few hundred people. What's the equivalent here? Also, async media allows me to skip skip skim skip. What do I do here? Can I drop in on a conversation and quickly get a sense of quality? Yes, live is a great format for certain things, but not big enough to for Clubhouse to be live only and scale to something like the other big ones

Imagine if I turned on my "radio" and it always was playing the most personally relevant live event happening in the world at that moment. This could be a live podcast, it could be a live sports game. It could be a conference talk from a programming languages technical conference talk for a language I use regularly. I would challenge the notion of "quite a few events that are live" to say that I could fill my day 24/7 with rich, live content. The problem right now is connecting me with it. I am missing so much wonderful live content that I would enjoy as I type this. Who is surfacing it to me? When I turn on my "radio" right now, it has no idea what I want.

That's a fair point. The big problem I see with "lots of exciting live events at any time", and I agree this is not everyone's perspective, is how I am again confronted with a curation dilemma. Need someone to vet the content (reviews, ratings etc) to help me choose, and it's still a pain. With live content, review of content before consumption is no longer possible. I guess new forms of creator review could come up. I really liked this perspective that takes a broader historical look at oral culture https://zeynep.substack.com/p/the-clubhouse-app-and-the-rise... [ still not convinced live can scale, but maybe less o :) ]

I am a bit appalled by the diluting nature of 'tech' in these newfound tech companies. This doesn't sound like a tech company: more like what Quibi did as a media company but thought of itself as a tech company.

At least with Uber and AirBnB you could excuse such tech company label (even though they are mostly legal-oriented companies with a fake tech company air).

You know you are in a bubble when a live audio podcast startup passes for a tech company and has too much hype built around it.

And the company doesn’t even build the audio broadcast bits but just wraps a third party SaaS SDK.

Shows how much of success is connections and marketing.

Do you know which SaaS they use? Idle curiosity.

Uber and AirBnB are just legal companies? Never saw it that way, but that said, would those labels not easily apply to FANG as well? Half of the effort is spent on fighting lawsuits that take aim on their market positions.

Every "new" technology is always ushered in with the language of inevitability, which tautologically justifies its existence -- it's been "pulled into existence," a side-effect of progress, "make some thing people want," etc. etc.

I quote at length from Raymond Williams's study Television published in 1974 (!)

> The physical fact of instant transmission, as a technical possibility, has been uncritically raised to a social fact, without any pause to notice that virtually all such transmission is at once selected and controlled by existing social authorities [...]

> If the effect of the medium is the same, whoever controls or uses it, and whatever apparent content he may try to insert, then we can forget ordinary political and cultural argument and let the technology run itself. It is hardly surprising that this conclusion has been welcomed by the 'media-men' of the existing institutions [...]

> The model can be related to history only by endless retrospect, in which by selection such a process can be generalised or demonstrated. Characteristically, in such a model, there will be no more history: a culminating age has arrived.

MS Paint diagrams give the gloss of spontaneity; the big goofy arrows tell a version of history reduced to simple cause and effect; the easy steps "Democratization, Aggregation, Transformation" flatten it into a linear treadmill.

Clubhouse becomes an overdetermined effect rather than something deliberately built -- it's another stop on the three-step treadmill that's coming whether you like it or not (so get your investment dollars in now). Under this ideology, technology is something that happens to us. But as Nowaldo says, it is "trying to market itself into existence" [1] and appeals to inevitability are exactly how they do it.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26144055

I gave clubhouse a go and found it super boring. Lots of self-important people talking about why they're important.

It feels like the reason I no longer listen to live radio. Why would I let someone else dictate what I listen to when there's plenty of on-demand content available 24/7?

Same here, gave it a try and it's pretty much just a bubble builder for celebrities, not much else.

What I really don't understand is people trying to build a connection to podcasts? Why? Just because it's audio too? The reason I enjoy podcasts is that I get to enjoy specific topics (or field specific news) from a list of sources I curate myself. I have show notes, know roughly what I get into with an episode, and get to pause and rewind, and that is just a part of it.

