PSA: Do Not Use Services That Hate The Internet

Don't make me tap the sign: app-only interfaces are not a part of the World Wide Web. As you look around for a new social media platform, I implore you, only use one that is a part of the World Wide Web.

tl;dr avoid Hive and Post.

If posts in a social media app do not have URLs that can be linked to and viewed in an unauthenticated browser, or if there is no way to make a new post from a browser, then that program is not a part of the World Wide Web in any meaningful way.

Consign that app to oblivion.

Most social media services want to lock you in. They love their walled gardens and they think that so long as they tightly control their users and make it hard for them to escape, they will rule the world forever.

This was the business model of Compuserve. And AOL. And then a little thing called The Internet got popular for a minute in the mid 1990s, and that plan suddenly didn't work out so well for those captains of industry.

The thing that makes the Internet useful is interoperability. These companies hate that. The thing that makes the Internet become more useful is the open source notion that there will always be more smart people who don't work for your company than that do, and some of those people will find ways to expand on your work in ways you never anticipated. These companies hate that, too. They'd rather you have nothing than that you have something they don't own.

Instagram started this trend: they didn't even have a web site until 2012. It was phone-app-only. They were dragged kicking and screaming onto the World Wide Web by, ironically, Facebook, who bought them to eliminate them as competition.

Hive Social is exactly this app-only experience. Do not use Hive. Anyone letting that app -- or anything like it -- get its hooks into them is making a familiar and terrible mistake. We've been here before. Don't let it happen again.

John Ripley:

So many people, who should know better, blogging about their switch to Hive on the basis of user experience or some other vacuous crap, and not fundamentals like, "Is this monetized, and if not yet, when how and who?" or "who runs this?" or "is it sane to choose another set of castle walls to live as a peasant within?"

Post Dot News also seems absolutely vile.

First of all, Marc Andreessen is an investor, and there is no redder red flag than that. "How much more red? None. None more red", as Spinal Tap would say. He's a right wing reactionary whose idea of "free speech" is in line with Musk, Trump, Thiel and the rest of the Klept.

Second, it appears to be focused on "micropayments", which these days means "cryptocurrency Ponzi schemes", another of marca's favorite grifts.

They call themselves "a platform for real people, civil conversations". So, Real Names Policy and tone policing by rich white dudes is how I translate that. But hey, at least their TOS says they won't discriminate against billionaires:

life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, regardless of their gender, religion, ethnicity, race, sexual orientation, net worth, or beliefs.

Mastodon is kind of a mess right now, and maybe it will not turn out to be what you or I are looking for. But to its credit, interoperability is at its core, rather than being something that the VCs will just take away when it no longer serves their growth or onboarding projections.

There is a long history of these data silos (and very specifically Facebook, Google and Twitter) being interoperable, federating, providing APIs and allowing others to build alternate interfaces -- until they don't. They keep up that charade while they are small and growing, and drop it as soon as they think they can get away with it, locking you inside.

Incidentally, and tangentially relatedly, Signal is not a messaging program but rather is a sketchy-as-fuck growth-at-any-cost social network. Fuck Signal too.


Update: Aaaaaaaannnnnnd.... Hive Social got popped already.


Previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously.

Tags: , , , , , , , ,
Current Music: Whale -- Eye 842 ♬

162 Responses:

  1. Via Mastodon

    I wish I could boost this louder and put flashing lights around it, damnit.

  2. Via Mastodon

    also, do not use services that are financed by Marc A.

  3. Viss says:
    Via Mastodon

    if you want a horror show, take 5 minutes and investigate the hive infra. look at the source code on the site. find their subdomains, see what tech they use. its like fyre festival but for social media.

    • Susanbee says:
      Via Mastodon

      This made me laugh, but I am sure it’s true.

    • J Neal says:
      Via Mastodon

      It's so obviously two kids in a trenchcoat.

    • William Gunn says:
      Via Mastodon

      yeah, and they're going to use VC money to buy ads to get users who won't do any of that. A key question I'm pretty sure I already know the answer to: Who's running the user acquisition program for the fediverse and what's their budget?

      More questions: Did the LAMP stack win without any coordination among OS tech developers, solely on the basis of independent server admins making independent choices?

      What org can champion the fediverse as a whole?

      • Via Mastodon

        Uh, I am not sure the LAMP stack "won" anything?

        I ran WIMP (Windows IIS MySQL PHP) at one employer.

        @bifrosty2k showed me the wisdom of FAPP (FreeBSD Apache PostgreSQL PHP).

        Presumably ONSP (OpenBSD NGINX SQLite PHP) is also viable?

