Comment by AstroJetson
1 year ago
Yep, it will be easier to cut the X habit off. I'll miss Nitter, but I'll be happier in the long run.
I was a Reddit Apollo user, and it was easier to wean off of Reddit when I had to use their horrible app or their website. Even using old.reddit has been painful.
I lurk Reddit for local news without ever logging in. They recently started restricting anonymous users to a limited amount of comments on long threads. That finally motivated me to switch to Firefox plugins that re-layout old.reddit.com to be usable on mobile. Thanks Reddit for the much improved free web experience.
Interesting because the content I get on X is far, far more valuable than HN + Reddit + Facebook combined.
It’s the only place you can follow subject matter experts and get their real time thoughts.
I think people on HN just don’t know how to use Twitter?
If you want to use it effectively, you have to utilize lists. Curate your own lists or find someone you respect and follow their lists.
If someone is posting things you don’t enjoy then remove them.
Frankly, if X is causing you to be angry/depressed then a big part of that is on you.
Nearly every subject matter expert I followed has left. Scientists, mathematicians, journalists, authors, comic book people, and so on.
What I now see are people with demented political opinions about women and American politics. It sucks.
> Scientists, mathematicians, journalists, authors, comic book people, and so on.
Intersting, I haven't had a single person leave. People make a big fuss about leaving, but the traffic you get from Twitter is too attractive to leave.
> What I now see are people with demented political opinions about women and American politics. It sucks.
As I said, that's because you're not using lists. It's literally impossible to see posts from accounts you don't like if you're using lists.
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i follow about a thousand physicists, mathematicians and computer scientists, try searching keywords like “quantum mechanics” and then “follow all” when recommended. Really no place like twitter for math/science content
> far more valuable than HN + Reddit + Facebook combined
What do you learn from 280 characters at a time?
The 280 character limit was raised to 4,000 in February of 2023.
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Mostly I follow artists who post pictures, so the character limit doesn't matter.
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Getting more value from tech twitter these days.
I mostly follow L7+ SWEs, creators of popular tech like dynamoDB, and professors in AI/systems/DB/PL. The ones who tried to move to sites like mastodon eventually came back, or are now using twitter much more than these alternatives. There's been more top SWEs and professors especially in AI and systems sharing content there.
Noticed as well that twitter is also more optimistic about tech than HN, especially with subcultures like e/acc, learning/building in public, etc.
> Interesting because the content I get on X is far, far more valuable than HN + Reddit + Facebook combined.
That has been my experience as well. Easily. I learned a ton about LLMs, open source projects, growth hacks, marketing tips, a lot of great from the trenches lessons. Best site on the web.
Yep exactly. I’m also a big formula 1 fan and it’s the only place where I can get insight from engineers who are involved in the day to day of building race cars for ex.
Reddit’s f1 subreddit has really degraded in quality unfortunately (just people posting clickbait articles).
It’s the same for investing, politics, cars, poker and everything else I enjoy.
> It’s the only place you can follow subject matter experts and get their real time thoughts.
I have no use case for anyone else’s “real time thoughts”. Neither does almost anyone else.
Twitter’s one trick is FOMO for news junkies.
I follow subject matter experts on Mastodon/ActivityPub. Scientists, engineers, librarians, mathematicians, doctors, programmers, designers, artists, musicians, retro computing enthusiasts, amateur radio operators, etc. etc.... They've been migrating away from Twitter for a long time, because it has shown us how horribly "millions of people in the same room" works out, especially when a sociopathic algorithm rewards conflict and sensationalism at the expense of thought/consideration and kindness.
Why is this reply getting downvoted?
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I'm guessing
1) HN readers don't like Elon Musk (I don't like him either) so they don't like Twitter
2) I implied HN readers are doing something wrong (as any other human being, they don't like being told that)
3) I (slightly) insulted the intelligence of HN readers by saying they didn't know how to use Twitter and they really don't like that
I've just gotten downvotes and no one's responded with any actual rebuttals so I don't think what I've posted is wrong.
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