[HN Gopher] Clubhouse's Inevitability
___________________________________________________________________
Clubhouse's Inevitability
Author : jger15
Score : 130 points
Date : 2021-02-15 15:58 UTC (7 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (stratechery.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (stratechery.com)
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| Andreessen is really pumping the PR on this app. Reminds me of
| Kleiner (I think?) and Bloom Energy.
| iujjkfjdkkdkf wrote:
| I am curious to try it (android user so I have to wait) but I
| worry that it will have a steep curve into mass market banality.
| The idea of hearing / participating in an unscripted chat with a
| small close knit group sounds cool. But as soon as lots of people
| are paying attention, things will get scripted, content will get
| anodyne enough to avoid offending anyone and so will be
| uninteresting, etc. It will be interesting to see if they can
| find a way to scale while remaining authentic and providing
| something not available on every other kind of media.
| ucm_edge wrote:
| I do see some value in Clubhouse. My spouse has been using it to
| hold open conferences with other professors, but they're seeding
| the room with a number of pre screened academics, their grad
| students, postdocs, etc. Then it's open for those that want to
| drop it.
|
| It's nothing you couldn't have done with Ventrilo way back in the
| early 2000s, but I guess CH has a brand and people just browsing.
| It also seems inevitable though that their kind of content will
| remain a minority and it comes down to if CH will offer you the
| discover tools you need to weed through all the crap to find the
| discussion room on the topic you personally give a shit about.
|
| Also apparently a bunch of top ranked academics got to hear me
| curse bilingually because my spouse was talking and rolled into
| the kitchen right as the drain hose came off the garbage disposal
| and dumped dirty water on my face. Loving the new garbage
| disposal though.
| ketamine__ wrote:
| > but they're seeding the room with a number of pre screened
| academics, their grad students, postdocs, etc.
|
| And only those that have iPhones?
| [deleted]
| allknowingfrog wrote:
| I was very confused until I realized that this is not about the
| project management solution (https://clubhouse.io/). Did someone
| forget to register a trademark? I get that these are separate
| industries, but the potential for confusion seems to exist. I
| couldn't start an audio platform and call it "GitHub"...could I?
| swyx wrote:
| For those who are Clubhouse haters and don't get it - I did a 180
| on it recently: https://www.swyx.io/clubhouse-hate/
|
| Gotten some good shoutouts on this one, so it may help with
| understanding why it is doing well when other apps seem to be
| feature superior to it. I've made my own "code of ethics" when it
| comes to how I embrace this trend at arms length.
| thundergolfer wrote:
| I think your "some people don't... but most people do" angle is
| correct. There's quite a few negative comments in this thread,
| but HN posters are not at all representative of "the masses".
| jariel wrote:
| This feels like a fad not a trend, but it's hard to say.
|
| They could adapt in some way.
|
| Twitter seemed useless at first, but once you realize the voice
| it gives a small class of people - and - that the media would use
| it incessantly and addictively - then you realize why it sticks.
|
| Snapchat settles into chat.
|
| WhatsApp is into 'I don't have to pay SMS in Brazil etc.
|
| TikTok - is so ridiculously addictive it remains to be seen, but
| I'm wary that it will actually have staying power.
|
| The private wave has hit so hard with Clubhouse you have to think
| they are going to push it hard, and with a major media push this
| will get really big before anything else. Like every pod at CES
| having a Clubhouse. A Clubhouse with every salesforce account
| etc.
|
| There's an opportunity for it to become a de-facto live streaming
| platform for audio.
| diamondhands wrote:
| Comparing businesses/companies to meme stocks is the future, no
| doubt. Clubhouse is definitely inevitable, but I think the reason
| some people think it's overhyped is due to the incredulity of its
| popularity over it being simply a feature. Like, if someone built
| iMessage, for instance, and the whole world responding like the
| iPhone just launched. I think it just goes to show how low our
| collective human bar for real magic has fallen. Culture comes
| first, and I've never seen more beautiful memes than what the
| guys over at lot2046.com have been building (especially the
| recent update to their ark 1 trailer). Only time will tell when
| humanity will grow to understand how deep magic can go, and maybe
| respond more objectively to CH, which is just a feature. It
| answers the What as much as any billion dollar features companies
| do, like Uber, for instance. What we use to share ideas. What we
| use to hitch a ride. But the Why, that's a magic I think is
| largely absent nowadays. Why are we here? Who are we? Do you guys
| know any companies out there pursuing that in its crosshairs
| instead of simply scaling features?
| perseusprime11 wrote:
| I find Reddit more engaging than Clubhouse.
| alliao wrote:
| Agora have all the data minus all the liability! Agora being a
| Chinese company will have to comply with Chinese laws so yeah, no
| thanks.
| deeeeplearning wrote:
| Am I missing something about this? Seems like it's just Davos in
| your living room for Silicon Valley types.
| Nowado wrote:
| It's literally more limited Discord trying to market itself
| into existence.
| Firehawke wrote:
| That was my thought, I was wondering if it did ANYTHING that
| isn't already in Mumble/Teamspeak/Ventrilo/Discord-- about
| the only thing I can come up with is that it's probably
| easier to set up for non-technical users (the one place
| Mumble/TS/Vent fall apart at) but even there I don't think
| Discord loses out on that.
| fullshark wrote:
| That sounds more interesting than what it's going to become: a
| massive collection of literal echo chambers.
| ganstyles wrote:
| It was a little more like that before, say, summer 2020. Lots
| and lots of people have been onboarding in the last couple
| months, I assume because of the VC money and pressure to
| expand. At this time, it's less like you describe and more like
| "influencers" cannibalizing each other with constant rooms with
| a thousand or two people listening on "the success mindset" or
| "how to build a brand identity." I don't really log in anymore.
| SpicyLemonZest wrote:
| As the article mentions, it's not limited to Silicon Valley
| types, but even if it were I don't know if there's really a
| "just" about Davos in your living room. A direct line to the
| thoughts of top Silicon Valley people is a pretty powerful
| pitch, no?
| heurist wrote:
| Only if you want to pipe their words directly into your brain
| with no opportunity to send yours back to them. I generally
| decline such one-way offers.
| SpicyLemonZest wrote:
| I'm not really sure how to respond to that. You don't read
| books or watch Youtube?
| heurist wrote:
| Books yes, youtube no, except the occasional funny
| animal/baby video with my wife. Even books need to meet
| an expected quality threshold before I elect to dedicate
| tens of hours of my attention, and I am willing to grant
| it because the thousands of hours or years worth of
| thought put into a book are often worth the brain space
| consumption trade-off. I try to be very selective in the
| content I consume, with exceptions for pure entertainment
| when I need it.
| sumanthvepa wrote:
| And that's what I find compelling about it. I've never been to
| Davos or worked in Silicon Valley, yet I felt like I was in
| that environment. I don't expect it will last. But it felt
| nice.
| m4tthumphrey wrote:
| So I hadn't heard of Clubhouse before so I googled it. I didnt
| even click the link and Google told me;
|
| > Clubhouse is an invitation-only audio-chat social networking
| app launched in 2020 by software developers Alpha Exploration Co.
| As of December 2020, it was valued at nearly $100 million. On
| January 21, 2021, the valuation hit one billion US dollars.
|
| $100m to $1b value increase in a month? What happened?
| carlosdp wrote:
| "As of" doesn't mean they raised the previous round in
| December. Pretty sure their previous round was like a year ago.
| ayewo wrote:
| Here's a more detailed take on CH's growth:
| Clubhouse has 6 million registered users, up from 600,000 in
| December 2020. Clubhouse is currently valued at $1
| billion (up from $100 million in May 2020) Clubhouse
| has raised over $10 million to date. Over 180
| organizations and venture capitalists have invested in
| Clubhouse to date. With its $1 billion valuation,
| Clubhouse is now a Unicorn startup, joining the ranks of Uber
| and AirBnb. Clubhouse is currently ranked #5 in the App
| Store under the "Social Networking" category. Clubhouse
| officially launched in April 2020.
