Nobody wants a damn web view. If I'm clicking off to a link, I may want to click to another app and back in and still be where it was... If it's in a webview that's gone as soon as I click out. Yes, you can open in Chrome or whatever, open in a browser, but that's a pain in the ass to do an the time. I hate web views, in all forms.
I find it so sad that Twitter still gets traffic at all. Even if we put aside the super shady content on this platform (free speech, lol), the app, either on the web or mobile, has a sub-par user experience.
I wish all the devs that I respect were using another platform.
I’m just happy they got rid of the system web view and replaced it with the one which they can inject their own JavaScript into. Bonus points that it covers the thing I want to read and I can’t turn it off. Truly, a masterpiece of engineering from the guy whose entire schtick was coming up with was to boost engagement from kids.
I stopped using Twitter somewhere around the time of Musk takeover. Only used it for event coverage live during events for which I found it genuinely useful at some point and of course doomscrolling. Can't say I miss it. Its like nothing changed in my life. I also managed to miss the LGBT exodus after Musk policy changes and learned about it later at a random FOSDEM talk. Global "social" feeds do everything in their power to steal attention and having it all back is great for sanity.
Banning PG was a mistake [0]
> [George Hotz] I'm upset when I see PG get banned for mentioning mastodon
> [Elon] yeah, that was a mistake
[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FkNkSQ42jg4&t=42m14s
Meta note: it's worth listening to this historical 'space' in full (well, the first ~1h while Elon's on). The meta-pattern becomes obvious: people (esp nay-sayers) are outraged about ~20 different issues, X since addressed most of them, but the outrage-mob moved on to new issues, X will address them, and so on.
The point: the ragey mob is never satified, X moves very quickly (partly due to it's willingness to try things, and occasionally fail in the short term) but this strategy is long-term optimal.
They're also doing something very scammy with ads - if you are scrolling on mobile, they've changed the behaviour on iOS so that if you touch the ad at all, it considers it a click and opens it, whereas it's much less sensitive on ordinary posts and behaves like any other app. This is clearly to increase click-through artificially.
On a related topic, I've been following with some amusement the outrage on Reddit/r/Grok because Grok will no longer make porn. Apparently Grok was trained on all the NSFW material on X and Twitter before it intentionally so Grok could have a "spicy" mode. And spicy it was. Some of the stuff it made was really good and people loved it. But (allegedly) Musk changed his mind to go after enterprise and government accounts so spicy mode was killed and now there a lot of angry users complaining on Reddit.
My interest is this: It appears that it's not possible to over-ride the training effectively since NSFW material bleeds into normal image requests. Musk had this problem before trying to over-ride Grok's training, so at one point said he would have to retrain Grok. It's interesting to me that LLMs can't be steered effectively, which makes me wonder if they can ever really be aligned ("safe")
I've been a long-time Twitter user. I don't hate Elon, so when he bought it I was cautiously optimistic.
I deactivated last week. The platform is bad and getting worse. It's scammy and spammy. Everything is designed around garbage engagement, so that the X team can brag about how good the product is doing.
What about links to malware or other illegal content that will be downloaded without me clicking on it...?
Is it only in the app, or also with the browser?
Crazy.
The new behavior is much better from a user perspective. When you tap on a post, it'll start loading the link in the background so once you are done reading the post the link will load immediately and the post will shelve on the bottom of the screen. It is very fluid, especially with blog posts / news articles.
This link is all you need to know about the lack of free-speech Twitter has. https://themarkup.org/investigations/2023/09/15/twitter-is-s...
deleted my account a few weeks ago and it actually feels like my health has improved because i'm no longer constantly bombarded with ragebait and doomerism
i hope they keep ruining the experience of using it some more
Since this got so much attention, I feel the need to add that the CEO of Substack is now saying that even accounting for fake views, their traffic from X has gone up substantially.
Tweet with graph: https://x.com/cjgbest/status/1985852384531394916
Does this mean an attacker can turn any impression into any GET request?
> Update 2: even correcting for the fake views, traffic to Substack links from X is up substantially. (full post reads, signups, etc. also track.)
Real traffic is estimated at 3-4x higher than before, after correcting for the preloading.
This seems like a fairly reasonable UX improvement. Unless I'm missing anything, it doesn't seem like this has nefarious intent, it's just there so that when a user clicks a link, they see the content as quickly as possible.
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It's astonishing how quickly discussion disintegrates when Musk is mentioned on HN. He really is such a divisive figure, with incredibly polarised language both in support and against him.
Normal reasoned arguments are just absent here. Sometimes when two people disagree, they can still have a nuanced conversation/argument about it. But not about Musk.
There are some opinions in this thread that I vehemently disagree with, but it's not worth escalating by adding my opinion to the pile.