I'm not sure that's a universal experience. One of the most popular podcasts is Joe Rogan's, where each episode is just him talking to a random guest about a random thing, and that kind of show seems like it'd translate pretty straightforwardly to Clubhouse. I can't say I've ever wanted to rewind Rogan or follow along with show notes.

> trying to build a connection

The comparison to podcasts is to be "the thing that you listen to while doing something else".

It does feel a lot like velvet-rope LinkedIn.

Beautiful damning with faint praise there.

It turns out that the real social value of Clubhouse might be exposing how stupid and vain powerful people can be.

Jack Dorsey sweating in the background

Touché

They are not sweating.

They're too lacking in self awareness for that, moreover, this is not remotely a threat.

Yes, people are fallible, but getting them to talk out loud instead of expressing themselves with trolling or promotions is a good start to build some understanding and empathy for the other side.

Exactly the reason I stopped using it. So serious, not fun, full of people that sound like the opposite of fun at a party.

"Shoot Your Shot: NYU girls roasting tech guys" is pretty amusing.

The first 30 minutes yes, then it is poor comedy.

"I gave clubhouse a go and found it super boring. Lots of self-important people talking about why they're important."

150% my exact experience. I don't get it, so I uninstalled it.

> ...so I uninstalled it.

That right there is one reason why I've never even tried it. I refuse to use app-only networks. Give me a web site that I can use from anywhere. Let me control what content my device downloads. There's no fucking way I'm buying into an app-only future.

I think that's a given because it's still invite only and has a very specific demographic creating content. Once it's open it could change dramatically. Or not. I don't know.

>> I think that's a given because it's still invite only and has a very specific demographic creating content.

Agreed.

Same thing happened with Ello ( https://ello.co/ ). Started out as invite only, which appealed to a certain group of people. Then the shine wore off and most users went back to FB and Twitter. Then it rebranded itself as a social media platform for creatives where it seems to have found a solid audience.

I agree with you that it's mostly not good. However, I wandered into a conversation with a bunch of DC journalists late at night and they were openly gossiping (probably all slightly inebriated) and saying things that almost assuredly were supposed to be off-the-record. It was fascinating and eye-opening as well as very entertaining.

The attraction of CH is exactly this: getting to hear things you would ordinarily not be "allowed" to hear. When it first started more of these types of conversations were happening and it did feel like you were part of the "in group" getting to hear things that ordinary people weren't privy to.

Making secrets explicit as a business model is not sustainable though. As more and more people file into the app creators are going be less and less explicit and all that will be left is the banal and boring (which may be enough actually, as the app is still addicting if you're a lurker).

Here's my prediction: CH is here to stay, but it will hit a ceiling. Additionally some people on the app are clearly playing with fire and we will likely see someone important get into trouble on the app and that will be the end of the (already dying) cool factor of the app.

> getting to hear things you would ordinarily not be "allowed" to hear

Feels like a side effect from being new and artifically limited via invites and I doubt that aspect will be kept very long. Same with people praising how friendly the discourse is supposed to be.

Yeah. I doubt it will scale.

I know yesterday, there was a media guy who tried to do a hit job on some youtuber based on a clubhouse, and the entire chat had to come to his defense on twitter call the guy out as a liar. I imagine this will become increasingly common and will really kill the "authenticity" it offers.

The question is why would you gossip on CH? My guess is that there is some excitement to 'getting caught' or just more generally doing it in public. It's like the equivalent of having a private conversation in a bar or coffee shop. Because of COVID, people turn to CH to replicate this experience. After COVID, I suspect this app will die out.

That is my suspicion as well.

The best description of CH I’ve come across: “A platform where C tier people listen to B tier people talk about A tier people.”

That sounds like it would've applied to Twitter until "A tier people" joined the platform, got their blue checkmarks and became the reason Twitter hit critical mass.

