The Drop-In Audio App Clubhouse Is Dying
forbes.com
forbes.com
This showed two things very early - first that the app had nothing going for it. The thing driving the conversation were people not tied to clubhouse (unless you plan on kidnapping Elon he’s going to leave and do his real work). Second - that even the relatively mature early adopters weren’t able to avoid being toxic.
The author claims that clubhouse suffered from growth- no it didn’t, it suffered from being a bad app that people gave up on. It’s not that people joined it’s that the good people left.
I also find it kind of funny that he wanted to host a chat about productivity. Quite honestly joining a chat app to talk about productivity sounds like an obvious indicator of procrastination from actual productivity- it’s just not a good thing to be doing in general and people should be avoiding that type of content.
However, I sobered up quickly. I think, for me, the main reason was that the app got flooded with annoying people. "Influencers", who love nothing more than themselves, seemed to be in control. And there was no real way to meet interesting people. I turned off the notifications first, and then I stopped looking at the app altogether.
Audio rooms are great for unique, impromptu content - more collaborative than a post or a video but less staged than a podcast. Unfortunately audio-only discovery is hard and slow.
I'm starting to get tired of this axiom. From where I'm standing, lots of successful products were built around a single novel feature. For Instagram it was filters; for Youtube it was the ability to post a video on the internet; for Google Docs it was the ability for multiple people to write in one document simultaneously?
Perhaps some of those features are broader, or harder to replicate, or maybe the founders were able to pivot quickly—but I'd like to have those more nuanced conversations.
Maybe Clubhouse can find that spot that helps them benefit from not having the baggage of Twitter etc. but seems like they’ve been slow to capitalize while everyone else is catching up.
We are well past the tip of the hype cycle for Clubhouse and it still can't keep up with the hype, competitors and its own growth. Everyone has copied them and left them in the dust.
After 4 months of asking this question [3], I am still unconvinced as to why Clubhouse is worth $4B.
[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27098330
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26524603
What were their biggest mistakes?
Violating GDPR and common-sense privacy norms by demanding access to users’ contact list?
Still not having a content discovery system?
Spamming users with notifications to the point that they disabled them?
Waiting a year to make an Android version?
Integrating with Twitter and Instagram instead of building a direct messaging system?
Building creepy features (you can see how recently your mutual followers have been online) before finding real product-market fit?
Making the founders and a16z partners the most popular users by encouraging new users to follow them by default?
Founders talking on the app for many hours every day, and getting VIP treatment in each room they were in?
Not having a way to listen to convos anonymously (especially a problem for public figures who get asked to comment whenever they join a room) ?
Not having recordings, effectively signaling that Clubhouse conversations are disposable?
Dismissing complaints from early users about poor moderation and harassment on the app?
Trying to “monetize” too early (they aren’t monetized, but they do let users tip each other; an odd feature to prioritize over content discovery or DMs) ?
Raising too much money?
Turning down Twitter’s $4B acquisition offer?
Did I miss anything?
ouch.