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Comment by AYBABTME | Hacker News Reader

Alright, so twitter is terrible because its 'broadcast' instead of 'communities', and you don't like 'broadcast' but you like 'communities', so twitter should go away.

   a) "I hope Twitter genuinely ceases to be."
   b) "I want a product that enables me to build and participate 
   in communities[...]."

Having a product that enables b) doesn't mean a) must happen. Why come to that conclusion. Because you don't like participating in it, it should cease to be?

I don't get how people come to conclusions like this. It feels very self absorbed to conclude a) from b). Maybe I'm just allergic to opinion pieces with hyperbolic titles.

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I don't want to speak for the author, but an argument could be made that a product that:

1) Is massively popular; and

2) Has design flaws that actively sabotage conversation

... could lead to a situation where "B would be better if A went away," due to network effects. No matter how good an alternative B you build, people will keep on suffering with A despite its limitations, because that's where all the other people are. The existence of A sucks away oxygen that B needs to grow.

Twitter doesn't have a design flaw, it sets out to do what it wants and it does so spectacularly. Twitter is a platform for announcements not for conversations (although many try to use it for that very thing).

People who think twitter is a conversation platform are #doingitwrong. Period. People who try to use twitter for conversations and get angry when it doesn't work well or some random stranger barges in and starts hurting their feelings obviously need to realize that there are a ton of other platforms that solve their problem. Namely message boards, any form of chat (irc, IM, etc), blogs, etc.

> People who think twitter is a conversation platform are #doingitwrong. Period.

If millions of people insist on using your product as a conversation platform, it is a conversation platform, no matter what you intended it to be.

A thing is what it is.

Then why does it need to go away? It's obviously ok at conversations if millions of people use it that way.

No, it's not "obviously ok" for conversations if "millions of people use it that way". What kind of strange thought process leads to that conclusion?

It's only "obviously ok" if (a AND b), where:

(a) "millions of people use it that way"

(b) it's productive and beneficial when used that way.

The (a) is only enough to show that Twitter serves a need people have for certain coversational structure (short messages). Doesn't prove that it's the best tool imaginable tool for the purpose or thats it's the pinnacle where evolution in such networks stops.

Actually, this very thread started with a FA saying that it's not (b).

People don't generally voluntarily use a service unless it is beneficial to them in some way. It's not like millions of people are being forced to use Twitter for conversations.

Edit to add: also, I didn't try to "prove that it's the best tool imaginable tool for the purpose or thats it's the pinnacle where evolution in such networks stops." I just said it's ok.

>People don't generally voluntarily use a service unless it is beneficial to them in some way.

People are not always the best to judge what benefits them. Case in point: everything from Bush, to heroin addicts, to fast food, to Justin Bieber.

Back to Bush again. Thankfully we have Gauleiter coldtea to bark out orders...

Did I ever ordered you to do anything?

Agency effect. People would use something else if met their needs better and had as many users. (e.g. Facebook vs. Myspace)

That explains why a new user would choose Twitter today. It doesn't explain why people started using it for conversations in the first place, years ago when the network was new and small.

That's kind of non sequitur, isn't it? Thats like saying Myspace is doing a good job of giving users what they want now, because at some point in the past it did.

  A thing is what it is.

That depends on what the definition of “is” is.

Ah, but that depends on what the definition of ""is" is" is

The unescaped inner quotes made me cringe...

Ah, but that depends on what your definition of ““is” is” is.

Ah, but that depends on what your definition "\"is\" is" is.

I hope this makes you feel better!

And that depends on what your definition of "\"" is.

And that depends on what your definition of "\\" is.

People use twitter for announcements and then for comments on those announcements. Very few people have actual conversations. When a conversation does happen, it's usually the root poster agreeing (or disagreeing) with the person that tweeted at them. I don't see anyone going to twitter with the initial intent of conversing with someone. Nobody goes onto their computer and says "Hey I'm gonna go message this person on twitter so we can have a conversation"

Twitter isn't a conversation platform

Tell that to my mobile phone provider, who no longer accepts email as a viable support request path, but insists on me starting up a conversation with them on twitter or facebook (I don't have facebook, so that leaves twitter), requiring private information (so I have to 'follow' them first, and they have to 'follow' me in return), is one D away from exposing private info and in general totally unsuitable for the purpose.