        As well as other permutations.

        No org *needs* to champion the FediVerse as a whole.

        That there are *already* multiple implementations of ActivityPub, is a sign of good health!

        Also see: DNS.

      • Via Mastodon

        I think people forget how small the OSS world was, mid-90s. Not sure how big Sunsite was as a whole, but in late '96 the Linux-relevant part fitted on 2 CDs - it had Apache (beta), CERN httpd and NCSA httpd. I remember Apache winning out quite quickly. OS-wise Linux already had mindshare, free BSDs lagged due to non-free code, or maybe just less publicity. TL;DR: It's easy to converge when the pool is small.

        • Via Mastodon

          To fast forward a few years, there's no independent devs making independent choices when your distro comes with default installs.

        • William Gunn says:
          Via Mastodon

          I guess I'm just thinking that if we assume there's a pool of people who could become part of the fediverse (and that some fraction of those will donate), we end up in a better world where the fediverse gets more of those people than if Twitter or some other well-funded platform does, and it will take ecosystem-level coordination to compete for those people, because the other platforms are spending millions to get those people.

          • Via Mastodon

            Yeah, I think this is super-interesting - What's the right way to build a coordinated effort? Unfortunately I don't think the rise of LAMP gives us many lessons here.

            I'm trying to think of big open source efforts focused on UX-y things, and came up with, uh, GNOME and KDE. There *must* be some much better way of looking at this! If we're looking for historical precedents, maybe something very different?

    • Via Mastodon

      "Like Fyre festival but for social media" is most apt and cutting comment I've seen about Hive.

  4. Via Mastodon

    Yep: “There is a long history of these data silos (and very specifically Facebook, Google and Twitter) being interoperable, federating, providing APIs and allowing others to build alternate interfaces -- until they don't. They keep up that charade while they are small and growing, and drop it as soon as they think they can get away with it, locking you inside.”

  5. Rodger says:
    13
    New Zealand

    Adding “net worth” as a point of non-discrimination is peak VC culture.

    Because you know they won’t be banning people for sentiments like “you shouldn’t have children if you can’t afford them”.

  6. Via Mastodon

    Musk's Twitter takeover has been a super healthy thing for the world. He dropped the curtains that were hiding the jail cell walls and suddenly millions of people woke up.

    • moonstripe says:
      Via Mastodon

      i personally don’t think the sudden abundance of child sex advocates was very “healthy”

      • Via Mastodon

        There are a lot of things about Twitter that have been unhealthy for a long time, it's people waking up to that fact that is healthy, like the immune system finally catching on it needs to fight a disease.
        @jwz

  7. Via Mastodon

    I agree with not supporting any service that won't interconnect or work with browsers.

    But, let's not forget that the majority of twitter users were on mobile.

    In many parts of the world, mobile *is* the internet.

    Mobile only users tend to be younger, less wealthy, less likely to be white, and more likely to from outside the US.

    The flipside is don't skimp on mobile. It's essential.

    I did a poll and users here lean more to desktop than twitter. It's a huge factor in many issues.

    • neville park says:
      Via Mastodon

      I think having a lot of mobile-only users is an even *better* reason to insist on web support—so people don't even have to download an app if they don't want to.

      SMS support (like Twitter used to have) might also be nice.

    • jwz says:
      Via Mastodon

      Having sites work well on mobile is obviously an important goal.

      But while there are people in the world who don't understand that "the Web" and "Facebook" are different things... those people are wrong, deceived, and behaving against their own self interest. That misconception should not be encouraged.

      • Via Mastodon

        I think this is less an education issue about understand what is and isn't the web and more of a "many people aren't rich enough to have a desktop computer and high speed home internet service AND maintain a cellphone so they pick one." Guess which one?

        • Via Mastodon

          EXACTLY. It drives me nuts when people think someone isn’t poor because they have a cell phone.

        • Via Mastodon

          Yep but we've seen strong pushback against walled gardens in the Global South. FreeBasics comes to mind. Interesting that your argument shows how the poorest have the least say in support of an open internet, exemplifying their digital marginalisation by powerful players in their respective countries.

        • Via Mastodon

          not only are they not rich enough. Since they are only served by Cell towers, they *may not even have the option of “desktop/laptop” internet/wifi other than with hotspot. Likely numbering in the Billions of people. Mobile only.

          • jwz says:
            Via Mastodon

            A bunch of you keep trying to interpret what I said -- don't use apps that are not a part of the WWW, that is, apps that are actively hostile to the open, interoperable internet -- as "phones are bad, use desktop computers, be rich".