|
| Source: https://backlinko.com/clubhouse-users
| cblconfederate wrote:
| The other day it was Tyler cowen promoting it. Feels like a paid
| campaign to me. It'slike Quora, but with audio?
|
| https://www.bloombergquint.com/amp/gadfly/clubhouse-success-...
| looneyxp wrote:
| Clubhouse is just discord rooms for "Gurus"
| looneyxp wrote:
| Clubhouse is just Discord rooms for "Gurus"
| [deleted]
| heurist wrote:
| On one hand, I get it, especially in the covid era when social
| interaction is curtailed. On the other, I am really damn tired of
| hearing about it. It seems like Clubhouse's membership is
| comprised of people who either want to be followers or
| influencers, neither of whom I am all that interested in meeting
| or hearing talk for several hours. And the intention is
| apparently to replace or supplement a podcast diet, but I have
| yet to find a podcast that is more valuable to me than
| audiobooks. The only live speakers I've seen and learned anything
| from were academics. Maybe they are on Clubhouse or will be
| eventually? I haven't used it so maybe I'm missing something.
| mindfulplay wrote:
| I am a bit appalled by the diluting nature of 'tech' in these
| newfound tech companies. This doesn't sound like a tech company:
| more like what Quibi did as a media company but thought of itself
| as a tech company.
|
| At least with Uber and AirBnB you could excuse such tech company
| label (even though they are mostly legal-oriented companies with
| a fake tech company air).
|
| You know you are in a bubble when a live audio podcast startup
| passes for a tech company and has too much hype built around it.
| thewarrior wrote:
| And the company doesn't even build the audio broadcast bits but
| just wraps a third party SaaS SDK.
|
| Shows how much of success is connections and marketing.
| chanmad29 wrote:
| Uber and AirBnB are just legal companies? Never saw it that
| way, but that said, would those labels not easily apply to FANG
| as well? Half of the effort is spent on fighting lawsuits that
| take aim on their market positions.
| ThomPete wrote:
| Clubhouse is the most amazing thing that happened to social
| MEDIA. Its a much better way to discuss even difficult subjects
| because it keeps most people much more humble and provide the
| ability to much better deal with conflict and disagreements. Most
| social media isnt builtt for disagreements, audio definitely is.
| The quality of some of these rooms like the Small Steps Giant
| Leaps about space technology and VC is amazing. Or the AI/ML room
| which goes on for days is extreme informative. Dont be a hater,
| try it out and DM me if you want tricks for how to curate your
| feed.
| jelliclesfarm wrote:
| Small Steps Giant Leaps is great!!
| max_ wrote:
| How is clubhouse different from discord?
| Fordec wrote:
| VC shilling on twitter
| craigds wrote:
| I got really confused when this didnt start talking about tickets
| and epics and project management ( https://clubhouse.io/ )
| TedShiller wrote:
| The problem with Clubhouse that Clubhouse doesn't want to admit
| is that it's all about who's talking. Nobody cares who's
| listening.
| Kiro wrote:
| Not a fan of the routine anecdotal comments on Hacker News every
| time something blows up. We saw the same with Snapchat. Clubhouse
| is obviously popular and the article makes a good case why that
| is. Isn't that more interesting to discuss than "tried it, don't
| understand the hype"?
| nindalf wrote:
| I think my tech predictions are required reading for everyone
| based on how frequently I'm wrong. Just yesterday I said "what's
| so great about Clubhouse, I don't see the point". By doing so I
| think I virtually guaranteed it's success.
|
| Jokes aside, Ben's argument here seems solid. It will depend on
| them solving discovery as well as TikTok did but they could be
| huge if they manage it.
| cm2012 wrote:
| I am a strong sell on ClubHouse at a $2b valuation. Just like
| Medium and Quora, once the masses are allowed on, the noise will
| get too high and the signal will get lost.
| enos_feedler wrote:
| Twitter is full of noise yet somehow I get decent enough signal
| to be a daily active user. Does Clubhouse achieve this
| independently or is this a hard problem and Twitter could clone
| Clubhouse features and somehow solve this problem?
| cm2012 wrote:
| Twitter already cloned Clubhouse last week:
| https://onezero.medium.com/the-case-for-twitter-
| spaces-b57b6...
| hahahahe wrote:
| So artificial exclusivity all over again. We tried this for the
| past decade.
| jarjoura wrote:
| Why is no one concerned this is going to become a platform for
| spreading misinformation?
|
| The way a conversation turns into a set of people who become the
| authority on a topic, vs. the followers is just way too easy.
| It's sort of like Quora back at the beginning.
|
| It also requires a huge time commitment that makes sense in this
| Covid world that once people want to get out and travel, or just
| return to normal meetups, the platform will either shift to a
| lonely class of people, or dry up completely.
| asimjalis wrote:
| I find 10-50 person rooms pretty valuable. Basically rooms where
| I can join the conversation, ask questions, comment on other
| people's questions. They have a dinner party vibe. I had a random
| conversation with guy who creates and sells Shopify apps, woman
| who teaches a sales technique that avoids asking questions, guy
| who explained how to use origin stories in product pitches.
| Pretty good return on investment so far.
| minimaxir wrote:
| Clubhouse is the first app in awhile that somehow gives me
| negative FOMO.
| viklove wrote:
| JOYO: Joy of missing out
| dustinmoris wrote:
| JOMO then?
| thaumasiotes wrote:
| Nah, the Y stands for "missing". ;D
| mtalantikite wrote:
| I'd really like to see what their engagement and retention
| numbers are, because after a few days on Clubhouse I just deleted
| the app. Just a bunch of nonsense conversations, many of which
| were led by people that sell the snake-oil of how to become
| successful in business and life, whereas their major
| accomplishment seems to be being known for selling that snake-
| oil. Sometimes there was a random celebrity talking about things
| they couldn't speak all that eloquently about (reminded me of the
| classic Dave Chappelle "I want some answers that Ja Rule might
| not have right now" [1]).
|
| At least Twitter and Instagram felt fun when they started.
| Clubhouse just felt boring.
|
| [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mo-ddYhXAZc
| hoseja wrote:
| They sure do seem to be investing a lot in viral advertising
| though.
| mgh2 wrote:
| It is the reality of any information platform that you have the
| risk of running into snake-oil sellers. That is the challenge
| of quality content control.
| seibelj wrote:
| I would like a "party line" style app where moderators let people
| talk. Would be a lot of fun. Unfortunately normal people aren't
| allowed into clubhouse (yet?) and I don't give a shit enough to
| hassle someone for an invite code. But would be fun to login to a
| channel and be a blow hard.
|
| I listened to a podcast recently (Blocked and Reported) where
| they were critiquing how journalists have been advocating for
| fact checkers in every single clubhouse room. An app like this
| isn't news that needs to be fact checked - it's a bunch of
| strangers yammering on and talking out of their ass like you do
| at a bar. Some people are way too uptight.
| eat_veggies wrote:
| Every "new" technology is always ushered in with the language of
| inevitability, which tautologically justifies its existence --
| it's been "pulled into existence," a side-effect of progress,
| "make some thing people want," etc. etc.
|
| I quote at length from Raymond Williams's study _Television_
| published in 1974 (!)
|
| > The physical fact of instant transmission, as a technical
| possibility, has been uncritically raised to a social fact,
| without any pause to notice that virtually all such transmission
| is at once selected and controlled by existing social authorities
| [...]
