333 sats \ 1 reply \ @cointastical 7 Sep 2022 \ on: Thoughts on the disorganized nature of BTC information bitcoin
You left out Twitter, which is where well over half, ... maybe 80% of Bitcoin conversation occurs.
You also left out the web (Blog posts, including Medium), Q&A (Reddit, Quora, and Stack Exchange), sponsored content (e.g, research reports, BitcoinTreasuries.net), and e-mail (newsletter subscriptions, including Substack)
Telegram, Discord, Twitter, and e-mail ... all have a terrible problem with spambots, spam, trolling, etc. that make them almost unusable. They cannot fix this without adding a cost for getting my attention. Whether that cost is like hashcash (for e-mail), or sats (for Stacker News), I can't say what will win, but if you notice, SN has had surprisingly very little outright spamming (e.g., reflink spam, "giveaways" / promotions unrelated to bitcoin orgs, scams, etc.). So I think platforms requiring payment (in some form) will either displace legacy sites or force them to do something similar.
The problem with aggregation of content, I think, is that the aggregation method gets better, and then it becomes too voluminous. Or the scope widens, also causing the space to be too voluminous. For instance, a good chunk of bitcoin mining is now related to how bitcoin can help (or is helping) the energy industry, or "saving the environment". It's getting to be that maybe only 50% or less of new posts have nothing to do with bitcoin itself, nowadays. Much of this non-bitcoin content found on SN is still of interest to me (e.g., science, economics, some politics, etc.) and fortunately surprisingly very little shitcoining happens, but I suspect that over time SN will see more content submitted and upvoted (to the front page) by a different crowd than SN sees today.
Reddit used to be my source for info for years, but because of ghost bans, and other such nonsense, I deleted my account and haven't looked back. I'ld like someday to do the same with my Twitter account.
Hopefully SN will be able to adopt as the challenges arise such that SN continues to be the main place to keep informed about bitcoin (and some other stuff I appreciate discovering). But as far as an organized information source of all things? ... At one time I would have suggested something like a wiki. Wikipedia and such has shown me that's not a good solution either. It's a big issue to tackle.
This is great thanks and I agree with you 100%. I only left out traditional social media because the problems are glaringly obvious as you point out.
I think you are conflating aggregation with algorithmic fuckery. Proprietary rankings and bot manipulation are kept under careful lock and key because everyone has their own secret sauce to defraud investors.
This is why you "used to" enjoy reddit along with everyone else. The upvote system wasn't a bad idea before it became completely corrupted by propagandists. It did have some organic problems with hive mind but nowhere near what it has turned into.
I've been wondering lately if it is the sats themselves or the intellectual barrier of lightning / minimalist design that minimizes the spam. We should explore both in depth. But like with many things you don't have to be perfect just on the right track. The same way traditional socials spiraled out of control, this site might spiral into control!
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