You know what would be really cool? A place where there aren’t tiers of people.

Why? The human species and relatives have organized into heirarchies since their dawn.

You start as a child, and go forth and develop your place in the world.

If everyone is the same, no one is unique.

Different desires lead to different contributions which have different levels of value to society which lead to different levels of social status.

If true, that would make it even more cool.

We've also killed each other since time immemorial, doesn't mean we have to like it.

No one wants to not be on top, but being on top doesn't maximize everyone's happiness or sense of purpose either.

You’d have to venture outside of our planet to find such a thing, and even then I doubt you’ll find what you’re looking for.

Great one!

I've heard it described as Twitch Chat minus Twitch, just the Chat.

But then again that's pretty much what the real world is. That isn't really a CH-specific phenomenon.

I just don’t see how Clubhouse scales. I can see how compelling it is to actively participate in a small-scale chat with interesting people. But once a room reaches the level where only a few people can talk I’m basically listening to a poorly produced podcast that must be listened to live rather than at my convenience. …I don’t get the appeal.

They’re moderated. They don’t just grow forever in that way.

you just described 100% of social media to me.

Sounds a bit like the lunches I ended up at with the office art snob prior to Covid.

Yes, Clubhouse feels like the perfect trap for the VC/PM class. It is a product that is extremely appealing to the them, but for which probability of widespread adoption seems low. And, of course, that group of people is one of the loudest on social media, so anyone within a few degrees of separation from them will "hear" them singing Clubhouse's praises.

I've never used Clubhouse, but to play Devil's advocate this is what people said about Facebook in its very early days. A product that appeals to Ivy League kids goofing around on each other's walls and showing off their favorite books. Why would that ever gain widespread adoption.

I think the lesson is that the impulse to imitate high-status people is very strong. Even when the behavior has no intrinsic value to the average Joe. If a social network gains a reputation for where SV entrepreneurs or "thought leaders" or Harvard heiresses hang out, then many people will flock to it regardless of what the actual experience is like. When Facebook opened up to a new campus, students would sign up en masse without even realizing what the product was.

VCs and entrepreneurs have been trying to replicate the FB/Harvard/private rollout thing since FB did it. I can't think of any other cases where it worked though. Very much a cargo cult decision.

This is a very insightful point. There is already a culture meming the imaginary April rooms where the "rich and powerful" gather to do insider-deals. You see this with all the get-rich-quick rooms, "thought-leader TedX" rooms, and "insightful conversation about social issues" rooms. It's a big pretend-land where everyone can partake what they imagine the "upper-crust" talks about. Someone made a point of people showing up at Soho house in 2020 (after it has "sold out") wearing designer clothes they got at the outlet, not knowing it sends a different signal. The truth is ... the only "consequential" people that frequent clubhouse are there to promote a very specific agenda, using the resident population as fodder to their cause. It's a stark microcosm of the inequalities in this society, and how consumer culture does not address the inquality, but rather just veil it in ignorance.

I think it was @default_friend on Twitter who made that point about Soho house[1]. I found the overall thread[2] to really help me understand the status dynamics of CH, reminding me of the Status as a Service essay[3] by Eugene Wei.

[1]: https://twitter.com/default_friend/status/135961816878890598... [2]: https://twitter.com/default_friend/status/135961480306553651... [3]: https://www.eugenewei.com/blog/2019/2/19/status-as-a-service

I don't think Facebook was ever a "perfect trap for the VC/PM class". Quora was, though - from the outside, Clubhouse really reminds me of the early days of Quora, with a nucleus of densely connected Silicon Valley elite drawing in a crowd of early adopters.

Quora ended up being like if Yahoo Answers and LinkedIn had a baby. I expect Clubhouse to go in a similar direction.

> Lots of self-important people talking about why they're important

Taking a page from the LinkedIn playbook

I am a new user but I hope they don’t start charging for listening in, there is much value by experts who are not there for promotional reasons but rather for intellectual discussions: ex: tech talks, medtech, AI.