|
| > If the effect of the medium is the same, whoever controls or
| uses it, and whatever apparent content he may try to insert, then
| we can forget ordinary political and cultural argument and let
| the technology run itself. It is hardly surprising that this
| conclusion has been welcomed by the 'media-men' of the existing
| institutions [...]
|
| > The model can be related to history only by endless retrospect,
| in which by selection such a process can be generalised or
| demonstrated. Characteristically, in such a model, there will be
| no more history: a culminating age has arrived.
|
| MS Paint diagrams give the gloss of spontaneity; the big goofy
| arrows tell a version of history reduced to simple cause and
| effect; the easy steps "Democratization, Aggregation,
| Transformation" flatten it into a linear treadmill.
|
| Clubhouse becomes an overdetermined _effect_ rather than
| something deliberately built -- it 's another stop on the three-
| step treadmill that's coming whether you like it or not (so get
| your investment dollars in now). Under this ideology, technology
| is something that _happens to us._ But as Nowaldo says, it is
| "trying to market itself into existence" [1] and appeals to
| inevitability are exactly how they do it.
|
| [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26144055
| spicyramen wrote:
| I have seen some technical people discussing technology such as
| ML, that may be interesting? But i can do the same with youtube,
| podcasts, etc. Is that only in iphone?
| bigpumpkin wrote:
| 2021:
|
| Clubhouse: $100 million to $1 Billion valuation
|
| Agora: $4 Billion to $10 Billion valuation
|
| What does Agora offer that is better than its alternatives?
| latchkey wrote:
| 1. ToS violation to record and publish shows without 'written'
| consent of all the people in the room (which is effectively not
| enforceable)
|
| 2. iOS only
|
| 3. Invite only
|
| 4. Not ADA compliant (leaves out deaf folks)
|
| 5. Buggy
|
| 6. Centralized
|
| 7. You can't easily delete your account
|
| I personally tried it and deleted it. No thanks.
| nowherebeen wrote:
| 8. Requires giving them access and uploading your contact list
| to invite friends.
| latchkey wrote:
| I never uploaded my contacts, nor would I have.
|
| But it is highly encouraged by the app, for sure.
|
| Of course it is.
|
| It builds their social graph.
|
| Having built a dating site just before Tinder launched, that
| only used FB for auth, we had hundreds of millions of
| connections within weeks. It was a trove of data as we could
| sort matches based on it on the theory that people in your
| 'friend circle' are more likely to match with.
|
| Probably good that the site didn't last due to founder
| issues.
| nowherebeen wrote:
| Funny thing is my app was rejected because of this feature
| and I remove it because I understand how invasive it was.
| Told Apple about this (Clubhouse), they acknowledged they
| will look at it and they didn't do anything in the end.
| Double standards I guess when you have VC backing.
| [deleted]
| cma wrote:
| > ToS violation to record and publish shows without 'written'
| consent of all the people in the room (which is effectively not
| enforceable)
|
| That seems to provide an extreme means of selective
| enforcement.
| latchkey wrote:
| In my eyes, the workaround is simple.
|
| At the beginning of a session, tell everyone you're recording
| and give them a link to sign consent form and ask anyone who
| doesn't to leave the room. By staying, they implicitly agree.
|
| There is also local jurisdiction laws around this too which
| make it impossible to cover all cases.
|
| I'm not a lawyer of course, but it seems like a valid defense
| at least.
| riversflow wrote:
| What is going on with this article? Usually I expect really well
| thought out pieces from Stratechery. Clubhouse definitely has
| marketing down I guess.
|
| But in the article there is literally not a single mention of
| Discord, why not? Discord has been providing me the exact
| experience described here. I've had really interesting
| conversations with strangers on Discord, people are much more
| civil in disagreeing if it's not text based! And what about
| twitch, "Just chatting" is definitely a competing product here in
| the 1 to many category.
| dexter89_kp3 wrote:
| Clubhouse has been a mixed bag for me.
|
| I love some of the regular shows there like GoodTimes, deep
| learning research review hosted by Andrej Karpathy etc. When I
| step into smaller rooms, the signal to noise ratio decreases (on
| topics I care about).
|
| I felt clubhouse to be more conversational than podcasts (which
| are often a Q&A format). It also allow new people to participate,
| ask questions.
|
| Exploration of topics and rooms is pretty hard currently. How do
| you discover interesting people and conversations? For me it has
| mostly been twitter, which is non-optimal. My second big pain
| point has been the FOMO nature of it. I would ideally like to
| consume content on my time and schedule not the other way around.
| asimjalis wrote:
| My strategy for finding interesting conversations is to follow
| people I meet that I find interesting. The algorithm seems to
| be pretty good at showing me conversations involving people I
| follow, which tend to be interesting.
| asimjalis wrote:
| I have a suspicion people who don't like Clubhouse landed in the
| wrong rooms. My recommendation would be to explore different
| rooms, especially smaller rooms with < 50 people.
| tchalla wrote:
| > Make no mistake, most of these conversations will be terrible.
| That, though, is the case for all user-generated content. The key
| for Clubhouse will be in honing its algorithms so that every time
| a listener opens the app they are presented with a conversation
| that is interesting to them. This is the other area where
| podcasts miss the mark: it is amazing to have so much choice, but
| all too often that choice is paralyzing; sometimes -- a lot of
| times! -- users just want to scroll their Twitter feed instead of
| reading a long blog post, or click through Stories or swipe
| TikToks, and Clubhouse is poised to provide the same mindless
| escapism for background audio.
|
| This seems to be a good nutshell of Clubhouse and it's
| popularity.
| justapassenger wrote:
| It's like every single social network pitch since Facebook
| succeeded. Take existing form of content (podcasts), tweak it a
| little, make it easier to produce and let almighty algorithms
| generate billions for you.
| stedaniels wrote:
| > The key for Clubhouse will be in honing its algorithms so
| that every time a listener opens the app they are presented
| with a conversation that is interesting to them.
|
| I think Netflix and YouTube have proven how hard this is. Watch
| a couple of the wrong shows and you a doomed forever it seems.
| It's a bit like Echo Chambers too. [0]
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Echo_chamber_(media)
| alangibson wrote:
| Youtube is astonishingly bad. I watched a Jordan Peterson
| talk just to see what all the fuss is about and now there's
| at least a clip of him in damn near every video Youtube
| recommends. And this is despite me actually watching
| aerospace related videos almost exclusively.
| seren wrote:
| I wonder if the algorithm has not detected that somehow
| people watching Jordan Peterson were spending more time
| watching Youtube, and so it is gently nudging you into that
| direction.
| alangibson wrote:
| That's for sure what's happening. On a personal level
| it's extremely annoying because a machine is trying to
| manipulate my behavior for its own benefit.
| andrewzah wrote:
| It is what it is. That same recommendation engine does
| wonders for music.
|
| For controversial stuff etc, it's better to watch it in
| incognito. And really any topic that you're not actually
| interested in. I watched a few minecraft videos to figure
| out a redstone thing I was working on, and my
| recommendations were flooded with garbage minecraft
| videos.
| lostinquebec wrote:
| I think it is likely an attempt to beat the echo chamber.
| If your interests are niche, the only ways to avoid
| showing content that is, well, cliched is to latch on to
| the one offs and show a small percentage of those, or
| show truly random content. The former likely gets much
| better results.
| skeeter2020 wrote:
| Try watching something like "how to fix a washing machine";
| you do this several times a week for the rest of your life,
| right?
| doliveira wrote:
| Honestly at this point while logged in I only watch videos
| about scientific and technical subjects. Anything else I go
| incognito so it won't mess up my recommendations.
|
| I have the impression that the algorithm sees that you
| watched something a little more popular in general and
| latches into that trying to bring you to a larger more
| generic cluster. Same thing happens with music, for me.
