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Comment by JSavageOne | Hacker News Reader

I'm not going to download this because there's no web application.

It's clear that they intentionally did not release a web application in order to maximize app installs and thus maximum control over their users (eg. scrape your contacts, push notifications, and most importantly to show you ads).

In 2023 nobody wants to install yet another app, so this is a clever strategy to optimize for app installs. Not going to work on me though. If it's just a Twitter clone only accessible to mobile users, then content quality is going to be low because nobody is typing thought provoking, in-depth analysis from their mobile phones.

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"Nobody wants to install a new app" in a thread about how 10 million people just installed a new app feels like peak Hacker News obliviousness.

People have no problem installing new apps if they actually offer something.

Just like people have no problem installing new software on Windows or buying new games for their PlayStation.

Instagram used to be app-only.

Since Threads is basically another view into your Instagram account, it makes some kind of sense to start with mobile.

I think they also rusted it out because of the rate limits this week.

It doesn’t ask for contacts. It pulls everything from Instagram

The app does ask for permission to get your contacts, according to the app store page

> In 2023 nobody wants to install yet another app

Sadly I think that's just you and me. If something requires an app then I'm most likely not going to use it. I can't/won't deal with more apps (or subscriptions).

I actually far prefer for companies to be straight up with their "Here are our hard requirements on how you use our service, take it or leave it" over the previous iteration which was "We're going to do whatever you want us to do until we have leverage and then we're going to screw you". This is exactly the pain point that reddit continually goes through where the company is laissez faire, the shit hits the fan, they change the rules and everyone screams. I'm fine downloading an App, I used the twitter App, one in one out seems fine to me.

Oh and also, the vast vast majority of the time there was no thought provoking in depth analysis on twitter. That's not what's driving engagement in these sites.

>It's clear that they intentionally did not release a web application

It doesn't even have a login-switch feature. They didn't release a web application because this is the M of MVPs.

Pro accounts don't like mobile-only experiences

Deny access to contacts and push notifications, use DNS based ad blocker should take care of those problems.

Are people actually typing thought provoking, in-depth analysis into Twitter?

Twitter is full of interesting niche people talking about their favorite subjects. For example, there is no better way to follow the war in Ukraine.

Based on reading the Institute for the Study of War's daily updates, I got the impression that they rely a lot more on Telegram. E.g. the most recent post https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offens... has 90 t.me links and 22 twitter.com links.

Since for the ISW folks, following the war in Ukraine is kind of their job, I think that's a pretty good approximation of the two platforms' relative importance in that area.

The ISW folks maps tend to not really reflect reality so well.

Every time someone lands troops somewhere they mark it as a territory gain, even if the area is still ‘disputed’.

It’s deeply annoying - small thrusts and retreats or probing attacks by either side get marked as territory gains/losses, which is entirely inaccurate and usually the situation has changed by the time ISW posts it.

The moment you want to upload a simple screenshot, they will demand access to all your files. That's how today's OS security works.

latest versions of iOS is actually pretty good about this, at least for Facebook Messenger. It will let you choose specific photos to upload, and the app can only read those. And afterwards you can even revoke those permissions.

Not on iOS you can limit access to specific photos for a while now.

There actually is high quality content in Twitter threads. Of course most content on Twitter isn't high quality though.

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