            And I don't know what I can do to help you with that.

            • Via Mastodon

              I didn’t interpret that, I am just agreeing that for billions of people, desktops are largely irrelevant and that’s why mobile is crucially important whether it is with a good mobile web app or an app. To be truly accessible to all we need both.

      • nup says:
        Via Mastodon

        do you remember facebook zero? in myanmar? afaik facebook arrived in a society with very little internet exposure and offered in coop with mobile providers free data only for facebook. so people got to know the "internet" only as a small bucket of rumours and hatespeech namely facebook. i agree it's important to educate people just when they can't afford the data plan imo the problem is on another level.

    • Dave Warnock says:
      Via Mastodon

      as I mostly use mobile does that mean I'm younger than thought. I'll take it as a win 🤣

    • Via Mastodon

      some of us are immigrants and we do EVERYTHING on mobile. My family in Cuba only have my niece’s phone that I send megas to from my phone. That’s the only way they are connected

      • jwz says:
        Via Mastodon

        It sounds like you're interepreting what I wrote as "don't use phones" which... it was not.

    • Doug Bostrom says:
      Via Mastodon

      Great point.

      In my neck of the woods not so long ago I fought the corner that our limited budget for app development should go "Android first, iOS second," because -equity-. The vast majority of people in places we need to reach are only able to afford Android.

      Did I win? I can answer that by noting that our rarefied group are mostly iOS users.

      And this in a -friendly- crowd.

      Obliviousness: the trace gas that shapes our climate.

      (happy ending: devs got us on 'droid)

    • acb says:
      Via Mastodon

      IMHO, app silos are a huge red flag, in the sense that the proprietor seeks to capture and manipulate the users. Web-only sites for things more complex than a simple web document are also a pain, in that navigation is awkward (I’m looking at you, Cohost). For things like blogs, feeds and social sites, there should be APIs open to multiple clients. RSS and ActivityPub are public examples.

    • Hal Canary says:
      Via Mastodon

      A good web interface can be as good as an app, for 90% of the use cases.

      • n8chz ⒶⒺ says:
        Via Mastodon

        Certainly the learning curve for app development is much steeper than that for web development (even mobile web development). I always assumed it's cheaper to develop websites than to develop apps, but the biz world prefers apps b/c more data harvesting opportunities and more monetization opportunities. The assertiveness w. which some steer users away from mobile browser suggests they view mobile web use as "stealing," akin to say tracker blocking on desktop.

        • Via Mastodon

          The downside to apps for companies is paying fees to apple or google for transactions.

          I don't know if it's quite that cut and dry.

          Mobile interface design tools designed to work through browsers are unreliable.

          If a desktop version is available and widely used I don't see any advantage to trapping mobile users in a browser-based app with all the frustrations that come with them.

          • n8chz ⒶⒺ says:
            Via Mastodon

            I don't know of anything (anything major, anyway) that's web-only, while app-only appears to be some kind of new normal.

            • Via Mastodon

              I think you are correct that there are some sinister aims in pushing people to apps. But it's not because all apps are sinister. A free open-source client like the one we have now is fine... I just want them to have even better UI. And faster sign-up processes.

              And dealing with the whole "instance" issue which is a mess frankly.

              • n8chz ⒶⒺ says:
                Via Mastodon

                The instance thing creates a two-tier hierarchy. Since everyone running a server is unrealistic for the foreseeable future, the only thing I can see resolving that would be doing everything on the client side, except things that involve more than one client, which is ultimately all messages. Maybe a mesh network of clients? And one's choice of an app or website to autoconfigure (w. one click) one's place in it.

                • Via Mastodon

                  oh god... I have this hazy memory of a peer to peer social network that worked like Napster or something... it was... NOT GOOD

                  but my traumatic memories of the olden days aren't a reason not to dream I guess.

                  • n8chz ⒶⒺ says:
                    Via Mastodon

                    Worked like Napster in the sense of being a pirating outfit? Maybe Gnutella? Aside from that I have no experience with peer to peer networks. There was that decentralized search engine called YaCy that I couldn't begin to figure out and if that's not bad enough was in Java.

                  • Via Mastodon

                    Worked like Napster or Hotline in that every computer running the software was a server. And there was little client that had message boards and things.

                    It was full of dick picks, creepy men and very questionable "offers" I feel safer on the dark web than I did trying to figure that thing out.

                  • NormaL MoDe says:
                    Via Mastodon

                    there's scuttlebutt, but on there everyone stores copies of all their friends' data

          • James M. says:
            Via Mastodon

            Re web apps vs. mobile apps: the security implications are different. If a web app is purely loaded from a web server, the server will ultimately be able to see any user data. Even if it's encrypted, anything that can be displayed in the browser can be silently sent back to the server.

