27 ms·

From 2006 to 2014 I owned my own platform. Several actually. But I turned them down after it became a lot of work to maintain. At the time, it wasn't so obv

From 2006 to 2014 I owned my own platform. Several actually. But I turned them down after it became a lot of work to maintain. At the time, it wasn't so obvious the web was dying, but in hindsight I probably helped kill it. In the beginning the web was so new, and growing so fast, with new things, amazing sites, and more people getting online. Like all things in life, competition arises, and better sites started getting much more of the market share. People's expectations for what a website could offer rose tremendously, and would abandon a site if it wasn't up to snuff. Sites needed to have ever improving visuals, better content, better people, better interactivity, better everything. And I couldn't keep up with it. Users went from being happy to try out something new to dismissive and bitter. More and more it felt like work to try to make them happy, to keep building more and better things. And that's exactly what happened. The Internet became work. It's why we all have to be paid to come to work and build the Internet. No one does it for free, because it's a thankless grueling job. The only websites that survived were the ones that made money, and could afford to use that money to hire people. Google, Facebook, Myspace, Stumbleupon, 9gag, and even Something Awful became money oriented rather than community oriented. They had to, or else. The advice to "Always Own Your Own Platform" is a euphemistic way of saying make a whole company out of your site and underpay the only employee (you) for ever. The reason we don't own our own platform anymore is because it's soooo annoying to do so. It wasn't an accident.

gjs278 4y ago
jlfyhilfyu 4y ago
While the damage is severe, I don't think it's permanent. Mastodon is far from a powerhouse, but is chugging along happily with a slowly growing user base. Matrix arrived just in time to help prevent Slack and Discord from becoming the defacto real-time communication systems for open source projects. Even SA is starting to heal now that it's out from under lowtax and his bullshit.
- sneak 4y ago
  Slack and Discord are the de-facto realtime communication systems for open source projects, though. I wish it weren't so.
- rubyskills 4y ago
  It's funny because you could argue that slack and discord replaced IRC. I wonder if we will have cycles or if commercial hosted solutions will always win this arms race.
  - throwaway14356 4y ago
    one could argue irc has improved by the platformists abandoning it.
  - asddubs 4y ago
    unless you happen to own freenode/libera.chat, you don't own your own platform on IRC either. same for mastodon, unless you happen to own the mastodon instance you're on, you don't own it. And the old web had plenty of platforms too, tripod and geocities were platforms as well. You could take it a step further still and say that unless you have a server that's sitting in your own basement, you don't own your own platform, since any hosting provider could decide to pull down your site as well. it gets real lonely if everyone does own their own platform, and it certainly wasn't the case in the old web either (though it was definitely more common to own more of your own platform). Still, I don't really think this is the defining feature of the old web. I think the level of commerce is much more important, something like ao3 feels old web, and that's because it's a user-centric platform, rather than business-centric
    - Zak 4y ago
      This is where federation matters. I can choose where I host a Matrix room or Mastodon account and other people using other service providers can interact. It's even possible to move a Mastodon account from one provider to another without losing contacts, though this looks to have some rough edges. I don't think everyone should necessarily own their platform, but it's very valuable to have the option to migrate anything that's a critical part of your identity or business to a different provider.
Method-X 4y ago
For most regular non-tech people this is true. I think it’s best to control your own platform but you can still leverage Twitter, YouTube, Facebook, etc to grow your brand and make sure they’re onboarded to your own platform of sorts.
- FormerBandmate 4y ago
  Videos on YouTube will get 800x more views than views on yourownvideowebsite.com (assuming you aren’t a major Hollywood studio). Donald Trump went from 90 million followers on Twitter to 3.2 million followers on his own Twitter clone, and he has such a loyal following that people literally committed treason for him. Network effects are impossible to ignore
  - winternett 4y ago
    Trump was a TV celebrity well before Twitter... That's not a good example. These days YouTube does nothing to promote posters that aren't rich and/or famous already. Having my own site and embedding my YT content is the only thing that helps me to be visible amongst a sea of celebrities who are already popular and promoted for free on the front pages of social sites like Twitter and YouTube.
  - spencerchubb 4y ago
    That is such an incredible example. If Donald Trump doesn't have strong enough if a brand to overcome network effects, nobody does lmao
  - webmaven 4y ago
    > Donald Trump went from 90 million followers on Twitter to 3.2 million followers on his own Twitter clone, and he has such a loyal following that people literally committed treason for him. Network effects are impossible to ignore You're not wrong, but please note that those are Trump loyalists that followed him to a service that Trump didn't actually use until quite recently: https://www.pcmag.com/news/trump-makes-first-post-on-truth-social-months-after-launch https://www.pcmag.com/news/trump-makes-first-post-on-truth-s... It kind of seems that far from being ignored, network effects were the main reason Trump was using Twitter in the first place.
stitched2gethr 4y ago
> People's expectations for what a website could offer rose tremendously, and would abandon a site if it wasn't up to snuff. Amazon.com is basic text and image elements on a white background. The full-feature sites often just look like blown up versions of the mobile sites. I believe there are multiple issues with owning your platform but I'm not sure this is the defining factor, at least anymore.
laurex 4y ago
Does no-code make this better or worse?

