Hacker News Reader

Comment by TechBro8615 | Hacker News Reader

Agreed. When Instagram added stories, my entire Snapchat friendlist disappeared within a month and they were all posting to Instagram instead. I think the same will happen here. But it will be lopsided toward people who are already more popular on Instagram than they are on Twitter, which is a lot of social/non-professional audiences. I expect that Twitter accounts with large followings will continue posting there, and Twitter will continue to dominate the professional niches (coding twitter, medical twitter etc.) while the more general shitposting and possibly even politics will move to Threads.

I say this as someone who is no big fan of Meta.

View on HN

> Twitter will continue to dominate the professional niches (coding twitter, medical twitter etc.)

I couldn't speak about "coding twitter" in general, but Apple developer Twitter in specific has almost entirely migrated to Mastodon (as well as a large contingent of the Apple news media). I see a lot of non-Apple devs there too.

I think this is a biased view held by people who migrated to Mastodon. In my experience on Twitter, the coding topics are as lively as ever, particularly around Web development. Personally, the introduction of the "For You" page has triggered me (very low following, previously inactive) to interact with accounts just because the algorithm does such a good job of surfacing relevant niche technical content for me.

Me: I couldn't speak about "coding twitter" in general

You: I think this is a biased view held by people who migrated to Mastodon.

Me: ???

Fair enough :) I suppose we agree then.

I don't know about Apple Twitter myself, but Web Dev Twitter seems more active. Infosec Twitter was a notable niche that loudly proclaimed they were moving to Mastodon but in fact many of them are still quite active on Twitter.

Yes and that might actually be a better outcome. Keep the narrow lines of shared concentration spheres bumping state of the art who did what releases on Twitter and have the more social social media noise join on Insta where thats already happening. Not even sure I would notice a change if that was the way it played out.

> people who are already more popular on Instagram than they are on Twitter, which is a lot of social/non-professional audiences

This is regional/network-effect based.

I've seen it situated the exact opposite opposite direction in some locales.

I do wonder how much stickiness Twitter has for professional niche communities. Don't they also enjoy shitposting? Isn't what makes it kinda work -- the interconnectedness of the platform?

> I expect that Twitter accounts with large followings will continue posting there, and Twitter will continue to dominate the professional niches (coding twitter, medical twitter etc.)

Coding maybe, but I think Musk's perceived hostility towards the trans community is going to drive medical and educational Twitter to the first viable alternative, and they will serve as catalysts to peel off other professional groups.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com