| detaro wrote:
| if you are logged in, you can go to your watch history and
| delete the entry for it, that does something to get it out
| of the algorithm. But yes, YT really likes to latch onto
| you watching a single thing once.
| alangibson wrote:
| I almost exclusively pay attention to updates from
| creators I've subscribed to. I'm more sure that YT will
| eventually remove subscriptions in an effort to college
| TikTok than I am that the sun will come up tomorrow.
| duxup wrote:
| What is maddening is that Netflix when it was just DVDs it
| was IMO it was pretty amazing discovery wise. I felt like the
| users folks posting reviews were amazing at suggesting movies
| / giving you a good feel for the film. But maybe it was
| because those folks didn't have a background motivation to
| push, like advertising dollars or etc.
|
| Or maybe it was an eternal September problem or just the fact
| that DVDs meant there was more content that could be found,
| but I've not found anything as good as the old school Netflix
| community reviews.
|
| Meanwhile amazon is convinced I'm a woman and won't leave me
| alone about that ... Google is convinced I love a college
| football team that is in fact a rival because I google
| something about them once in a blue moon .... Trump was
| really interested in me filling out a happy birthday card for
| his wife (nope, that's creepy)... and they stand to make
| money on that, a still get it wrong.
| jdxcode wrote:
| The library was far better when it was DVDs. They didn't
| have the licensing problems they do now.
| majormajor wrote:
| Have they removed films from the DVD side of the
| business?
|
| I used it until a few years ago, it seemed the same as
| ever back then. Now we just have more options through
| various services for streaming, vs waiting on DVD.
| at-fates-hands wrote:
| Agreed.
|
| I used to watch quite a few older and newer movies when
| it was a DVD service. Now, I just get all of their
| branded content shoved down my throat with little if any
| options beyond that. Search is inconsistent at best.
|
| I've been thinking about canceling my subscription for a
| while now as I feel the value of Netflix just isn't there
| any more.
| asdff wrote:
| To me, the value of these streaming services are probably
| 1/3 their actual price, so like many I split the account
| with a half dozen people. It's gotten to the point where
| the scale is shifting further and further, and I'm
| streaming content _gratis_ using bittorrent rather than
| the actual platform that I have an account with because
| sometimes it 's easier and faster to get straight to the
| content without being bombarded. Not to mention the
| latest Hulu dark pattern, where something will be
| labelled as "available on Hulu," then you go and look and
| it's only available on the Hulu plan that costs as much
| as your old cable bill.
| duxup wrote:
| Yeah the volume of good quality but not well known films
| available was huge.
|
| Now those seem lost... they're often in a limbo where
| they only exist in DVD form now, but not streaming.
| crossroadsguy wrote:
| One of the reasons I like podcasts is there are no surprises. I
| subscribe to a carefully selected list of shows that I really
| like.
| k__ wrote:
| How?
|
| It's basically Discord/TeamSpeak.
| genpfault wrote:
| > Clubhouse is an invitation-only audio-chat social networking
| app launched in 2020 by software developers Alpha Exploration Co.
| As of December 2020, it was valued at nearly $100 million. On
| January 21, 2021, the valuation hit one billion US dollars.[1]
|
| [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clubhouse_(app)
| delecti wrote:
| So a bunch of party lines? Doesn't seem that worth getting
| excited about, certainly doesn't seem worth a billion dollars
| when Discord basically does the same thing already.
| slezyr wrote:
| And it works on more than one OS.
| tonetheman wrote:
| Clubhouse is just that a club.
|
| Where you are not invited.
|
| Maybe once it opens up to everyone.
| jelliclesfarm wrote:
| I joined the South Asian Club and every evening, there is a music
| session. I was pleasantly surprised to find people from all over
| south Asian..Indians, Pakistanis and bangaladesh appearing to
| perform..instrumentals and vocal. And in multiple languages too.
| My absolute fav part of clubhouse.
|
| I am trained in Carnatic classical music and now I want to learn
| Hindustani style. The members are of different ages and the young
| people are a delight. They are polite and at different skill
| levels. So..it has massively revived and boosted and expanded my
| music universe.
|
| Most South Asians would know what an Antakshari session
| means...basically this clubhouse room is like that.
|
| Right now, I am in a room where people are part of 2 minute
| debates. Pro and against debaters randomly assigned. The topic
| now is: "Do aliens exist?" Fun!
|
| The big rooms can be difficult to navigate and engage if one
| doesn't know how to time oneself without interrupting. Because we
| don't see each other.
|
| There is tons of security issues. But that's probably why this is
| still beta. For now, I listen a lot more than I contribute.
|
| It is a 'real identity' service. Your phone number and your real
| voice is on the server. There is no downvoting(ahem) but there is
| self moderation. The best part is one can leave if they dislike a
| discussion and one won't be heard if they are disruptive if the
| moderator so decides. No public shaming. Just a lack of platform
| for unpalatable views(from the room moderators' POV). I think
| this might well become the most well behaved social media we have
| seen in a while on the interwebs.
| [deleted]
| nitwit005 wrote:
| > The key for Clubhouse will be in honing its algorithms so that
| every time a listener opens the app they are presented with a
| conversation that is interesting to them.
|
| If they had no competition that would make sense, but there are
| quite a few platforms trying to recommend audio content to people
| as-is.
|
| The current podcasts I listen to I found through YouTube. I
| assume they had a presence there as that's where their audience
| looked to find content.
| thedudeabides5 wrote:
| _"Further, SIO has determined that a user's unique Clubhouse ID
| number and chatroom ID are transmitted in plaintext, and Agora
| would likely have access to users' raw audio, potentially
| providing access to the Chinese government."_
| [deleted]
| rsync wrote:
| I'm curious as to how this happens - are app comms not SSL ?
|
| I never gave it much thought but I _assumed_ that, like the
| adoption of SSL everywhere for websites, all apps spoke only
| SSL ... does the app store not enforce this ?
| tootie wrote:
| Pile this on to the list of digital zeitgeists I don't
| understand.
| dayvid wrote:
| I really hope they have a record with playback at higher
| speed/skip speaker function. I don't know if it will hurt their
| growth at this point, but it would make Clubhouse usable for me.
| Otherwise, there's too much noise for the value of the signal
| alangibson wrote:
| It's weird this article talks so much about podcasts but doesn't
| mention Patreon. It's a major, often primary, source of revenue
| for the most interesting podcasts I listen to.
| Ceezy wrote:
| Strategy retrospectively is easy...
| solosoyokaze wrote:
| I find pure audio to be the least appealing format to absorb
| information from. It's simultaneously distracting yet non-
| engaging. If I want to learn something new, print or video work
| best for me. Print if the concept is information based. Video if
| it's technique based.
|
| Just like I don't listen to podcasts, I can't imagine sitting
| around listening to people talk about things with no visuals. I'm
| not even sure when I would slot that into my day, even if I
| wanted to.
| Ma8ee wrote:
| Audio has the advantage that you can listen while walking,
| working out, or cleaning up the kitchen. Since I got kids it's
| the only way I manage to consume any literature.
| [deleted]
| faitswulff wrote:
| > I'm not even sure when I would slot that into my day, even if
| I wanted to.
|
| Personally speaking, I listen while walking, running, or
| driving.
| baxtr wrote:
| I got maybe 10 min of value after spending 10 hours on clubhouse.
| I am pretty much done with it.
|
| And thus, I really need to be very blunt about this: I hate
| Clubhouse. It's full of self-loving people who already have a
| huge audience somewhere else and now found a new way to recruit
| even more followers. Sorry for being so negative about something
| which I believe is actually innovative.
