GM to all the builders.
“Everything in the consumer market is defined by the way it’s understood by consumers, not by its technical implementation.” -Ben Thompson
Here’s a clip from two prominent analysts, Ben Thompson and John Gruber, discussing Mastodon vs Bluesky and I think pretty much everyone here would benefit from listening to them.
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It stresses again the best tech doesn’t win, it’s how the consumer understands the product.
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It shows that we’re all still very much in bubbles, as they have no idea about Lens nor @xmtplabs.lens or @converseapp.lens
ok, very random thoughts on this. absolutely not coherent.
the basic assumption of Thompson and Gruber is right, of course: users will always choose the easy, pretty, most streamlined product. they don't want to fiddle with settings (how many people tweak settings of their phones, apps,...?), they just want to use it. and they're not to blame.
on the other hand, we have tech commentary which is mostly lame, lazy, doesn't try to understand the tech it's reporting and commenting on.
we didn't have much of consumer tech or internet reporting back in the middle/late 2000s. it started with so-called tech blogs like early Techcrunch (TC), ReadWriteWeb (RWW), and a lot of even smaller, personal blogs that started reporting on new web(2) services and products. even TC and RWW were one-man blogs in the early days. they explained products and services and described the differences.
but the biggies like TC and RWW were competing against each other. the blog breaking a story first, won. so they became bigger, hired more writers, got funding, became media companies. though, the intricacies got lost, articles became mere press releases. nevertheless they could sell their blogs, Arrington (founder of TC) became a VC,... tldr: hardly any tech specialists anymore in the tech blogging/reporting ecosystem.back to the clip here. Thompson is a good analyst (I don't read him much because of his paywalled content), Gruber is an Apple enthusiast who defends the company, mostly even on the most hilarious takes the fruit company has to offer (sideloading?).
Mastodon and private messages: yeah, right. the question is, were the messages supposed to be private in the first place? I haven't read much about the reasons but derive my thinking from Mastodon's stance on quote "tweets" which are not natively supported by (yet). the reason by the founder was that they don't like people talking about people but rather talk with them. it's a design choice. so in the clip they talk about gossiping in private messages. well, talking about people...if tech reporters cared about those questions, they asked the founders, developers,... maybe Mastodon is completely happy with not replicating Twitter, without becoming number one in micro-blogging (or whatever it's called these days).
and back to Lens and web3. yes, things could and should become more user friendly. but is web3 about to replace web2? dunno. maybe it's just complementing it. if we want super fast, streamlined "web3", we should settle with VC-funded chains on company servers. well...
4Therefore, consumption capital is the most important thing, grasping consumers.
0As a member of the Round Table, @Dsquaredfinance are loyal Knights who actively build on top of our infrastructure. $DSQ's sophisticated strategies also leverage Camelot liquidity, & next week they'll be sharing educational content, raffles, and more with the community.
1Good to keep both those thoughts in mind. The onboarding process for a new, web3 novice user in the lens ecosystem should be a top priority and as painless as setting up a new Twitter account:
Step 1: pick a username
Step 2: start posting(Actually that’s easier than Twitter because they require email and maybe phone?)
Obviously this skips the major element…EVM address. The ui could provide multiple avenues for this based on personal preference and experience:
- BYO approach, I have an address, I know what it is, i can registered my account using that address
- Generate an address for me during the signup process. Similar to the Reddit vault, semi-custodial to make onboarding easy.
3GM, great clip. Good reminder that most of the time people won't switch to a more complex UI unless they have a really good reason.
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