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?
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.
The comparison to podcasts is to be "the thing that you listen to while doing something else".
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.
[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
Quora ended up being like if Yahoo Answers and LinkedIn had a baby. I expect Clubhouse to go in a similar direction.
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.
I've heard it described as Twitch Chat minus Twitch, just the Chat.
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.
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.
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.
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
Taking a page from the LinkedIn playbook
150% my exact experience. I don't get 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.
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.
They're too lacking in self awareness for that, moreover, this is not remotely a threat.