| ketamine__ wrote:
| Is it a bit better than Twitter? On Twitter influencers only
| interact with other influencers. If you don't have a large
| following but post an insightful comment you're lucky to get a
| like.
| nowherebeen wrote:
| I suspect the people that love Twitter will love Clubhouse as
| well. As other commenters already mentioned, it's geared
| towards those that are slightly self important.
| jimkleiber wrote:
| And I think that's OK. For some people, they hate reading and
| writing or recording video or editing audio, so CH can provide
| a platform for some people who love being in vocal group
| discussions, whether hosting, speaking, or even listening, and
| can bring lots to that segment.
|
| I personally love to read things because I think I can read
| rather fast and I have friends who hated even text messages,
| preferring voice notes, because they don't want to read/type so
| much.
|
| I also agree there's the social dynamics you mention, just
| think the communication format appeals to some more than
| others.
| strin wrote:
| I wonder how clubhouse would monetize its traffic. most social
| networks had to make the advertisement presented in similar ways
| to the content, e.g. twitter, instagram, tiktok. but I can't
| imagine clicking on and listen to a "conversation" that
| advertises a product...
| harryf wrote:
| First time I went on Clubhouse, first got in a room with some
| Silicon Valley types talking about how to grow your startup. I
| get enough of that content so left to explore further and found a
| room with some African Americans discussing the best way to
| "snort crack from a booty hole". Perhaps it's my sense of humour
| but I laughed my head off and was immediately hooked. Felt like
| the Internet of the "good old days". Also I'm comfortable talking
| on voice from doing a podcast. Actually I usually hook up my
| Rodecaster Pro for better quality audio.
|
| Some random tips I've found make Clubhouse more entertaining...
|
| - Follow lots of people - don't be like Twitter, Instagram etc.
| trying to have more followers than follows. The more people you
| follow, the more diverse your room suggestions become
|
| - From the home screen of the app, scroll down and find the
| little "Explore" button ... this will take you to more rooms.
| Smaller rooms tend to be lower down
|
| - If you want to get involved in a discussion, go to the smaller
| rooms
|
| - Can be interesting to tap on the profile of who "Nominated"
| someone... and keep tapping until you get to the center of the
| graph. This is an interesting take on social graphs I think
| (which I'm guessing they will disable)
|
| - Most of all, get out of your comfort zone, when it comes to
| your normal interests / ethnicity etc. It's very low friction to
| talk to anyone and people are largely polite. It's a great to get
| to know groups of people you'd otherwise avoid and get new
| perspectives.
|
| If you want to connect hit me up on @harryfcks in the app.
| scotuswroteus wrote:
| not sure why their race matters
| harryf wrote:
| It doesn't it's just that for me, living in Zurich
| Switzerland, it's a type of conversation I would never get to
| hear / be part of
| whymauri wrote:
| I'll give my thoughts. Although the wording seems clunky at
| first, the GP is actually identifying something really
| important about the growth of Clubhouse as a platform.
| Similar to Twitter, which has Black Twitter [0], Latino
| Twitter, etc, it seems that Clubhouse will also build these
| kinds of communities.
|
| When a chief concern about Clubhouse is lack of diversity, I
| think this is pretty meaningful. What I'm more interested in
| seeing though, is if Clubhouse can also incorporate class
| diversity without betraying its brand of exclusivity.
|
| Note: I'm not on Clubhouse and don't want to be.
|
| [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Twitter
| dr_dshiv wrote:
| Black lives matter!
| wsinks wrote:
| How do you manage the notifications? I'm only following like 40
| people but have change my notifications down to the lowest
| setting.
|
| Even at infrequent, it notified me every 30 mins in the last 18
| hours... while I was sleeping too. Just wild.
| harryf wrote:
| I don't use the notifications - have them disabled. I just
| dip in when I have time and see what's happening. May not be
| the best strategy but works for me.
| trhway wrote:
| it sounds like audio only version of chatroulette.
| harryf wrote:
| I guess so but that it's groups not 1-on-1 probably means
| people behave better. Also video is a higher barrier entry in
| terms of awkwardness etc
| wsinks wrote:
| except chatroulette was random and didn't really have user
| accounts?
|
| Unless chatroulette became something different than the video
| window 1:1 with random people and usually phallic symbols...
| did I miss something?
|
| Very very different from chatroulette, in my opinion.
| sigil wrote:
| _Can be interesting to tap on the profile of who "Nominated"
| someone... and keep tapping until you get to the center of the
| graph. This is an interesting take on social graphs I think._
|
| The first time I saw this kind of thing was on lobste.rs, where
| they call it the "user tree": https://lobste.rs/u
|
| On both Clubhouse and lobste.rs, surfacing the invite tree
| makes users more mindful of who they invite. To an extent,
| they're vouching for that person, and can be held responsible
| if that person misbehaves.
|
| Does anyone know what social network first exposed invite
| trees? I assume it can't have originated recently with
| lobste.rs.
| korse wrote:
| Plenty of p2p communities have been doing something similar
| for years. If you invite someone to the forum, and they get
| banned, you get banned too... or at least have your
| privileges revoked for some time.
| jedberg wrote:
| > Can be interesting to tap on the profile of who "Nominated"
| someone... and keep tapping until you get to the center of the
| graph.
|
| Wow, this _was_ fascinating. There was a weird dichotomy on
| mine. If I clicked on my straight, white, male friends, in
| almost every case the chain ended in just one or two clicks
| with an OG user.
|
| If I clicked on anyone else (minority, women, etc), it was a
| long chain of people that usually involved a long string of
| black men and women.
|
| My own chain was an exception, having been invited by a
| minority woman and going through that long chain of black men
| and women. Even though I'm friends with a bunch of those
| straight white guys with short chains. But I never asked for an
| invite when they were all advertising invites on Facebook. I
| only joined when my friend insisted and sent me an invite.
|
| I don't know what any of that actually means, I just found it
| really interesting.
| texasbigdata wrote:
| Is this signaling or what? What straussian message are you
| sending: don't accept invites? Sorry for the obtruse comment
| but feel lost.
| harpiaharpyja wrote:
| The message is: I did this, and this is what I found.
|
| I think you may be looking for something that isn't there.
| texasbigdata wrote:
| reasonable thanks. You're probably right
| alfiedotwtf wrote:
| I found that if I went higher a few levels from me, the
| sideways, then everyone was either an internet marketer, some
| form of influencer, or startup "guru".
|
| Maybe it's just my local graph, but it turned me off somewhat
| helen___keller wrote:
| I'm not going to say Clubhouse is going to fail, because I'm not
| the target audience now and I won't be later either, so how would
| I know. What I will say is that whatever appeal Clubhouse
| purportedly has now at a $1B valuation, such as rubbing virtual
| elbows with the elite, is not going to scale to a $100B
| valuation. Navigating the process of becoming mass-market is the
| key.
| dustinmoris wrote:
| I don't see the appeal of yet another anti-social media app. I
| don't know, maybe it's me, but I'm thinking even if I was a
| lonely cat lady/guy I'd not need yet another crappy app on top of
| Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, SnapChat or TikTok to not feel like
| a lonely depressed human. If I really need to take my mind off my
| lonely miserable life then I can already listen to a million
| podcasts or literally turn myself into a binge watching zombie
| staring at Netflix all day so I don't have to realise what a
| fucking loser I am that I need an app to meet and talk to random
| people. Even if I was that person, I'd probably lose interest in
| Clubhouse as soon as the pandemic is over and I can see my shrink
| again.
| Cederfjard wrote:
| This rant makes no sense to me. How is it anti-social to
| literally talk to people?
| dustinmoris wrote:
| It's not a rant. Clubhouse is a platform for wannabes and
| losers who like to listen to wannabes. My brutal honesty is
| not a rant, just just an unfiltered summary of Clubhouse and
| I don't see the appeal to people who have a real social life.