            If the user doesn't want to trust the server with private data, some kind of client-side installation is needed. (Granted, now you have to trust the app developer.)

            • jwz says:
              Via Mastodon

              And where do you imagine this app is loading its data from? Someone else's computer!

              This is some crazy black-is-white upsidedownland where you think an app has *better* security implications than a web page. Not too many web pages out there exfiltrating my contacts and installing rootkits and key loggers.

              • Via Mastodon

                Is there a big difference between Android and iOS?

                At the moment iOS apps are pretty easy to tame data-wise, I feel more vulnerable to tracking when logged into google on a desktop computer since I can't pull up a list of everything as easily and look at each websites permissions for various kinds of data one at a time.

                • jwz says:
                  Via Mastodon

                  No computer is truly secure (it was a mistake to teach sand to think) but it is *way* more difficult for code in a web page to escape its sandbox than it is for a native app to do so. The native app has many more avenues to try something nefarious.

                  As for what kind of tracking and surveillance they're doing -- guaranteed that a native app is doing even more and worse than what a web page will do, and it's harder to block, or even discover.

                  • n8chz ⒶⒺ says:
                    Via Mastodon

                    You also have partial control over your web experience, you can block Javascript, with browser extensions can modify pages w. content scripts, intercept requests, save data scraped from pages. etc. A proprietary app is a black box. It even uses its own data sandbox rather than the device's filesystem. It is -possible- to develop an Android app that writes data to files, but SDK makes using invisible "app storage" a path of less resistance, cloud storage also path of less res..

                  • Via Mastodon

                    If the new social media landscape is one where "the left" (or more accurately the collection of moderate and left leaning people that made up a big chunk of twitter user) is more insulated from right wing pundits, those pundits may find themselves with very little to talk about. Twitter isn't a place to be embattled and sad. Nobody cares anymore.

                    IDK there could be a bright side to all of this.

              • James M. says:
                Via Mastodon

                Sure, the data is coming through server(s), but it could be encrypted. If key management is restricted to the client side, then it could be handled securely. In a web app, the "sandbox" may be safe from access to the local system, but the server still controls it.

                I'm talking about open source mobile apps, not proprietary.

                I'm not talking about rootkits etc. I see those as separate, flaws of the OS. While very real, those holes could in theory be fixed.

              • James M. says:
                Via Mastodon

                If you trust the server with your data, then a web app may be safe for you. If not, then you need something on the client side. For security, it has to be open source.

                Web apps and mobile apps have different threat models. There are many situations where one can trust the app developer more than the server being accessed.

    • Via Mastodon

      However, I don't see why "mobile" should equate to "app store only". Mobile has web browsers and they are fine.

    • Bodo says:
      Via Mastodon

      every customer facing project i work on that is on the internet has 80-90% mobile usage. Desktop is the exception, not the default anymore. No matter what the target market is. From teens to elderly, from US over Europe to Asia. Mobile IS the internet in ALL parts of the world. At least from the data I see. Surprised to see this is different here. Will have to run some experiments.

      • Via Mastodon

        It is strange. And I keep saying it's probably playing a role in the way that the user base is growing and skewing. Such that MORE care and attention needs to go to the mobile experience. It's just not translating as well.

        Here is my poll. It's not exactly a sensitive question so I don't think it could be that far off, but I will run it again with a call to send it far and wide if you think that might help:

        https://sauropods.win/@futurebird/109371813822243263

        • Bodo says:
          Via Mastodon

          I will post some links with different accounts and ask people I know who had posts go kind of viral here for their analytics data. I am always a bit careful with polls. Polls are often answered by very specific kind of people. Which can change the outcome by a lot.

          Let’s see what I will find.

          • Via Mastodon

            Looking forward to this, though it looks like the new poll is closer to the more typical numbers-- although still 40% are using the desktop significantly 20% of that exclusively which seems higher than normal to me.

            (I'd love to compare to the hard data. )

      • Via Mastodon

        Here is the new poll which I tried to make more neutral (and changed the order of the options) Hopefully it will get more responses... but I don't really expect it to be very different (let's see!)

        https://sauropods.win/@futurebird/109419615604714250

        • Bodo says:
          Via Mastodon

          so I now collected a couple of datapoints from people I know who have bigger audiences. And their tracking confirms your poll. A bit higher desktop usage than from ozher things I see (around 70% mobile) but I am sure this will even out if more non tech people join.