Their target demographic seems more like conferences or university lectures with active participation, where education is the primary goal. I used to think that this might go away after covid, but after examination, the social utility is of tremendous value. I am usually against all social media (deleted most), which I think corrodes society, but clubhouse seems to be onto something.

Some controversial topics that could not have been discussed in person can be started here (and across the globe), expanding understanding on both sides: ex: politics, gender discrimination, Taiwan vs. China, etc.

There are also some funny/serious ones, for example “Attractive women explain things to tech bros” started as a joke but evolved into an advice place.

Yes, with every content platform you will inevitably have the quality issue, but I their content filtering can improve over time

>Why would I let someone else dictate what I listen to when there's plenty of on-demand content available 24/7?

To be fair there's still good radio out there and not even just on the internet. The really commercial stuff on most of the FM band is tedious but personally I really love people who are passionate about music play me things I might not have heard before. Things like BBC Radio Six Music and the former offshore pirate Radio Caroline are both pretty good in this regard.

A good radio DJ can create a far more personal and human experience than just waiting for Spotify's algorithm to give you something vaguely related.

Yes. There is good stuff out there. I often go for live radio as a medium of discovery but within some well defined boundaries. I might listen to classical music or a jazz station and discover new artists or new interpretations within a genre that I already like. I might listen to a some talkshows in the hope that I might discover something interesting that was outside of my radar.

I find pure audio to be the least appealing format to absorb information from. It's simultaneously distracting yet non-engaging. If I want to learn something new, print or video work best for me. Print if the concept is information based. Video if it's technique based.

Just like I don't listen to podcasts, I can't imagine sitting around listening to people talk about things with no visuals. I'm not even sure when I would slot that into my day, even if I wanted to.

> I'm not even sure when I would slot that into my day, even if I wanted to.

Personally speaking, I listen while walking, running, or driving.

Audio has the advantage that you can listen while walking, working out, or cleaning up the kitchen. Since I got kids it’s the only way I manage to consume any literature.

I joined the South Asian Club and every evening, there is a music session. I was pleasantly surprised to find people from all over south Asian..Indians, Pakistanis and bangaladesh appearing to perform..instrumentals and vocal. And in multiple languages too. My absolute fav part of clubhouse.

I am trained in Carnatic classical music and now I want to learn Hindustani style. The members are of different ages and the young people are a delight. They are polite and at different skill levels. So..it has massively revived and boosted and expanded my music universe.

Most South Asians would know what an Antakshari session means...basically this clubhouse room is like that.

Right now, I am in a room where people are part of 2 minute debates. Pro and against debaters randomly assigned. The topic now is: “Do aliens exist?” Fun!

The big rooms can be difficult to navigate and engage if one doesn’t know how to time oneself without interrupting. Because we don’t see each other.

There is tons of security issues. But that’s probably why this is still beta. For now, I listen a lot more than I contribute.

It is a ‘real identity’ service. Your phone number and your real voice is on the server. There is no downvoting(ahem) but there is self moderation. The best part is one can leave if they dislike a discussion and one won’t be heard if they are disruptive if the moderator so decides. No public shaming. Just a lack of platform for unpalatable views(from the room moderators’ POV). I think this might well become the most well behaved social media we have seen in a while on the interwebs.

Comparing businesses/companies to meme stocks is the future, no doubt. Clubhouse is definitely inevitable, but I think the reason some people think it's overhyped is due to the incredulity of its popularity over it being simply a feature. Like, if someone built iMessage, for instance, and the whole world responding like the iPhone just launched. I think it just goes to show how low our collective human bar for real magic has fallen. Culture comes first, and I've never seen more beautiful memes than what the guys over at lot2046.com have been building (especially the recent update to their ark 1 trailer). Only time will tell when humanity will grow to understand how deep magic can go, and maybe respond more objectively to CH, which is just a feature. It answers the What as much as any billion dollar features companies do, like Uber, for instance. What we use to share ideas. What we use to hitch a ride. But the Why, that's a magic I think is largely absent nowadays. Why are we here? Who are we? Do you guys know any companies out there pursuing that in its crosshairs instead of simply scaling features?