| rvz wrote:
| Didn't the people who were on Facebook at the time say this
| about Twitter that it was for 'losers' and yet here we are.
|
| But I agree too. There's nothing special about Clubhouse
| expect that it is super-hyped by the VCs, media and the
| techies as the next big thing and I'm not convinced.
| Cederfjard wrote:
| My wife is on it sometimes, she goes on groups with other
| people and converses about various topics. It seems quite
| social to me, and she has an extensive "real" social life,
| too. I think your attempt to boil down the essence of the
| app to your "summary" is flawed.
|
| Also, just because something is "brutal honesty" doesn't
| mean it isn't also a rant, nor that it's the truth.
| isoskeles wrote:
| I don't think it counts as literally talking for the same
| reason it is considered a faux pas to dump someone over text.
| [deleted]
| AzzieElbab wrote:
| I am very much an introvert but under the lockdowns I would give
| my left eye for random conversations with smart people, not being
| forced to walk on the eggshells is a big plus too
| ccsnags wrote:
| Clubhouse interests me. I don't use social media like twitter,
| ig, facebook and don't miss them. Clubhouse seems more
| interesting than the others. It reminds me of one of my favorite
| things to do on VRChat, making drum circles and singing songs.
| Just connecting with people for the sake of it.
|
| Waiting on an invite though. I'd love to check it out.
| serial_dev wrote:
| I don't understand the hype, I gotta be honest.
|
| I enjoy podcasts and audiobooks, too. I listen to technical and
| political podcasts regularly, and sometimes I try other genres
| when I don't feel like learning or getting disappointed by
| politics.
|
| I heard people talking about Clubhouse, they were all like "wow,
| amazing, revolutionary". They told me I would need to watch my
| screen time, because they are 10 hours a day on Clubhouse. I
| asked them to explain to me why they enjoy it, I didn't get it
| but wanted to try anyway.
|
| I got an invite, and tried the app. What a disappointment that
| was, I tried to follow interesting people and content, checked
| out what my friends were following, listened in on multiple
| rooms, stayed long and hoped something worthwhile would happen,
| but no, nothing really happened.
|
| Boring content, from people who are mostly neither funny, nor
| insightful (which is fine, most people are not extraordinary,
| it's not a personal attack or something, it's just that the top
| "talkers" already rose to the top via TV shows and podcasts).
|
| The constant reminders on LinkedIn about past discussions on the
| platform that I would be interested in is even more annoying, as
| I can't just open the talks later.
|
| I'm sure there are good conversations there but the noise to
| signal (value) ratio at clubhouse is just very very low.
| mgh2 wrote:
| There are many uses cases, but one of them *might be as a
| potential solution to current social media polarization.
|
| Imagine putting radical liberals and conservatives or loyal
| Taiwanese and Chinese in the same room AND be able to
| participate in the discussion.
|
| The value Clubhouse brings is the ability to start a dialogue
| to understand the other side that we are often blinded from -
| empathy through conversation from multiple viewpoints.
|
| Civil discussions that were never possible can now be (abuses
| are quickly reported and kicked out). Of course we will have to
| see the long term repercussions of this technology that only
| time can tell.
| thekyle wrote:
| I don't really know how Clubhouse works. But why would
| radical liberals and conservatives ever want to talk with
| each other unless forced to? Seems from most other parts of
| the internet that people like to surround themselves with
| like-minded people.
| mgh2 wrote:
| When the topic of the discussion decides who wants to
| participate.
|
| Like a debate: From non-serious as "cereal is soup" to "Do
| degrees/college dictate success?" and "Taiwan is part of
| China" (these actually happened)... The moderators can
| control the room but can also be reported by participants
| if he/she violates the guidelines- not sure how abuse is
| verified though. There is mutual accountability.
| volkk wrote:
| > empathy through conversation. "Let's have a talk"
|
| why is it that clubhouse will do anything differently than
| what a FB post does? AKA devolve into mindless attacks in the
| comments sections about the way you look in your profile pic,
| your race/ethnicity, etc.
|
| is the difference simply..because it's voice? i think it's
| naive to think this is some new mindblowing tech considering
| a few points: a. it's invite only b. it's populated by tech
| oriented people.
|
| the only people that benefit from this are yuppies and
| already well off people. i want to hear opinions from the
| lower class too which i can guarantee are 100% not on
| clubhouse and are instead busy dealing with real life
| problems instead of talking about them on some VC backed app
| touted as the greatest revolution by mostly vapid social
| media sites (read: linkedin, producthunt, etc)
|
| i realize its a pessimistic POV but at this point in my life
| and all my years in tech..i'm tired of hearing how some
| random social media app is going to change the world for the
| better again and again. but also, i would LOVE to be proved
| wrong one day.
| mgh2 wrote:
| > is the difference simply...because it's voice?
|
| I am not sure if you have seen the difference from
| communication via text only vs. voice/video. (ex: work or
| relationships). The later clears so much misunderstandings.
|
| For those who choose not to talk or ask questions, you can
| just listen in. But instead of a tube of biased information
| fueled by an AI algorithm (most social media today), you
| get to have a diverse group of people (up to 5k and
| expanding) all in one room, each able to participate.
|
| It is a two-way real-time dialogue, like in a conference
| panel discussion or an university class where the professor
| is lecturing, but also facilitating discussion among
| students. ex: https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=
| harvard+justice
|
| As for the invite only and tech oriented people, it is done
| for now to cope with bandwidth due to server limitations
| and also to have content quality control. It will be open
| to all eventually, they are still figuring it out. HN is an
| example of the complexities of moderation to maintain
| quality.
|
| Of course the human brain is going to be naturally biased
| and the development of content recommendations will
| eventually led to the same tribal mentality problem, but
| this is to be seen on how the creators moderate the
| platform to avoid the disasters from the past.
| throwawayy1112 wrote:
| Yea Clubhouse should be called Madhouse because it's a bunch of
| exclusive pseudo-intellectual narcissists huffing their own
| farts.
| Sol- wrote:
| > Clubhouse is far better suited than podcasts to discuss events
| as they are happening, or immediately afterwards
|
| Seems like an anti-feature. Why would I want to listen to half-
| informed takes on current events which will be outdated soon
| after? Inherently ephemeral stuff like sports commentary I could
| understand at least, perhaps that's really the only sensible use
| case.
|
| But I guess that's asking the wrong question anyway - all these
| platforms are optimized for wasting your time, after all.
| ketamine__ wrote:
| Isn't that the purpose of 24 hour news streams like CNN?
| [deleted]
| flixic wrote:
| Moments after Tesla's purchase of 1.5B of Bitcoin was
| announced, I opened Clubhouse, and sure enough, at the top was
| a pretty massive room discussing the move. Quality of
| information wasn't remarkable, but as a "radio show on demand"
| it was very entertaining.
| Chirael wrote:
| I signed up and followed a few people and then... what now? The
| few things that are suggested to me when I log in aren't
| interesting, so I just shut the app. I've opened it a few times
| and had the same experience, so unless someone tells me about
| something specific I need to sign on to Clubhouse for, I don't
| see the need to keep opening it.
| ChaitanyaSai wrote:
| You can make pretty much the same argument for Chatroulette
| (yeah, yeah, minus the oh, but audio allows us to multi-task). I
| am surprised Ben Thompson of all people thinks the necessity to
| be live is a plus. Async consumption (sitting on the potty,
| commute, smoke break, in bed scrolling yourself to sleep) is
| where your tiktoks and snaps and grams get consumed. The other
| thing that makes me willing to wager this goes the Chatroulette
| and Google Plus way is the male skew. I'd also like to coin a
| neologism for the inevitable narcisstic bloviation that will come
| to flood Clubhouse -- micdics
| enos_feedler wrote:
| The world is not exclusively asynchronous. There are lots of
| use cases centered on live, especially around events. As Ben
| Thompson mentioned Locker Room which is Clubhouse for sports. I
| think live is a great format for these and no surprise it
| replicates live talk radio which has been around since the
| 1920s.