      • Via Mastodon

        By the way, the comments on the new poll, and there are a LOT had many users talking about how great the desktop is and how frustrating the app is...

        which goes back to the big thesis here: the app needs more love.

        Really we need to raise money for and hire a designer and programer for like a whole year each and have them do nothing else.

        So like at least 150k and that's being stingy. #mastodonSuggestions #ui

        • neville park says:
          Via Mastodon

          i would not recommend the official apps. they were developed quite recently, rushed out, and intentionally omit various features.

        • Via Mastodon

          Just spit balling here, but the app would need to have accessibility features baked-in that would render it more attractive than desktop in those regards. Script-less, text-only, pictures behind a link, adjustable text size and color schemes, an easy way of blocking terms and phrases, etc--

          And perhaps even Modmin stuff relating to server and instance management, based on permissions.

          Would need to be able to run the app through a briar patch like tor, without compromising the user.

          Finally, would also like to see a way to integrate discord servers with fediservers, shared Modmin rights, etc.

          150k is rookie numbers. Let's get a GoFundMe or similar going. We will need a disabilities liaison. We will need a BIPOC liaison. We're talking at least 400k. Probably 575.

          • Via Mastodon

            the previous gif is a wolf of wall street moment wherein McConaughey's character says "Those are rookie numbers. You gotta pump those numbers up."

          • Via Mastodon

            I will say that I really wish more apps would emulate Metatext’s alt-text handling. There’s a visible flag on uncaptioned images and the built-in text-extractor is great.

            (I also appreciate that the default visibility for new posts is followers-only instead of public. )

            • Via Mastodon

              I’ve been very happy with #Metatext Far superior to the “official” Mastodon app. However @metabolist just announced they’re unable to work on it for health reasons and are open to a new maintainer taking over.

    • Korny says:
      Via Mastodon

      Interesting - I started using mastodon mostly on mobile, as I was on extended parental leave. Definitely there are a few "just download a csv file" interactions! But most things worked OK.

    • Via Mastodon

      Absolutely crucial point. “Mobile Is The Internet”. Thank you for making it so eloquently. That doesn’t mean we can’t have apps that follow web standards, but it does mean we have to build good mobile apps.

  8. FoolishOwl says:
    Via Mastodon

    This is something that, as an advocate of FOSS and a libertarian socialist, has been a significant frustration. Again and again, I've seen other radicals choose "free" commercial products over open and free software and web tools on the grounds they're simpler and more polished.

    I've seen people reject XMPP, for instance, because they find it confusing that you have many different options for a client. But that's a consequence of being an open standard, and a major strength.

  9. robpennoyer says:
    Via Mastodon

    100%

  10. Via Mastodon

    It's at least worth noting that Post has a good web UI and does give posts individual URLs that can be accessed from an unauthenticated browser; it's not the kind of bad citizen Hive is. (It is also a very boring place so far and Andreessen being an investor gives me a strong sense of foreboding, though.)

  11. Krisjohn says:
    1
    Australia

    If you need to promote something I guess you have to follow people's attention, but for everything else there's a blog with an RSS feed.

  12. mykd says:
    1
    Switzerland

    Really well put. Let's hope this message percolates through to enough of those who are running around looking for new homes built on the same ground as the old homes that just started collapsing. John Ripley's comment is perfect.

  13. Via Mastodon

    There's also Tribel, and while I may be a Democrat, I've no need for an echo chanmber

  14. Via Mastodon

    “They'd rather you have nothing than that you have something they don't own.”

    🔥 this 🔥

  15. Via Mastodon

    “Return To IRC”

  16. Chris says:
    2
    United States

    Can you say more about Signal or point me to some writing on why its bad?

    • jwz says:
      20
      United States

      We click links in this house.

      • Chris says:
        5
        United States

        Haha. My bad. Missed the link. Thanks.

        • Paul says:
          8
          United States

          It's not necessary to thank a person who is being condescending to you. Nor should you feel the need to apologize for missing the link. We are all human.

          • says:
            6
            Germany

            Well, I'd consider it polite to post a short “thanks, that was the answer I'm looking for” when I get exactly that. Beside, even if you consider jwz' reply a bit condescending, it was at least helpful and certainly not below average if you've seen a couple of lime green comments on this blog.

      • killerog says:
        4
        Netherlands

        Then please give them a better description than “previously”. Now I have to check back here on a device with a mouse, because mobile has no quick and easy way to see which is which.

        • jwz says:
          30
          United States

          Well first of all, fuck you, no. It's my blog and I'll write it in the way that entertains me the most. If you don't like that, there are many other products on the market that may be a better use for your dollar.