I was very confused until I realized that this is not about the project management solution (https://clubhouse.io/). Did someone forget to register a trademark? I get that these are separate industries, but the potential for confusion seems to exist. I couldn't start an audio platform and call it "GitHub"...could I?

I'm not going to say Clubhouse is going to fail, because I'm not the target audience now and I won't be later either, so how would I know. What I will say is that whatever appeal Clubhouse purportedly has now at a $1B valuation, such as rubbing virtual elbows with the elite, is not going to scale to a $100B valuation. Navigating the process of becoming mass-market is the key.

The problem with Clubhouse that Clubhouse doesn’t want to admit is that it’s all about who’s talking. Nobody cares who’s listening.

The other day it was Tyler cowen promoting it. Feels like a paid campaign to me. It'slike Quora, but with audio?

https://www.bloombergquint.com/amp/gadfly/clubhouse-success-...

I am curious to try it (android user so I have to wait) but I worry that it will have a steep curve into mass market banality. The idea of hearing / participating in an unscripted chat with a small close knit group sounds cool. But as soon as lots of people are paying attention, things will get scripted, content will get anodyne enough to avoid offending anyone and so will be uninteresting, etc. It will be interesting to see if they can find a way to scale while remaining authentic and providing something not available on every other kind of media.

Pile this on to the list of digital zeitgeists I don't understand.

> The key for Clubhouse will be in honing its algorithms so that every time a listener opens the app they are presented with a conversation that is interesting to them.

If they had no competition that would make sense, but there are quite a few platforms trying to recommend audio content to people as-is.

The current podcasts I listen to I found through YouTube. I assume they had a presence there as that's where their audience looked to find content.

I find 10-50 person rooms pretty valuable. Basically rooms where I can join the conversation, ask questions, comment on other people’s questions. They have a dinner party vibe. I had a random conversation with guy who creates and sells Shopify apps, woman who teaches a sales technique that avoids asking questions, guy who explained how to use origin stories in product pitches. Pretty good return on investment so far.

So I hadn't heard of Clubhouse before so I googled it. I didnt even click the link and Google told me;

$100m to $1b value increase in a month? What happened?

"As of" doesn't mean they raised the previous round in December. Pretty sure their previous round was like a year ago.

I think my tech predictions are required reading for everyone based on how frequently I’m wrong. Just yesterday I said “what’s so great about Clubhouse, I don’t see the point”. By doing so I think I virtually guaranteed it’s success.

Jokes aside, Ben’s argument here seems solid. It will depend on them solving discovery as well as TikTok did but they could be huge if they manage it.

I try it today, and give it up so quickly. I'm tired. Maybe it's not bad, my friends seems to like it.

Open the app first time, you'll be greet by screen that let you choose which topics you're interested and who you want to follow. I just can't bring myself to choose, because I suddenly feel "Is this yet another "productive" things I have to do? Just thinking about it make me tired already.

I have new books I bought lying around that I hardly touch, Pocket article that I rarely read(yet I save it everyday) Tutorial video I plan to watch, etc.

My answer to myself is what I need is "quiet" time, not another channel to bombard the information(no matter how good it is)in your head. The information is overloaded already.

Again, some people seems to like it, good for them then.(Anyway, I like their app icon. :)

Once clubhouse loses its exclusivity and becomes generally available, where will they be at? It's essentially just a discord clone with better marketing and hype. Or, in its most common format of 1-3 people talking and 1000s listening, it's basically FM radio. Is that enough for it to be widely successful (the "next social media platform")? I'm not convinced.

