Well, Jeremiah, I'll be here supporting your writing endeavours for as long you you choose to provide 'em, but TIkTok is where I shall draw the line, because I hate it there.
I always take a social media break for all of January, and I've been mostly off Twitter for a while. I basically just use it if something I'm reading links to it, but I did notice that if I allow myself to scroll, it's almost useless due to the amount of spam and garbage accounts. Twitter is basically the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone of social media....there was a giant catastrophe and now the only thing left are curious interlopers and mutant wolves.
The thing that sucks is that Twitter is still really good in many instances. The site is just the sum of its posters and there's still a lot of really good posters, crazy discourses but in a fun way, and insightful people there. It's still a way better product than Threads or BlueSky, purely because it's where the action is.
That's what makes it so terrible that the site is moving in the direction it is. There's clearly still value, but it's going to bleed out over time.
Google Plus was the best of social sites. The best of our best, the best that anyone will ever build or ever love. So pray for the next Guardian of our growth and choose it well, for if it be not truly blessed, then our designs are surely frivolous and our future but a tragic waste of hope. Bless our best and adore it for it doth bear our measure to the Cosmos, unless those f***ing t***s at Google kill it too.
I never got to use Google Plus - feels like the kind of thing that could have succeeded if they rolled it out better. But Google is well known for killing good ideas.
I often see comments along the lines of "why do I have to buy a subscription if I only want to read this one piece?" Do you think there could be a viable model for that?
(I think Substack could be a good venue for testing this, by leaving it up to creators if they want to sell individual pieces for a price lower than the subscription but that perhaps when summed up, could make up for fewer subscribers.)
This idea has been tossed around by people in the media for a while. People used to think 'microtransactions' were the future of media, with the model you describe - throwing 50 cents for an individual article or something like that.
To my knowledge, it's mostly not been tried and when it has been it failed pretty fast. I think there's a psychological barrier to payment where going from free to paid is a big jump - even if you're only paying 10 cents or something. That's a tiny, tiny obstacle in theory but in practice it's actually a big obstacle to get people to cross the boundary of 'free'.
Well, Jeremiah, I'll be here supporting your writing endeavours for as long you you choose to provide 'em, but TIkTok is where I shall draw the line, because I hate it there.
I always take a social media break for all of January, and I've been mostly off Twitter for a while. I basically just use it if something I'm reading links to it, but I did notice that if I allow myself to scroll, it's almost useless due to the amount of spam and garbage accounts. Twitter is basically the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone of social media....there was a giant catastrophe and now the only thing left are curious interlopers and mutant wolves.
The thing that sucks is that Twitter is still really good in many instances. The site is just the sum of its posters and there's still a lot of really good posters, crazy discourses but in a fun way, and insightful people there. It's still a way better product than Threads or BlueSky, purely because it's where the action is.
That's what makes it so terrible that the site is moving in the direction it is. There's clearly still value, but it's going to bleed out over time.
Google Plus was the best of social sites. The best of our best, the best that anyone will ever build or ever love. So pray for the next Guardian of our growth and choose it well, for if it be not truly blessed, then our designs are surely frivolous and our future but a tragic waste of hope. Bless our best and adore it for it doth bear our measure to the Cosmos, unless those f***ing t***s at Google kill it too.
PS: RIP John Steakley
I never got to use Google Plus - feels like the kind of thing that could have succeeded if they rolled it out better. But Google is well known for killing good ideas.
Well I, for one, hope you continued success and endless reader growth. I love your blog!
Now if you'll excuse me, I'll just be out here reading DignifAI backwards.
I often see comments along the lines of "why do I have to buy a subscription if I only want to read this one piece?" Do you think there could be a viable model for that?
(I think Substack could be a good venue for testing this, by leaving it up to creators if they want to sell individual pieces for a price lower than the subscription but that perhaps when summed up, could make up for fewer subscribers.)
This idea has been tossed around by people in the media for a while. People used to think 'microtransactions' were the future of media, with the model you describe - throwing 50 cents for an individual article or something like that.
To my knowledge, it's mostly not been tried and when it has been it failed pretty fast. I think there's a psychological barrier to payment where going from free to paid is a big jump - even if you're only paying 10 cents or something. That's a tiny, tiny obstacle in theory but in practice it's actually a big obstacle to get people to cross the boundary of 'free'.
Adin Ross has shown he's only functionally literate so maybe these people thought they could pull a fast one on him.