          But second, in this case the "why is signal bad" answer was linked directly from the text saying it was bad, you jackass.

          • spammir says:
            6
            Germany

            If i pay nothing, yet i am entertained, you tricked me into infinite utility for my investment. What vile philosophical trickery.

          • Frank McConnell says:
            2
            United States

            Dear Lazyweb, what is best current practice for indicating a hyperlink in text?

            Signed, kinda missing blue underlined text

            PS I think it is done adequately here but then I'm reading this in a browser on a laptop because the browser on my phone always leaves me missing a larger screen and a keyboard

  17. doop says:
    4
    United Kingdom

    Was it Andreessen who did famously stinky shits at Netscape?

  18. Via Mastodon

    I do not like apps that have no web presence. Apps on mobile devices makes them easier tho. Still, I reluctantly download apps.

  19. Carlos says:
    8
    Canada

    My other favourite example of sites/platforms pulling the Lucy van Pelt on the public is Slack.  Way back when, a number of my clients started switching from using IRC for realtime text comms to using Slack.  "Oh, but it's so pretty.  And you can paste a link and it shows you a preview, you don't even have to click it to open in your browser!"

    I grumbled, looked around, and found lots of other people who didn't trust their app - "but we have an IRC gateway!".  And I used it, right up until they had enough critical mass that their customers wouldn't leave over it, and they shut the IRC gateway down with the flimsiest of explanations - the truth, of course, was "because we can't monetize you that way", but that doesn't look good on a motivational poster.

    And now we're stuck using Slack.

    C.

  20. SqueakyFoo says:
    Via Mastodon

    I tried signing up for Hive before I knew what it was all about. The verification emails went right to spam. Always a good sign. They were also from some ridiculous address that didn’t even look legit. That told me enough about the platform I got rid of my account almost immediately.

  21. Via Mastodon

    post-dot-news loves the web so much that they want you to save a progressive web app bookmark to your phone rather than a native app. As for unauthenticated access to content by URL, I think it's just temporarily limited so that their infra doesn't fall over.

    The VC and the "net worth" in the TOS are most definitely red flags, though.

  22. Thants says:
    Via Mastodon

    This all went wrong when people stopped used RSS. We need to just go back to RSS and websites.

    • jwz says:
      Via Mastodon

      I never stopped, so it's always coginitively disonant when people talk about RSS in the past tense.

  23. Via Mastodon

    Interesting, thanks for posting

  24. Doctor Memory says:
    11
    United States

    Not that you're obliged to gossip on our account, but I'm curious, you're in a position to know and you don't seem concerned about getting invited to the 30th NSCP reunion part on pmarca's yacht, so I'll ask: was he always this much of a reactionary, self-impressed dipshit, or is this just another sad case of a competent engineer suddenly having 1.7 billion reasons never to again have to consider the idea that he might not be the most interesting person in the room?

  25. Via Mastodon

    UX question

    Why did you use a link shortener when you could have just used the full link?

    This would work:

    https://www.jwz.org/blog/2022/11/psa-do-not-use-services-that-hate-the-internet/

    https://mastodon.social/@jwz/109417952642149234

  26. sleep says:
    South Korea

    very interesting to read that post about signal now. i know very little about them, other than the fact that the verge recently ran a fawning interview with the CEO, and nilay was exceptionally willing to accept the company's PR one-liners at face value (many of which you neatly debunk in this post some two years prior to said interview). disappointing, on several levels.

    your repeated attempts to give mastodon a better-than-fair shake got me to put in a little more effort myself, and it does seem slightly better than what i had initially experienced (the native app seems to work a bit better than the web app does). i'd still bet it's ultimately headed nowhere, but at least now i'm rooting for it...

  27. varx/tech says:
    Via Mastodon

    How would you square web-accessible social media with end-to-end encryption? Those two goals would seem to be at odds.

    (I'm writing an E2EE social media thing, and it's going to have URLs of course... but non-public posts won't be web-accessible. I'd love to make that work, but I don't think it can.)

    • jwz says:
      Via Mastodon

      Anything that is not public (like DMs) are by definition not a part of the World Wide Web, and you don't want them to be. They are a different class of thing entirely. Public things don't need to be encrypted (though TLS is nice). They're *public*.

      But I don't see why DMs couldn't have URLs anyway; the world is full of URLs that don't work unless you're logged in, and this would be one of those cases where that's appropriate.

  28. Joe Wood says:
    Via Mastodon

    and let's promote and contribute to equivalent federated services that set to accomplish the same thing.

  29. Via Mastodon

    holy shit. They consider net worth a protected class?!?!