The biggest features it's got going for it once it hits GA, are that it's ephemeral and that it's live. There are several other platforms with decent UX already providing these USPs, also for free. I can see this being a live-streaming broadcast service for celebrities and influencers who already have big audiences, but not much more than that.

The FM radio thing is apt. My guess would be it also has a way to manage users and call ins. So instead of Tweet this radio personality you can log in real time. Not sure if measuring interactivity is a good thing here though.

I just wish someone would invite me. It's the cool kids table all over again, 20 years after the utter joy of "I'll never have to deal with this again". I am perfectly content running my 1 man consulting practice, researching all of the world's knowledge for that break through insight that tells me what to invent. Alone. But now, there's knowledge that's off limits to me. Lex Fridman talking to Elon Musk about God knows what. And all of it, lost to me forever, because I never quite got the hang of knowing people. Someone tell me I'm not missing anything. That my time is better spent focusing on the work that moves my needle rather than communing with...people.

It's going to be very interesting to see how clubhouse manages the toxic environment that gets created on all social media. It's one thing to go on reddit and post neo-nazi content - it's text based and it's fairly easy to remove and ban. On Clubhouse it's much more ephemeral, what do you do when a group of people rile themselves up into a frenzy and start harassing people? What happens when a bunch of tech bros start to revive gamergate and harass female reporters about "ethics in journalism"? So far the answer seems to be "Hope no one notices" which is a strategy about a decade out of date.

It's weird this article talks so much about podcasts but doesn't mention Patreon. It's a major, often primary, source of revenue for the most interesting podcasts I listen to.

I signed up and followed a few people and then... what now? The few things that are suggested to me when I log in aren't interesting, so I just shut the app. I've opened it a few times and had the same experience, so unless someone tells me about something specific I need to sign on to Clubhouse for, I don't see the need to keep opening it.

Clubhouse interests me. I don’t use social media like twitter, ig, facebook and don’t miss them. Clubhouse seems more interesting than the others. It reminds me of one of my favorite things to do on VRChat, making drum circles and singing songs. Just connecting with people for the sake of it.

Waiting on an invite though. I’d love to check it out.

I wrote a blog post about something similar. I view Clubhouse as the future of talk radio: https://vancelucas.com/blog/clubhouse-is-the-future-of-talk-...

I wonder how clubhouse would monetize its traffic. most social networks had to make the advertisement presented in similar ways to the content, e.g. twitter, instagram, tiktok. but I can't imagine clicking on and listen to a "conversation" that advertises a product...

Andreessen is really pumping the PR on this app. Reminds me of Kleiner (I think?) and Bloom Energy.

I really hope they have a record with playback at higher speed/skip speaker function. I don’t know if it will hurt their growth at this point, but it would make Clubhouse usable for me. Otherwise, there’s too much noise for the value of the signal

Clubhouse is the first app in awhile that somehow gives me negative FOMO.

JOYO: Joy of missing out

JOMO then?

Nah, the Y stands for "missing". ;D

I got really confused when this didnt start talking about tickets and epics and project management ( https://clubhouse.io/ )

This feels like a fad not a trend, but it's hard to say.

They could adapt in some way.

Twitter seemed useless at first, but once you realize the voice it gives a small class of people - and - that the media would use it incessantly and addictively - then you realize why it sticks.

Snapchat settles into chat.

WhatsApp is into 'I don't have to pay SMS in Brazil etc.

TikTok - is so ridiculously addictive it remains to be seen, but I'm wary that it will actually have staying power.

The private wave has hit so hard with Clubhouse you have to think they are going to push it hard, and with a major media push this will get really big before anything else. Like every pod at CES having a Clubhouse. A Clubhouse with every salesforce account etc.

There's an opportunity for it to become a de-facto live streaming platform for audio.

I don’t get why they don’t have an android app yet. Is it part of maintaining exclusivity, or does building an android app that challenging, especially for something like clubhouse.