| vyrotek wrote:
| > _Make no mistake, most of these conversations will be terrible.
| That, though, is the case for all user-generated content._
|
| My perception is that Clubhouse is that it's yet-another
| amplifier for the group of folks who already have a large
| following and are able to produce quality content. Listening to
| anything long-form and live risks being a huge waste of time.
| Audiences are willing to listen to well-known people because it
| has a higher chance of being interesting at all.
|
| Unfortunately, the feedback I've heard is that the meetings
| hosted by the rest of the not-so well-known community have been
| generally terrible. I think people underestimate power of async
| communication and how it powers discoverability. There's too much
| noise out there already and very little time to filter it out to
| discover new content. Especially when the content is only
| produced live. Growing a YouTube/Podcast audience and growing a
| Clubhouse audience are going to be very different challenges.
|
| I'm also unconvinced that this is a winner-take-all space. My
| understanding is that the technology moat here is very narrow
| compared to what it takes to run YouTube, Twitch, etc. I've
| already seen several interesting hacks put together by
| individuals with their own twist to this space.
|
| That said, I'd really like to see the community stop claiming
| that "Clubhouse will be bigger than X platform!" such as Twitter
| and LinkedIn.
| newsclues wrote:
| The question I'm left with is, will Clubhouse be able to scale
| building communities?
| dehrmann wrote:
| This is a very underappreciated part of scaling community-
| oriented platforms with user-generated content.
| alfiedotwtf wrote:
| I don't think they have their filtering right at the moment,
| and they'll have to find a sweet spot before everyone turns off
| notifications for good. I'm following Kimdotcom who is an
| interesting person, but whenever he joins in on something, I'm
| notified. I like to hear what he has to say, but not every
| bloody time, especially not at 3am when it's a German-only
| speaking club!
| [deleted]
| zpeti wrote:
| I agree with you, and at the same time, there will still be
| some people who are newcomers but adopted clubhouse at the
| right time and will become stars because of it. Maybe they
| weren't even newcomers, just good at what they do.
|
| So while looking at it from a large numbers angle, yes, the
| power law applies and winners take all, digging into individual
| level stories, there will be people who will rise up thanks to
| the new app.
|
| Not sure what that means, but I do still think there are
| opportunities here.
| tootie wrote:
| I think another important point being missed is how hard it is
| to create compelling improvised content. Youtube and Tiktok are
| amateur productions but the successful creators are still
| writing and editing. Conversations are going to meander and the
| absolute worst offense possible for this kind of medium is
| being boring.
| Sodman wrote:
| Once clubhouse loses its exclusivity and becomes generally
| available, where will they be at? It's essentially just a discord
| clone with better marketing and hype. Or, in its most common
| format of 1-3 people talking and 1000s listening, it's basically
| FM radio. Is that enough for it to be widely successful (the
| "next social media platform")? I'm not convinced.
|
| The biggest features it's got going for it once it hits GA, are
| that it's ephemeral and that it's live. There are several other
| platforms with decent UX already providing these USPs, also for
| free. I can see this being a live-streaming broadcast service for
| celebrities and influencers who already have big audiences, but
| not much more than that.
| sjg007 wrote:
| The FM radio thing is apt. My guess would be it also has a way
| to manage users and call ins. So instead of Tweet this radio
| personality you can log in real time. Not sure if measuring
| interactivity is a good thing here though.
| maxehmookau wrote:
| I gave clubhouse a go and found it super boring. Lots of self-
| important people talking about why they're important.
|
| It feels like the reason I no longer listen to live radio. Why
| would I let someone else dictate what I listen to when there's
| plenty of on-demand content available 24/7?
| xibalba wrote:
| Yes, Clubhouse feels like the perfect trap for the VC/PM class.
| It is a product that is _extremely_ appealing to the them, but
| for which probability of widespread adoption seems low. And, of
| course, that group of people is one of the loudest on social
| media, so anyone within a few degrees of separation from them
| will "hear" them singing Clubhouse's praises.
| dcolkitt wrote:
| I've never used Clubhouse, but to play Devil's advocate this
| is what people said about Facebook in its very early days. A
| product that appeals to Ivy League kids goofing around on
| each other's walls and showing off their favorite books. Why
| would that ever gain widespread adoption.
|
| I think the lesson is that the impulse to imitate high-status
| people is very strong. Even when the behavior has no
| intrinsic value to the average Joe. If a social network gains
| a reputation for where SV entrepreneurs or "thought leaders"
| or Harvard heiresses hang out, then many people will flock to
| it regardless of what the actual experience is like. When
| Facebook opened up to a new campus, students would sign up en
| masse without even realizing what the product was.
| solosoyokaze wrote:
| VCs and entrepreneurs have been trying to replicate the
| FB/Harvard/private rollout thing since FB did it. I can't
| think of any other cases where it worked though. Very much
| a cargo cult decision.
| xiaolingxiao wrote:
| This is a very insightful point. There is already a culture
| meming the imaginary April rooms where the "rich and
| powerful" gather to do insider-deals. You see this with all
| the get-rich-quick rooms, "thought-leader TedX" rooms, and
| "insightful conversation about social issues" rooms. It's a
| big pretend-land where everyone can partake what they
| imagine the "upper-crust" talks about. Someone made a point
| of people showing up at Soho house in 2020 (after it has
| "sold out") wearing designer clothes they got at the
| outlet, not knowing it sends a different signal. The truth
| is ... the only "consequential" people that frequent
| clubhouse are there to promote a very specific agenda,
| using the resident population as fodder to their cause.
| It's a stark microcosm of the inequalities in this society,
| and how consumer culture _does not_ address the inquality,
| but rather just veil it in ignorance.
| jimkleiber wrote:
| I think it was @default_friend on Twitter who made that
| point about Soho house[1]. I found the overall thread[2]
| to really help me understand the status dynamics of CH,
| reminding me of the Status as a Service essay[3] by
| Eugene Wei.
|
| [1]: https://twitter.com/default_friend/status/1359618168
| 78890598... [2]: https://twitter.com/default_friend/statu
| s/135961480306553651... [3]:
| https://www.eugenewei.com/blog/2019/2/19/status-as-a-
| service
| 2pEXgD0fZ5cF wrote:
| Same here, gave it a try and it's pretty much just a bubble
| builder for celebrities, not much else.
|
| What I really don't understand is people trying to build a
| connection to podcasts? Why? Just because it's audio too? The
| reason I enjoy podcasts is that I get to enjoy specific topics
| (or field specific news) from a list of sources I curate
| myself. I have show notes, know roughly what I get into with an
| episode, and get to pause and rewind, and that is just a part
| of it.
| pjc50 wrote:
| > trying to build a connection
|
| The comparison to podcasts is to be "the thing that you
| listen to while doing something else".
| SpicyLemonZest wrote:
| I'm not sure that's a universal experience. One of the most
| popular podcasts is Joe Rogan's, where each episode is just
| him talking to a random guest about a random thing, and that
| kind of show seems like it'd translate pretty
| straightforwardly to Clubhouse. I can't say I've ever wanted
| to rewind Rogan or follow along with show notes.
| seattle_spring wrote:
| > Lots of self-important people talking about why they're
| important
|
| Taking a page from the LinkedIn playbook
| [deleted]
| kmfrk wrote:
| It does feel a lot like velvet-rope LinkedIn.
| te_chris wrote:
| Beautiful damning with faint praise there.