  30. Via Mastodon

    “Mastodon is a mess right now” 🤣

  31. Via Mastodon

    #ux

    (Tapping on sign)

    re: If posts in a social media app do not have URLs that can...

    be user-friendly for the reader without clicking on something like

    /b/yj62

    that would be helpful.

  32. Oliver Hunt says:
    Via Mastodon

    or those that have urls, but are only usable via an app (seriously the amount mastodon pushes the app is obnoxious) - and hi! hopefully on mastodon I'll remain unblocked :D

  33. Alan Ralph says:
    United Kingdom

    I'm keeping an eye on Mastodon and the other decentralised platforms, they are definitely getting some things right and I'm hopeful they'll evolve and improve.

    Not surprised that the app-only mindset is alive and well in 2022. I suspect that part of the reason why web accessibility is still an afterthought is because companies (and governments) deem anyone who can't afford a smartphone to be unworthy of consideration or care, along with the poor and anyone with a disability.

    As for Marc Andreeessen, he's a real-life Conehead now, so I guess he doesn't feel the need for a human-suit anymore.

  34. tfb says:
    5
    United Kingdom

    Which services don't hate the internet?  For instance I have more-or-less given up looking at Twitter threads because it's effectively impossible via a browser unless you're logged in (perhaps there are browser extensions which defang this: I have a bunch of extensions but none that work).  Reddit is essentially hopeless on a mobile device as they really, really want you to have their app.  I have to employ people with Facebook accounts to look at Facebook for me if I need information which is on it. And so on.

    A guess at an answer: anything run by people who want to get rich from it will end up hating the internet.  Anything not tun by such people can't scale. That leaves federation which also seems not to work very well due to what looks like large-scale Dunning-Kruger infection among the implementors based on posts here in the last few days.

    • AA says:
      4
      United States

      If you're using iOS try using the app "Apollo" for Reddit, the official app is ungodly bad.

      • tfb says:
        5
        United Kingdom

        A different app than the default app is ... not the answer.

        • AA says:
          2
          United States

          Glad I tried to help you

        • Kyzer says:
          2
          United Kingdom

          But it is. This is what interoperability is about. There's nothing wrong with preferring a third-party app for a website. It's the logical extension of adding add-ons and userscripts to your user agent, the web browser, so it renders the site how you like it.

          Reddit's current UI is awful and they blatantly are trying to draw users into their app by making the default web experience so bad, as well as buying Alien Blue in order to destroy it. But you don't have to use it. There still exists https://old.reddit.com/ and https://i.reddit.com/ andmore importantly you can add ".json" to any URL for machine-readable form. That's a lot better than the locked-down, monetized, rate-limited Twitter API, or the actively hostile Youtube that tries to obfuscate where the video's coming from. Reddit's open API means there are a wealth of apps that are better for browsing Reddit than its own app or its own website

    • coco says:
      United States

      If you're on Android, the Fenix2 app for twitter makes reading threads much better. It cuts out everything that visually clutters threads and just leaves text.

    • bh says:
      4
      United Kingdom

      You can try a nitter instance from https://github.com/zedeus/nitter/wiki/Instances for a better twitter browser experience.

    • Not Frank says:
      United States

      I've found forcing old.reddit.com (sometimes with desktop mode) is ... passable for reddit on mobile. Also sometimes necessary on desktop.

  35. Via Mastodon

    This is a great ping e that hasn’t occurred to me. When there’s an interesting thread on Twitter/FB/Mastodon I can point to that to folks who aren’t active on those platforms and still continue the conversation.

    Having solely app-based access is a terrible decision.

  36. Piper Carter says:
    Via Mastodon

    thank you for this. Hive is being promoted as a Black owned social media platform. So is Fanbase. Do you have an analysis for Fanbase? A challenging part of this conversation is about ownership & the aspect of access & race. Black folks, BIPOC folks, marginalized majority folks are looking for safe spaces & many folks are wanting to support spaces owned by marginalized majority folks. The idea of the belief in ownership is a challenge. Building regenerative economies is an active discourse.

  37. Carlos says:
    3
    Canada

    "Don't use <service>'s proprietary app, use this other app that talks to the service's proprietary API" is not really a solution to "this proprietary service is not open and does not interoperate" problem.

    A couple people seem to have thought it was an improvement... ?

    C.

  38. Bill Paul says:
    3
    United States

    So, I know I'm just an unfrozen caveman and your modern ways frighten and confuse me, but it's always seemed to me that most "apps" are really just web browsers that only browse one web site. In the worst cases they're little better than desktop shortcuts; they're just excuses to shove a logo in peoples' faces.