I am very much an introvert but under the lockdowns I would give my left eye for random conversations with smart people, not being forced to walk on the eggshells is a big plus too

Clubhouse has been a mixed bag for me.

I love some of the regular shows there like GoodTimes, deep learning research review hosted by Andrej Karpathy etc. When I step into smaller rooms, the signal to noise ratio decreases (on topics I care about).

I felt clubhouse to be more conversational than podcasts (which are often a Q&A format). It also allow new people to participate, ask questions.

Exploration of topics and rooms is pretty hard currently. How do you discover interesting people and conversations? For me it has mostly been twitter, which is non-optimal. My second big pain point has been the FOMO nature of it. I would ideally like to consume content on my time and schedule not the other way around.

My strategy for finding interesting conversations is to follow people I meet that I find interesting. The algorithm seems to be pretty good at showing me conversations involving people I follow, which tend to be interesting.

I have a suspicion people who don’t like Clubhouse landed in the wrong rooms. My recommendation would be to explore different rooms, especially smaller rooms with < 50 people.

I have seen some technical people discussing technology such as ML, that may be interesting? But i can do the same with youtube, podcasts, etc. Is that only in iphone?

Clubhouse is just Discord rooms for "Gurus"

Agora have all the data minus all the liability! Agora being a Chinese company will have to comply with Chinese laws so yeah, no thanks.

Why is no one concerned this is going to become a platform for spreading misinformation?

The way a conversation turns into a set of people who become the authority on a topic, vs. the followers is just way too easy. It's sort of like Quora back at the beginning.

It also requires a huge time commitment that makes sense in this Covid world that once people want to get out and travel, or just return to normal meetups, the platform will either shift to a lonely class of people, or dry up completely.

For those who are Clubhouse haters and don't get it - I did a 180 on it recently: https://www.swyx.io/clubhouse-hate/

Gotten some good shoutouts on this one, so it may help with understanding why it is doing well when other apps seem to be feature superior to it. I've made my own "code of ethics" when it comes to how I embrace this trend at arms length.

I think your “some people don’t... but most people do” angle is correct. There’s quite a few negative comments in this thread, but HN posters are not at all representative of “the masses”.

I am extremely interested in finding out if/when we'll reach "Eternal September" mass usage in Clubhouse.

Make your bets!

2021:

Clubhouse: $100 million to $1 Billion valuation

Agora: $4 Billion to $10 Billion valuation

What does Agora offer that is better than its alternatives?

Not a fan of the routine anecdotal comments on Hacker News every time something blows up. We saw the same with Snapchat. Clubhouse is obviously popular and the article makes a good case why that is. Isn't that more interesting to discuss than "tried it, don't understand the hype"?

I wouldn't want to be part of any Clubhouse that'd have me as a member.

Do they even plan android release or will it stay on IOS?

I find Reddit more engaging than Clubhouse.

How is clubhouse different from discord?

VC shilling on twitter

Strategy retrospectively is easy...

How?

It's basically Discord/TeamSpeak.

Clubhouse is just that a club.

Where you are not invited.

Maybe once it opens up to everyone.

Clubhouse is just discord rooms for "Gurus"

So artificial exclusivity all over again. We tried this for the past decade.

Yea Clubhouse should be called Madhouse because it's a bunch of exclusive pseudo-intellectual narcissists huffing their own farts.

Am I missing something about this? Seems like it's just Davos in your living room for Silicon Valley types.

It's literally more limited Discord trying to market itself into existence.

That was my thought, I was wondering if it did ANYTHING that isn't already in Mumble/Teamspeak/Ventrilo/Discord-- about the only thing I can come up with is that it's probably easier to set up for non-technical users (the one place Mumble/TS/Vent fall apart at) but even there I don't think Discord loses out on that.

It was a little more like that before, say, summer 2020. Lots and lots of people have been onboarding in the last couple months, I assume because of the VC money and pressure to expand. At this time, it's less like you describe and more like "influencers" cannibalizing each other with constant rooms with a thousand or two people listening on "the success mindset" or "how to build a brand identity." I don't really log in anymore.