gjs278 4y ago

jlfyhilfyu 4y ago

While the damage is severe, I don't think it's permanent. Mastodon is far from a powerhouse, but is chugging along happily with a slowly growing user base. Matrix arrived just in time to help prevent Slack and Discord from becoming the defacto real-time communication systems for open source projects. Even SA is starting to heal now that it's out from under lowtax and his bullshit.

sneak 4y ago
Slack and Discord are the de-facto realtime communication systems for open source projects, though. I wish it weren't so.
rubyskills 4y ago
It's funny because you could argue that slack and discord replaced IRC. I wonder if we will have cycles or if commercial hosted solutions will always win this arms race.
- throwaway14356 4y ago
  one could argue irc has improved by the platformists abandoning it.
- asddubs 4y ago
  unless you happen to own freenode/libera.chat, you don't own your own platform on IRC either. same for mastodon, unless you happen to own the mastodon instance you're on, you don't own it. And the old web had plenty of platforms too, tripod and geocities were platforms as well. You could take it a step further still and say that unless you have a server that's sitting in your own basement, you don't own your own platform, since any hosting provider could decide to pull down your site as well. it gets real lonely if everyone does own their own platform, and it certainly wasn't the case in the old web either (though it was definitely more common to own more of your own platform). Still, I don't really think this is the defining feature of the old web. I think the level of commerce is much more important, something like ao3 feels old web, and that's because it's a user-centric platform, rather than business-centric
  - Zak 4y ago
    This is where federation matters. I can choose where I host a Matrix room or Mastodon account and other people using other service providers can interact. It's even possible to move a Mastodon account from one provider to another without losing contacts, though this looks to have some rough edges. I don't think everyone should necessarily own their platform, but it's very valuable to have the option to migrate anything that's a critical part of your identity or business to a different provider.

Method-X 4y ago

For most regular non-tech people this is true. I think it’s best to control your own platform but you can still leverage Twitter, YouTube, Facebook, etc to grow your brand and make sure they’re onboarded to your own platform of sorts.

FormerBandmate 4y ago
Videos on YouTube will get 800x more views than views on yourownvideowebsite.com (assuming you aren’t a major Hollywood studio). Donald Trump went from 90 million followers on Twitter to 3.2 million followers on his own Twitter clone, and he has such a loyal following that people literally committed treason for him. Network effects are impossible to ignore
- winternett 4y ago
  Trump was a TV celebrity well before Twitter... That's not a good example. These days YouTube does nothing to promote posters that aren't rich and/or famous already. Having my own site and embedding my YT content is the only thing that helps me to be visible amongst a sea of celebrities who are already popular and promoted for free on the front pages of social sites like Twitter and YouTube.
- spencerchubb 4y ago
  That is such an incredible example. If Donald Trump doesn't have strong enough if a brand to overcome network effects, nobody does lmao
- webmaven 4y ago
  > Donald Trump went from 90 million followers on Twitter to 3.2 million followers on his own Twitter clone, and he has such a loyal following that people literally committed treason for him. Network effects are impossible to ignore You're not wrong, but please note that those are Trump loyalists that followed him to a service that Trump didn't actually use until quite recently: https://www.pcmag.com/news/trump-makes-first-post-on-truth-social-months-after-launch https://www.pcmag.com/news/trump-makes-first-post-on-truth-s... It kind of seems that far from being ignored, network effects were the main reason Trump was using Twitter in the first place.

stitched2gethr 4y ago

> People's expectations for what a website could offer rose tremendously, and would abandon a site if it wasn't up to snuff. Amazon.com is basic text and image elements on a white background. The full-feature sites often just look like blown up versions of the mobile sites. I believe there are multiple issues with owning your platform but I'm not sure this is the defining factor, at least anymore.

laurex 4y ago

Does no-code make this better or worse?