>I keep hearing about Scuttlebutt for a long time but haven't seen anyone actually using it? Why?
It's called Scuttlebutt, meaning it can never be remotely popular enough to function as a worthwhile social network.
It's called Scuttlebutt, meaning it can never be remotely popular enough to function as a worthwhile social network.
Good for them, for once I might be able to try actually try it.
But having something "photoshopped" is a bad thing. Interesting. :)
As it stands, I turn my nose at stuff like Cockroach DB.
When it's a social network?
"Hey guys, have you seen Dave's new post on Poopypants?"
Scuttlebutt has a context and a meaning behind it. People might hear it without knowing the context, think "that it's a weird name, why is it so?", and then judge whether they like it or not. But to just hear the name and claim that it is inappropriate/bad/not-to-be-used because it reminds you of something that has nothing to do with the original context is ridiculous.
Orgs spend millions on naming/branding because they know a name that doesn't hit right to the ear is going to be at a disadvantage. The vast majority of folks aren't going to bother giving your product a second thought if it doesn't appeal to them or has a negative connotation in their head right off the bat, regardless of the name's deeper relevance or origin.
If Scuttlebutt had an amazing feature that had a viral component to attract people, was easy to use and had no roadblocks for distribution, it would likely succeed, regardless of the name (like github).
But it's not. Scuttlebutt is a complex system, requires users to understand concepts like public keys and distributed systems, content discovery literally involves chasing other people around the internet to spread the gossip to you, the client was primitive, the development team had a size of one, etc, etc, etc... Those factors are way more relevant to understand why it hasn't taken off. Even if Scuttlebutt had a perfectly "appropriate" name, it wouldn't matter.
To put it another way: "Glimpse" is a fork of GIMP, and the author forked only because of the name. How many people actually cared enough about it to switch? How many people left Photoshop and started using "Glimpse" because that was the tipping point? Or the inverse: look at the whole Twitter -> X "branding". How many people left Twitter because of the name change vs because of the other changes since Elon took over?
But usually FOSS projects don't get renamed at all, or if they do the renaming causes so much drama that kills the project. So nothing changes, also not obscure design choices - and they remain niche.
Was it holding back mindshare growth?
Why greasemonkey" and "tampermonkey" didn't change their names?
And greasemonkey and tampermonkey are not really mainstream, nor do they make money as far as I know.
Besides, the original criticism of Scuttlebutt was "it will never catch on because it has a silly name", not "it will make money". By making it about "making money" you are moving the goalposts a bit, aren't you?
Operating a social global network, even decentralized, is not possible without money, if you are aiming to get mainstream adoption(which was the main question/goal here). But you are very welcome, to proof me wrong.
Butt in the name will absolutely make the project a joke and cause it to misfire. As a fellow midwit I only just heard of the project and dismissed it before I got to the technical pain in the arse you describe it being in other comments.
Butt, lmao. Now Mastodon has disowned the term they should start calling their messages toots.
I get to make n-many "midwit" decisions in life and retain a certain success envelope / gradient. I'm happy for this to be one of them.
Just think about all of the everyday decisions being made just like this. People passing over your resume because they don't like your font, etc. This kind of petty little thing bears an absolutely astronomically impact on the deterministic evolution of the universe.
While this might not be the only issue I wouldn’t doubt that the name might prevent a larger audience.
Just because the name says exactly what the product does and what it's for, that doesn't automatically mean it is good. In fact, imo it is bad in a lot of cases.
Do you think Instagram would have gotten as popular if it was named FlexGallery, or if Nextdoor was named SpreadRumorsActVaguelyRacistForum, or if Twitter/X was named PopularityContestShortMessagesAndBadNewsSourceSpaceWithSomePorn?
I personally would say "no" to all of those, and it isn't just because the names get unnecessarily long and ugly. McDonalds would never rename itself to Cheap Passable Fast Food Restaurant.
As for the rest, they just miss [...]Factory and [...]Controller prefixes, and then they truly would become typical Java classes.
A name must not be even remotely silly, else it will be laughed out of the (already crowded) room.
I mean, it's an English word, for sure. I have never once in my many years heard someone actually say it seriously. Maybe a handful of times when someone was purposefully trying to be quirky.
Also, all the freaking time when I was in the US Navy.
They're saying precisely that and they're 100% right, and it seems you're missing a lot of things.
It's a social network. Its only value is in it having people using it and coming back.
Just try and imagine any person in your IRL circles (who's not on HN) actually using a social network with butt in its name. I seriously can't believe you see no issue there whatsoever. A teenager. A young artist. A YouTuber. "Follow me on TikTok, Instagram, Scuttlebutt and Poopypants". I dare you to find a creator willing to say these words.
Or if you just hang out with smart, like-minded tech-savvy middle-ages people who see past these things, then great, we have a new "social network" for smart, like-minded tech-savvy middle-aged people.
Sounds great to me. The hard part is keeping the scammers away. If a ridiculous name can do that, I'm up for it.
Clearly the presence of a sequence of four silly letters isn't in and of itself disqualifying. Native speakers often won't even register the juvenile bit inside it.
My only surprise here is that "scuttlebutt" doesn't work that way for other native speakers. It must be just my dialect or circles then, because it's an ordinary word for me which subsumes the "butt" within it (like I'm certain "button" does for you). But I guess it's not universally like that and the word is odd or rare enough that it doesn't do the same for others.
With your examples the butt sounds are mixed in so they don't stand out as much.
People will get used to it.