As the article mentions, it's not limited to Silicon Valley types, but even if it were I don't know if there's really a "just" about Davos in your living room. A direct line to the thoughts of top Silicon Valley people is a pretty powerful pitch, no?

Only if you want to pipe their words directly into your brain with no opportunity to send yours back to them. I generally decline such one-way offers.

I'm not really sure how to respond to that. You don't read books or watch Youtube?

Books yes, youtube no, except the occasional funny animal/baby video with my wife. Even books need to meet an expected quality threshold before I elect to dedicate tens of hours of my attention, and I am willing to grant it because the thousands of hours or years worth of thought put into a book are often worth the brain space consumption trade-off. I try to be very selective in the content I consume, with exceptions for pure entertainment when I need it.

And that’s what I find compelling about it. I’ve never been to Davos or worked in Silicon Valley, yet I felt like I was in that environment. I don’t expect it will last. But it felt nice.

That sounds more interesting than what it's going to become: a massive collection of literal echo chambers.

Clubhouse is the most amazing thing that happened to social MEDIA. Its a much better way to discuss even difficult subjects because it keeps most people much more humble and provide the ability to much better deal with conflict and disagreements. Most social media isnt builtt for disagreements, audio definitely is. The quality of some of these rooms like the Small Steps Giant Leaps about space technology and VC is amazing. Or the AI/ML room which goes on for days is extreme informative. Dont be a hater, try it out and DM me if you want tricks for how to curate your feed.

Small Steps Giant Leaps is great!!

Curious - what are your tricks to curate a good feed?

put your interest in your bio, delete rooms you aren't interested in in the hallway, follow people you find interesting, follow clubs. Especially remove room you arent interested in will remove the usual breakfast with millionaires snake oil sales rooms.

Thank you!

I would like a “party line” style app where moderators let people talk. Would be a lot of fun. Unfortunately normal people aren’t allowed into clubhouse (yet?) and I don’t give a shit enough to hassle someone for an invite code. But would be fun to login to a channel and be a blow hard.

I listened to a podcast recently (Blocked and Reported) where they were critiquing how journalists have been advocating for fact checkers in every single clubhouse room. An app like this isn’t news that needs to be fact checked - it’s a bunch of strangers yammering on and talking out of their ass like you do at a bar. Some people are way too uptight.

I don’t see the appeal of yet another anti-social media app. I don’t know, maybe it’s me, but I’m thinking even if I was a lonely cat lady/guy I’d not need yet another crappy app on top of Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, SnapChat or TikTok to not feel like a lonely depressed human. If I really need to take my mind off my lonely miserable life then I can already listen to a million podcasts or literally turn myself into a binge watching zombie staring at Netflix all day so I don’t have to realise what a fucking loser I am that I need an app to meet and talk to random people. Even if I was that person, I’d probably lose interest in Clubhouse as soon as the pandemic is over and I can see my shrink again.

This rant makes no sense to me. How is it anti-social to literally talk to people?

It’s not a rant. Clubhouse is a platform for wannabes and losers who like to listen to wannabes. My brutal honesty is not a rant, just just an unfiltered summary of Clubhouse and I don’t see the appeal to people who have a real social life.

My wife is on it sometimes, she goes on groups with other people and converses about various topics. It seems quite social to me, and she has an extensive ”real” social life, too. I think your attempt to boil down the essence of the app to your ”summary” is flawed.

Also, just because something is ”brutal honesty” doesn’t mean it isn’t also a rant, nor that it’s the truth.

Didn't the people who were on Facebook at the time say this about Twitter that it was for 'losers' and yet here we are.

But I agree too. There's nothing special about Clubhouse expect that it is super-hyped by the VCs, media and the techies as the next big thing and I'm not convinced.

I don't think it counts as literally talking for the same reason it is considered a faux pas to dump someone over text.

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