So because your mobile phone provider is incompetent twitter is a bad platform?

Who is your provider btw? That sort of bad acting should be named and shamed (on a platform like twitter perhaps?)

It was merely meant as an illustration of why some people hold 'conversations' on twitter. The provider is Vodafone.

One simple solution: send them an old school registered letter. They'll have to read it, or at least sign for it. In that letter you can let them know how displeased you are, and announce that you will a) continue to send registered letters and b) will change telco as soon as you can.

Not so much a solution or even a workaround, more of a way to take a stand.

You're just flat out wrong. That's why there's a tab dedicated to replies. Twitter conversations can be incredibly interesting and benefit all participants by being public. Twitter's setup hugely encourages @ing people in your tweets.

Except conversations are badly broken. So many people don't hit the actual reply, so conversations get cut off, often restarted, and thus become fragmented, which makes them hard to follow and participate in. Sometimes it works. Often it doesn't. I think this is what the OP was talking about.

But this is not a problem of the platform, but of how users are using the platform. I rarely have conversations on twitter (i.e. most are just a couple of replies long at most) but I occasionally have a 20+ post. If you hit proper reply, it works. If you don't, it doesn't (or does really badly), but this is a user fault, not a platform fault.

If users have difficulty properly using the platform, the platform is at fault. An arbitrarily naive user should never have to fight the platform to do what he wants.

I don't think I agree. If we view twitter as a tool, an arbitrarily naive user can chop his hand with an axe.

Very accurate analogy.

Also consider when there's say four people tagged in a conversation, and then someone needs the extra characters to make their point and they remove one of the names, then that person loses the context too.

Also, conversations look different when you're looking at them from one of your lists, or if the people you are following are different than the people I follow.

So many clunky issues that you need to be on top of for it to make sense, and this is what's lost on the general person.

I guess it depends on which Twitter client one uses, I've never had a cut-off conversation with Echofon.

Vast, vast majority use twitter.com or the Twitter mobile apps.

This is one of the many examples of Twitter not knowing what Twitter is. Twitter is a product that was a success in spite of the efforts of its founders.

> I don't see anyone going to twitter with the initial intent of conversing with someone.

They're you're either blind or not looking very hard.

Twitter is a conversation platform. A shitty one perhaps, but one nontheless.

Conversation (yes, often about announcements) is the main thing I use twitter for. To me twitter, at its best, is basically a giant irc channel with some filtering features.

Now you've seen one. I think you're confusing emergent with wrong, tbh.

totally agree. at least you can have someone moderate channels on irc though.

>it sets out to do what it wants and it does so spectacularly.

That sounds post hoc. It, of course, is what it is and does what it does, but do you have any evidence that this result was well-calculated or planned?

Have you intentionally left out Facebook in your list of alternatives? Because I think that is where many discussions have moved to, and it's pretty good for that. Articles posted by news pages have kinda-threaded comments, and Facebook's trademark "Like" button fits in well, too. I think that's a good example of how sites can evolve (so Twitter could, too).

This. The way Alex uses Twitter now (tweeting links to his blog posts) is exactly how someone of his stature should use Twitter.

Twitter is something that missed its potential. They created something that is/was incredibly powerful, but actively undermined it in wacky ways.

IMO they could have been the killer app. That potential fell a little short and it's just another marketing funnel for TV people.

Sorry to be pedantic but perfectly executing a flawed design doesn't mean the design isn't flawed.

I agree twitter is not suitable for conversations, and also don't understand why it must go away. Like you said, it does one thing and it does it well.

Exactly. Shotgun-blast your puerile thoughts to your dozens/hundreds/millions of followers. Don't bother reading any responses it might garner—they're going to be just as base.

Now you're in the habit of just shotgunning statements into the crowd, so when you do the same thing on Facebook, you've forgotten how to engage in a more lengthy, rational discussion.

Or, even worse, you've grown up with Twitter and don't understand that people can have lengthy, meaningful conversations via the internet.

Basically because of this Twitter has been a place to share "interesting" links, pictures, jokes, and complaints. There's no discussion, no thought, no ability to back-n-forth. Worse is everything is very public so I have to be super duper careful that what I say doesn't get back to me professionally. There is no "private community" or anything. I find twitter useless except as a means to scream really loud not caring if anyone hears it.

