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Comment by pkaler | Hacker News Reader

I completely disagree. This is the classic Silicon Valley echo-chamber view of Path. Path is not made for the Silicon Valley technorati.

Path is more like iMessage than it is like Facebook or Twitter.

I go for a run. No one knows I'm going for a run. I post to Path. Now if I get mugged, my sister will know where to dispatch the cops to.

I post a photo of a family member. I get a "so-and-so visited my Path" notification. I can then go and chat with them about the photo cause I know that they have seen it.

I go to sleep. My friends check my Path before they SMS me to make sure they don't interrupt my sleep.

The problems it solves for me:

- Did so-and-so see that photo I posted? They can view it on their own time. Once they've seen it I'll have a conversation with them about it.

- I live on my own. My family knows where I am if I accidentally disappear.

- I am asleep. Don't wake me up.

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Pardon my ignorance, but with the exception of knowing who views your photos, how does Path solve those problems any better than Facebook or Twitter? If anything, posting the same information to the more widely used networks would yield better results, as you have a wider audience. It's a shame the big networks have that advantage/lock-in, but that's just the nature of social networks I guess.

For what it's worth, I don't live in California (yet) and I don't presently use any social networks.

Speaking as someone completely outside of the SV echo-chamber, I completely agree with this article.

Path and Google+ are both attempting to solve niche, edge case problems. Their fragile position is only exacerbated in the context of Facebook and Twitter, both and which solve those problems for most people already.

Google+ Circles are far too much like hard work. This leads to apathy and disengagement.

Path doesn't have any users. That is its death knell.

seriously you need path for all that stuff ? i've got a better solution for every one of your pain points:

- call so and so, go have a beer, take control of your life and have an actual social conversation with someone instead of waiting for technology to let or not let you have this conversation

- if you're really in fear of accidentally disappearing (which is really unlikely unless you live a very dangerous lifestyle) just geolocate your tweets or facebook status updates, they probably are more frequent than path updates

- you don't wanna be woken up: put your phone in silent mode or turn it off, that's way less clicks or swipes than using path!

it amazes me how some people try to find problems where they are proven easy solutions.

I go for a run. No one knows I'm going for a run. I post to Path. Now if I get mugged, my sister will know where to dispatch the cops to.

How will they know that you got mugged?

You wallet is linked up to your iPhone which auto-tweets once the wallet is emptied.

Jokes aside, if you have daily contact with someone and they don't answer your calls / don't show up, you know where to look.

So a day later, someone will come looking for you? That is probably not helpful.

The "tell someone where you're going" rule is for trips longer than running. It's if you go on a two-day bike tour and aren't back by the third, or if you're going backpacking for a week and aren't back in 10 days. It doesn't do much for a quick jog in populated areas; a passerby will notice your corpse long before anyone you know thinks to figure out your running route and go look for you.

You are right.

The beauty is that most real world users won't give a damn that not just friends and family, but the state would know where I went for a run as well - if they so wanted to know.

Scares me. So thumbs up for them users, but it ain't for me.

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