    Now I know they're not all like that, but it makes it hard to understand what constitutes a practical app use case in the first place.

    With things like Danger Sidekick/Hiptop, which helped launch the whole app craze, you had problems in that a) while you did have network connectivity, the bandwidth was very limited (they did GSM/EDGE only) and b) the device hardware just wasn't powerful enough to run a full web browser. So you were forced to strip things down into single-purpose programs.

    Obviously those problems have been solved: we now have fast web browsers on every device. But if that's so, what's the benefit of also having an app for every web service? I do think there can be advantages in some cases because HTTP is not the best way to solve every problem. Maybe you can give the user faster response with a standalone app that directly connects to your database, or faster video streaming speed with your app's custom codec. If this doesn't matter to them, then maybe they can just keep using a browser, and you can get the best of both worlds.

    The only problem with this is it means that as the service provider you have to support two different access mechanisms, and now management will start clutching its pearls over how much this might affect the budget. In the end you may have to mollify them by promising there's extra money to be made by *checks notes* the collection and morally dubious exploitation of user data.

    I'm also not thrilled with the proliferation of apps into places that arguably don't need them. You want to put money in the parking meter? Use an app. Want to ride the bus? Use an app. Want to pay your rent? Use an app. Want to collect your unemployment check? Use an app. Want to do your laundry? Use an app. Again, I may be an unfrozen caveman, but it seems to me you can't make it so that everybody needs a smartphone (or a computer) to do every little thing if not everybody has one. And everybody does not.

    • jwz says:
      12
      United States

      The number of things that you can do with a native app that you can't with a web page impersonating an app is pretty small, but used to be much larger. And many apps, possibly most these days, really are just a frame around a web-view.

      The cynical among us might suspect that the primary motivator for rolling out a native app is that it enables levels of surveillance and data exfiltration that are much more difficult when running inside the main web browser app.

      But doing that would be wrong.

      • Rusty Brooks says:
        3
        United States

        My favorite anti-pattern is when, for no real reason except that they're written by different people, the app and the website have different useful features and neither is a subset of the other.  So if I want to do X I need the app and if I want to do Y I need the website.  2 that come to mind right off the bat are Strava and Myfitnesspal, but that's because I used to work for the company that owned Myfitnesspal and a competitor to Strava.  (Our strava-competitor probably had similar problems but I don't remember because I didn't like using it)

  39. mattl says:
    1
    United States

    I see a number of artists starting to use Hive because the sign up process is familiar to them. ie.. They can open the app and get the same username they have elsewhere and not have to pick a server, join a waitlist, etc.

    It has a ton of problems of course. It wants access to all of your photos, for one.

  40. Pepi the Fox says:
    Via Mastodon

    I used to love playing with the twitter api....

  41. Via Mastodon

    there may be reasons to reject post.news, but they seem to have a URL for every post. For example: https://post.news/article/2IC5bMbdFU7FiuiB9xNfUE5zjrb

  42. tonyc says:
    3
    United States

    Thanks for this.  Elon's choice to light billions on fire to be the main character in a Downfall reboot is a precious chance to break out of Twitter's network effects and migrate to a newer platform that maintains as many of Twitter's advantages without its many weaknesses.  I don't know that such a platform exists, but at least pointing out which new platforms aren't it is a valuable service.

    • sleep says:
      1
      South Korea

      the best answer at this point is mastodon, which is a shame, because it’s a fairly crummy answer

  43. MistaTwist says:
    Via Mastodon

    I just deactivated my account and uninstalled it - thanks for the heads up!

  44. Via Mastodon

    for a second i was worried that JWZ had just conflated the world wide web with the Internet

  45. Gible Fog says:
    2
    New Zealand

    Ehh. I remember the internet before the World Wide Web, and frankly I'm not at all convinced that everything must be webified. I think it's much more important that 'net services be interoperable than be required to display everything they have to the world.

  46. United States

    I created a post.news account and mastodon about the same time.  Post.news feels a lot like quibi for text that happened to be in the right place at the right time.  

    • jwz says:
      1
      United States

      Heh, I said yesterday, "I see Metafilter linked to my blog, and it is still compulsory for comments to lead off with pearl clutching about both my 'tone' and color scheme. Never change!"

  47. ChoHag says:
    United Kingdom

    *mic drop*

    Listen, or learn. It's your choice.

  48. jwz says:
    United States

    _hyly:

    damn it sucks that the site i like was destroyed by someone with capital exercising their arbitrary will over it to try and make a quick buck. anyway time to move to this venture capital funded app

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