There is no shortage of intelligent, rational material on Twitter. It's all about who you follow. I choose to not follow anyone who posts junk. It is true that I can't do anything about foul responses except just ignore them.

I'm pretty sure you'd be hard pressed to find any actual effect on conversational skills from the existence of a fucking short messaging site!

YMMV, but I have fairly long and extended conversations on Twitter all the time.

They're almost invariably not with tech people, though.

That's a bit like saying "I wish cell phone B would go away, because I prefer cell phone A, and if cell phone A was the only one people could buy, it would be cheaper for me to buy because of economies of scale."

No, it's like "I wish cell phone B would go away" because I prefer cell phone A, and I think cell phone B is POISONOUS to community and discussion, and leads to a worse society.

The trouble is that "worse society" is defined by the preferences of the speaker, not the aggregate preferences of everyone in society including the thousands (millions?) of users contently using Twitter in ways the speaker dislikes.

>The trouble is that "worse society" is defined by the preferences of the speaker, not the aggregate preferences of everyone in society including the thousands (millions?) of users contently using Twitter in ways the speaker dislikes.

Yeah, and what's the issue with that?

The very idea behind a "society" is that its members take certain decisions about whats OK and what's not. Not everybody has to agree, but everybody can try to convince society for what he thinks it's best or what should be stopped.

That "millions are doing it" is also not an argument. 2/3 of Americans did smoke, and yet it's now banned in most public places and looked down upon. Thousands of businesses did "seggregation" too.

What Alex does is start a discussion and voice his dislike and wish for X to stop. He doesn't rule over anybody, and doesn't force people to stop X with violence.

So I see no problem there.

I don't see how that's problematic at all. If my ideal society is different from that of most other people, it still doesn't mean I'm not entitled to my own opinion.

I'm not suggesting that he's not entitled to his opinion and to voice it. I just think that it's a poor justification for action, and it's also slightly troubling for someone to earnestly desire a service with which millions of people are happy to disappear because it would make that one person happy.

For all we know these persons might be even more happy NOT using the service, or using something else or better in it's place.

That's, by the way, is his whole point.

Just people people are OK using X now, doesn't mean wanting to take X down is bad, or will necessarily hurt people.

I think it's more like cell phone A can't even be produced because of economies of scale.

Has design flaws that actively sabotage conversation

I've never thought of Twitter as a platform about having a conversation. Its a strange mix of a soapbox and some messaging but its inherently a public medium with the ability to have a public conversations but thats not its focus, its why brands love it, but its not Snapchat/Facebook or Google+.

>Having a product that enables b) doesn't mean a) must happen. Why come to that conclusion. Because you don't like participating in it, it should cease to be? I don't get how people come to conclusions like this. It feels very self absorbed to conclude a) from b). Maybe I'm just allergic to opinion pieces with hyperbolic titles.

No, it's simply that you ignore the fact that he didn't state his opinion as a conclusion in the form: (b) -> (a), nor he claimed (b)->(a) is some kind of deduction by itself.

He just stated (a) and (b), which are independent thoughts. The link, if any, is his belief that social networks who don't work with communities are inherently bad (thus (a)).

Why they are bad? That's what he provides his arguments about in the whole f... article.

I suspect a) is more a response to his perception that Twitter is unique in the large amount of harassment it hosts.

I like Twitter precisely because it's a broadcasting mechanism. I choose to follow people/organizations that are smarter or more in the know than me.

I never directly communicate with people on Twitter.

Twitter doesn't need to go away. I feel I'm not missing out on much by not using Twitter. Facebook is sort of forced upon me because I'd miss on a bunch of social activities if I didn't use it. With Twitter it exists and sometimes I use it. My life is not negatively impacted by avoiding it.

The article is shallow and points out the obvious characteristics of Twitter. It's a waste of time to read.

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Ok, i'll bite

Because twitter boosts "negative social behavior" (wtf? by whose definition?) you want a platform that allows people to report natural disasters, broadcast their products/movements, report corruption, communicate with their fan base, etc. to die?

Also, let's all ignore that fact that twitter is used by a ton of government dissidents living in totalitarian governments to broadcast the oppression that occurs there.

I'd like them to use a more open platform. I can get rss feeds of the tweets, but if Twitter drops the ball at any point all that communication infrastructure dies with it. Businesses aligning with your use case, especially a twitter user (who represents nil profit individually) is a fleeting thing.

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