| dylan604 wrote:
| you just described 100% of social media to me.
| tjpnz wrote:
| Sounds a bit like the lunches I ended up at with the office art
| snob prior to Covid.
| ashtonkem wrote:
| It turns out that the real social value of Clubhouse might be
| exposing how stupid and vain powerful people can be.
| Nowado wrote:
| _Jack Dorsey sweating in the background_
| spicyramen wrote:
| Touche
| jariel wrote:
| They are not sweating.
|
| They're too lacking in self awareness for that, moreover,
| this is not remotely a threat.
| mgh2 wrote:
| Yes, people are fallible, but getting them to talk out loud
| instead of expressing themselves with trolling or promotions
| is a good start to build some understanding and empathy for
| the other side.
| davzie wrote:
| Exactly the reason I stopped using it. So serious, not fun,
| full of people that sound like the opposite of fun at a party.
| DLay wrote:
| "Shoot Your Shot: NYU girls roasting tech guys" is pretty
| amusing.
| borroka wrote:
| The first 30 minutes yes, then it is poor comedy.
| mgh2 wrote:
| I am a new user but I hope they don't start charging for
| listening in, there is much value by experts who are not there
| for promotional reasons but rather for intellectual
| discussions: ex: tech talks, medtech, AI.
|
| Their target demographic seems more like conferences or
| university lectures with active participation, where education
| is the primary goal. I used to think that this might go away
| after covid, but after examination, the social utility is of
| tremendous value. I am usually against all social media
| (deleted most), which I think corrodes society, but clubhouse
| seems to be onto something.
|
| Some controversial topics that could not have been discussed in
| person can be started here (and across the globe), expanding
| understanding on both sides: ex: politics, gender
| discrimination, Taiwan vs. China, etc.
|
| There are also some funny/serious ones, for example "Attractive
| women explain things to tech bros" started as a joke but
| evolved into an advice place.
|
| Yes, with every content platform you will inevitably have the
| quality issue, but I their content filtering can improve over
| time
| sergiotapia wrote:
| "I gave clubhouse a go and found it super boring. Lots of self-
| important people talking about why they're important."
|
| 150% my exact experience. I don't get it, so I uninstalled it.
| wayneftw wrote:
| > ...so I uninstalled it.
|
| That right there is one reason why I've never even tried it.
| I refuse to use app-only networks. Give me a web site that I
| can use from anywhere. Let me control what content my device
| downloads. There's no fucking way I'm buying into an app-only
| future.
| tootie wrote:
| I think that's a given because it's still invite only and has a
| very specific demographic creating content. Once it's open it
| could change dramatically. Or not. I don't know.
| at-fates-hands wrote:
| >> I think that's a given because it's still invite only and
| has a very specific demographic creating content.
|
| Agreed.
|
| Same thing happened with Ello ( https://ello.co/ ). Started
| out as invite only, which appealed to a certain group of
| people. Then the shine wore off and most users went back to
| FB and Twitter. Then it rebranded itself as a social media
| platform for creatives where it seems to have found a solid
| audience.
| AdmiralGinge wrote:
| >Why would I let someone else dictate what I listen to when
| there's plenty of on-demand content available 24/7?
|
| To be fair there's still good radio out there and not even just
| on the internet. The really commercial stuff on most of the FM
| band is tedious but personally I really love people who are
| passionate about music play me things I might not have heard
| before. Things like BBC Radio Six Music and the former offshore
| pirate Radio Caroline are both pretty good in this regard.
|
| A good radio DJ can create a far more personal and human
| experience than just waiting for Spotify's algorithm to give
| you something vaguely related.
| chosenbreed37 wrote:
| Yes. There is good stuff out there. I often go for live radio
| as a medium of discovery but within some well defined
| boundaries. I might listen to classical music or a jazz
| station and discover new artists or new interpretations
| within a genre that I already like. I might listen to a some
| talkshows in the hope that I might discover something
| interesting that was outside of my radar.
| heed wrote:
| The best description of CH I've come across: "A platform where
| C tier people listen to B tier people talk about A tier
| people."
| alpha_squared wrote:
| That sounds like it would've applied to Twitter until "A tier
| people" joined the platform, got their blue checkmarks and
| became the reason Twitter hit critical mass.
| dheera wrote:
| But then again that's pretty much what the real world is.
| That isn't really a CH-specific phenomenon.
| staticautomatic wrote:
| You know what would be really cool? A place where there
| aren't tiers of people.
| camdenlock wrote:
| You'd have to venture outside of our planet to find such a
| thing, and even then I doubt you'll find what you're
| looking for.
| optimiz3 wrote:
| Why? The human species and relatives have organized into
| heirarchies since their dawn.
|
| You start as a child, and go forth and develop your place
| in the world.
|
| If everyone is the same, no one is unique.
|
| Different desires lead to different contributions which
| have different levels of value to society which lead to
| different levels of social status.
| staticautomatic wrote:
| If true, that would make it even more cool.
| zymhan wrote:
| We've also killed each other since time immemorial,
| doesn't mean we have to like it.
| [deleted]
| optimiz3 wrote:
| No one wants to not be on top, but being on top doesn't
| maximize everyone's happiness or sense of purpose either.
| Balgair wrote:
| Great one!
|
| I've heard it described as Twitch Chat minus Twitch, just the
| Chat.
| [deleted]
| afavour wrote:
| I just don't see how Clubhouse scales. I can see how compelling
| it is to actively participate in a small-scale chat with
| interesting people. But once a room reaches the level where
| only a few people can talk I'm basically listening to a poorly
| produced podcast that must be listened to live rather than at
| my convenience. ...I don't get the appeal.
| azinman2 wrote:
| They're moderated. They don't just grow forever in that way.
| hacknat wrote:
| I agree with you that it's mostly not good. However, I wandered
| into a conversation with a bunch of DC journalists late at
| night and they were openly gossiping (probably all slightly
| inebriated) and saying things that almost assuredly were
| supposed to be off-the-record. It was fascinating and eye-
| opening as well as very entertaining.
|
| The attraction of CH is exactly this: getting to hear things
| you would ordinarily not be "allowed" to hear. When it first
| started more of these types of conversations were happening and
| it did feel like you were part of the "in group" getting to
| hear things that ordinary people weren't privy to.
|
| Making secrets explicit as a business model is not sustainable
| though. As more and more people file into the app creators are
| going be less and less explicit and all that will be left is
| the banal and boring (which may be enough actually, as the app
| is still addicting if you're a lurker).
|
| Here's my prediction: CH is here to stay, but it will hit a
| ceiling. Additionally some people on the app are clearly
| playing with fire and we will likely see someone important get
| into trouble on the app and that will be the end of the
| (already dying) cool factor of the app.
| 2pEXgD0fZ5cF wrote:
| > getting to hear things you would ordinarily not be
| "allowed" to hear
|
| Feels like a side effect from being new and artifically
| limited via invites and I doubt that aspect will be kept very
| long. Same with people praising how friendly the discourse is
| supposed to be.
| hacknat wrote:
| Yeah. I doubt it will scale.
| t_serpico wrote:
| The question is why would you gossip on CH? My guess is that
| there is some excitement to 'getting caught' or just more
| generally doing it in public. It's like the equivalent of
| having a private conversation in a bar or coffee shop.
| Because of COVID, people turn to CH to replicate this
| experience. After COVID, I suspect this app will die out.
| hacknat wrote:
| That is my suspicion as well.
| wackk wrote:
| I know yesterday, there was a media guy who tried to do a hit
| job on some youtuber based on a clubhouse, and the entire
| chat had to come to his defense on twitter call the guy out
| as a liar. I imagine this will become increasingly common and
| will really kill the "authenticity" it offers.
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