It reminds me of that phenomenon where you read the newspaper and notice an article in your domain of expertise and it's riddled with errors! Then you turn the page, read an article about something else, and completely trust it. You somehow didn't transfer the knowledge that the newspaper is inaccurate to the new domain.
It makes me wonder what other discussions on HN (and elsewhere) are completely devoid of nuance and reason, but I just don't notice it.
That's precisely what Wechat is doing. Most chinese "mega apps" do this.
Elon absolutely on his track to copy this important feature [1]
The webview works as a traffic faucet. Elon can turn it on or off for every third-party site, you know, for "Internet safety".
My take:
Next step is X.com proprietary APIs inside the Webview, like payment and everything.
The ultimate goal is a "mini-app" framework that use PWA-like techs to run everything based on the Webview and circumvent Appstore.
And last a phone that runs the "mini-app" framework because why not, as an "AI edge node" like Elon recently proposed.
If you link to a page with ads on it, will that webview load count as an ad impression?
I never use xitter by choice, but when I need to view a tweet/thread/profile I make sure the xcancel[0] browser extension is installed.
This reinforces why I never use the social media apps and only the web versions. Very few apps avoid the invasive engagement-maximization that browsers make a bit more difficult.
How does displaying the webview increase the traffic? Is it because when you scroll through the site, even if you have not openeded the link, it gets opened in the background and counts a visit?
What evidence do you have that the webview "opens in the background"? I just tried it, and it definitely isn't preloaded when I click a link...
Reddit does something similar in some way but not like this.
I often save links to posts from Reddit in my Obsidian note app. Just copying the link marks it that you shared the link and artificially increases stats in that manner.
X is an authoritarian platform designed for freedomless speech.
People, including myself, were booted out for giving opinions that did not align with their corrupt values. Even post-Elon, after appealing decision, some of us still haven't been let back in.
It seems like they changed the strategy and enhanced UX. Feels like now there would a lot of worthless traffic in the web
so many people seem to be complaining that it got worse - duh? it was always shite platform guys c'mon :)
but indeed unfortunately there is not many other things doing real-time info better than X / Twitter
Wait, so it's all just pre-loading traffic? Ugh. Why would they do this? Speed? Confusion? Both?
I’ve also noticed recently that when I click a Twitter link from Telegram, it hijacks the Telegram webview to open the tweet in Safari.
That explains the extra traffic I've been getting from Twitter.
seamless data harvesting hidden behind a feature, more cached urls for training data
Wait, so it's all just pre-loading traffic? Ugh.
The only way to win is to not play.
Again, anyone still using Twitter should know they are contributing to the richest man in the world actively pushing to disrupt the core fabric of our society.
I don’t know what everyone gets out of Twitter/X. I signed up recently to see what the fuss is about,
I think I selected science and music as starting interests. Within 10 minutes I was getting lots of right wing borderline Nazi bullshit.
Tries it all again in incognito mode. Roughly same thing. WTF
> since Elon and his mom both tweeted about how it wasn't fair to use his platform to promote other links/platforms
This is just so funny.
> now any time you open a tweet with a link, the in-app webview loads in the background
The what now? Is this also a feature of the actual website if I go there in a browser?
The UI/UX of Twitter has always been a dumpster fire. The non-sequential view that you get when accessing a page when not logged in is horrible.
whaaat a surprise....
Nikita should be ashamed of how BAD the android X app is.
Why are you using twitter for anything at this stage?
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Another example and incentive not to use apps and to be held hostage, when an equivalent web service is available. On Android, just use Hermit or some similar app to sandbox a webview of their webpage.
What bugs me is the sheer number of people, and organisations, who still link to images and video or '1/20' long screeds on twitter, while the next article on their own site is bitching about how bad twatter/owner/politics etc is. Seriously if a site, blog, forum etc you know ever links to twitter then just stop interaction with them, they're lazy mofos need to do their own groundwork.
Huge fan of X, but it's pissing in the face of your fans to tell such obvious lies.
I understand the rationale and I am happy for the authors and I think the distribution will be way better.
As a user I like to get out as soon as I click because I can trace back the link and I can do clipping or bookmark in my browser.
Day One Twitter user; built the very first API app and the first Android client. Launching a "competitor" next month - Keep an eye on https://flipso.com
Since we're doing PSAs, isn't it also now just a completely broken platform on mobile for everyone who isn't logged in?
> Something went wrong, but don't fret - let's give it another shot.
This is all I've seen for literally years now. No real error, does not even say to login or install an app, just blames it on my privacy extensions (I don't actually have any) and offers a button to pointlessly try again. No big loss, but surprising! On the one hand, it's the only time big tech isn't engaged in obnoxious harassment, but it's also a conspicuously dumb oversight in the funnel