Comment by vyrotek | Hacker News Reader

Comment by vyrotek | Hacker News Reader

> 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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!

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