Who does your design? I absolutely love this aesthetic, both this product, and your site (chorus.sh). What is this even called? I went for a similar vibe with tinylogger.com, but def didn't have your skills to pull it off.
Hi, appreciate the note! I'm Julian, I do all the design at Melty. I try to design our software to be functional, visually subtle, and chromatically warm. I don't know that the aesthetic has a name, but I've spent a lot of time studying manuscripts from the early middle ages so that might have seeped in - the logo for Conductor is actually a variant of insular majuscule (you can see the ductus in the animation)
Ah thank you! Our designer is Julian Kelly (https://jfk.works). He's amazing, and worked on Messenger at Meta — a background which has been surprisingly helpful since everything we're working on is a spin on chatting.
I read and enjoyed the post, but also found it a bit directionless. Yes, I think a lot of people agree that addictive social media is a problem. What's the solution?
> The deeper issue is that we’ve outsourced our human connection to systems designed for profit. Real connection happens in the margins that can’t be monetized. The conversations that don’t generate data, the relationships that don’t scale, and the moments that can’t be optimized for engagement.
This sounds profound, but this is a problem that predates social media. People went to shows and music festivals to see art and connect with others - these are systems also designed for profit (and delivering art as their second thing.)
The problem is, as the author definitely knows, that running systems that enable connections costs money. The suggestion the author makes: "improve third spaces where people connect directly, authentically, without intermediation by systems designed to extract value from their attention", except someone has to pay for those third spaces, and people won't always want to visit them because we like dopamine, so we might go to the bar, or back on social media, or to video games or tv shows instead. A slow pace - boredom - breeds creativity and connection, but it's also boring, and it's hard to get people to stay with it (I might be projecting.)
> The solution isn't another app. It's changing the rules of the game entirely.
On a different note, this closing feels very, very ChatGPT, and whether it is or isn't, the fact that AI tone is permeating our writing makes me really sad.
"The problem is, as the author definitely knows, that running systems that enable connections costs money."
It's not that much of a problem because it doesn't cost that much money.
A full rack and 1gb at he.net costs something like $350/mo. I think it's $500 if you get the entire 10gb. Very fast servers are available for, basically, shipping charges on ebay.
The cost that seems prohibitive is all of the flashing lights and fancy imagery and reactive design, etc.
Further, the frameworks and scaffolding that enable all of the tracking and ads ... are themselves expensive and this complexity becomes self-reinforcing.
A final unnecessary set of costs is the neurotic compulsion for 5-9s reliability and perfect, instantaneous responsiveness from every geography.
What does it cost to run lobste.rs ? Metafilter ? HN ?
I think any reasonably resourced individual could do it as a hobby in their spare time - especially if you strip away the CDNs and the load balancers and the expensive frameworks, etc.
Is there any reason to not just privately email the users? "Hey, I'm so and so, a security researcher. I was able to gather your data from <Company>, which has not responded to any inquiries from me. Please be aware that your data is mismanaged and vulnerable, and I encourage you to voice your concern directly to <Company>."
Seems like a reasonable idea, though depending on how many users are affected that may effectively amount to going public. Also only works if the vulnerability gives you access to all customer emails, and you're willing to exploit it to get that info (which might not be a good idea legally speaking).
Make it better: find a lawyer that would sue, send them the details, you can find like 10 ppl out of 10k who would love to sue, you get your bounty from the lawyer.
I’ve been intrigued by recurse for a long time because the alums I’ve met are all very impressive.
But when I think about applying, I worry that it’s just tapping into my addiction to external validation and credential-seeking rather than just learning something on my own.
Or… that’s what I tell myself because I’m not nearly as bright as the recursers I’ve met
I worked as an EMR consultant for a few years, helping teach medical staff to use these things. The thing that struck me was that while some of the UIs look "outdated" by web standards, the software often did a great of taking medical staff through their daily workflows. I feel like a lot of websites do the opposite - they look nice, but using them is a pain.
(Conversely, most staff hated new EMRs, because it enforced doing things the hospital wants its staff to do for liability and billing, but the staff doesn't want to do - for example, asking Maternity nurses to talk to new mothers about smoking cessation.)
