alt Hacker NewsYou want to read what service XYZ offers, but you dont want to do it within the constraints of service XYZ.
If you dont want to follow the constraints of service XYZ, you dont have to consume its content.
The market would dictate that if X content consumers found it too inconvenient to consume from X and that would result in a significant drop in demand, the X content producers would stop producing their content on X.
I dont like many things about X -- random ads, bookmark folders being a paid feature, enshittification of the algorithm if you god forbid linger over some controversial video or content.
But i keep coming back to it because its the best way to follow the minds of brilliant techies. The basic sign up flow that i did years ago was basically a no-op.
I suspect that for most people, creating an account is basically a few button clicks (thanks OAuth) and they dont mind creating an account.
Replies
> If you dont want to follow the constraints of service XYZ, you dont have to consume its content.
I am 100% okay with this. I don't want what Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook offer, so I no longer have an account these platforms. But I do have an account with my local electric utility. It's my only option. And if I want to find information about an outage, it's posted on their Facebook page. I'm 0% okay with this.
Last time I tried creating a Twitter account, I couldn't even complete the sign-up flow before getting automatically banned pending giving them my phone number. After that, I went to like and follow things. My account was then banned again for suspicious activity.
> I suspect that for most people
Most people do not use X.
X usage is down year over year.
The smartest people I know don't post there anymore.
They want to consume XYZ, written by A,B,C and posted on twitter.
Do A,B,C agree with the changes to loginwall their content ex-post-facto?
Twitter promised an open publishing platform with extensive API access. They're the ones who broke the (social) contract, not us.