First draft of my "Why you shouldn't use Stacker News" TABConf slide deck \ stacker news ~meta

First draft of my "Why you shouldn't use Stacker News" TABConf slide deck

21.7k sats \ 58 comments \ @k00b 8 Sep 2023 meta

As I promised @birdeye21, here are the slides for the talk. I give it Saturday afternoon. I'd love some feedback if ya'll got any. Did I miss anything important? I tried to capture it all without dumping it all in one go.

It definitely needs some trimming but I'll need a fresh set of eyes first.

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1CSNsTTMhb0mlTr91tQIDInDBr-778Sy3o694lylKrjA/edit?usp=sharing

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2469 sats \ 3 replies \ @TonyGiorgio 8 Sep 2023

I think maybe an addition at the end is if you turn it back towards the audience. How have they been building without thinking about these things? Why is it that people shouldn't use their apps? Or maybe aren't actually using it for specific reasons.

Speaking to an audience of builders, they (I) need to be asking these kinds of questions every day.

10 sats \ 2 replies \ @k00b OP 8 Sep 2023

That's a great touch!

"Why shouldn't people use your app?"

1659 sats \ 1 reply \ @TonyGiorgio 8 Sep 2023

My answer is easy and it's because it's down right now and they can't.

So I feel this lol.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @k00b OP 8 Sep 2023

lol oh man 🫂

I'm sure you'll get it up lickity split and it'll feel amazing

986 sats \ 3 replies \ @fanis 8 Sep 2023

I love the honesty - did your VC saw that? 😄

Seconding what others have already said, I think three things that might be missing are:

some background on the context that led to specific design decision. Some of if is trivial (can't develop on Nostr when Nostr doesn't really exist/has traction yet), some might be worth digging into ;
what you are doing to overcome current limitations (JIT-funding paired with automatic withdrawals kinda addresses the self-sovereignty issue ; outer space may bring SN onto Nostr, etc.) ;
what's good on this side of the fence. After all, people are using SN daily, so surely there is a lot to enjoy here!

Other than that, love the slides style and the memery.

643 sats \ 1 reply \ @k00b OP 8 Sep 2023

Thanks fanis!

did your VC saw that?

lol they know I'm a freak. If I had to guess, they probably like that I'm sort of emotionally independent and try to honestly assess outcomes/circumstances. It's kind of table stakes for adapting.

some background on the context that led to specific design decision. what you are doing to overcome current limitations what's good on this side of the fence

I only have 30 minutes to do the talk but it would be nice to explain the background, our plans, and what we've already accomplished. Maybe I can do that as a separate exercise.

I also like that this talk has one point and just hammers it right in. It's going to be hard to forget the lesson.

493 sats \ 0 replies \ @fanis 8 Sep 2023

I also like that this talk has one point and just hammers it right in. It's going to be hard to forget the lesson.

You're absolutely right, this presentation definitely stands out and clearly gets to the point.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @DiracDelta 8 Sep 2023

His investor is a retard who loves Monero and thinks the world will run on 100% solar... by having 10x overcapacity baseload. 🤡🤡🤡

Thanks for building a fun toy with idiot fiat money though, @k00b

1626 sats \ 11 replies \ @TonyGiorgio 8 Sep 2023

no typescript no unit tests no microservices polling not websockets

oooof man that hurt me reading it lol

But jokes aside really respectable reading it. I'm sure it's not easy but having that insight into yourself and your product is (what I think) actually makes a good founder. I liked the aspect at the end of spending your nights and days making that slide empty. You can't fix what you don't know is flawed or not.

0 sats \ 10 replies \ @k00b OP 8 Sep 2023

lol thanks!

You can't fix what you don't know is flawed or not.

Yep, this is the point. I spend more time thinking about this stuff than anything else. Emptying this slide deck is practically the whole job.

1386 sats \ 9 replies \ @Michelson_Morley 8 Sep 2023

You definitely don't need typescript (strongly typed languages are FUN, much more than they are actually useful, when you actually know JS well enough), or microservices (why would you need that, total unnecessary complexity. connection pooling on your postgres will be perfectly adequate, and you can just make it a JAMstack behind a CDN if you really need performance and SEO. I highly recommend redwoodjs). You definitely don't need websockets (websockets do not scale. One open per user. And why? Do not use websockets).

You definitely need tests, in fact you need CI with github actions. And you should update your https://tom.preston-werner.com/2010/08/23/readme-driven-development.html and provide a script for simple local dev startup.

Imo:)

50 sats \ 2 replies \ @k00b OP 8 Sep 2023

You definitely need tests, in fact you need CI with github actions. And you should update your README.md and provide a script for simple local dev startup.

We have plans to add tests around the money stuff (and anything sensitive). I'm pretty against testing things for the sake of testing though.

We have a local dev setup via docker-compose or do you mean something easier?

2190 sats \ 1 reply \ @Michelson_Morley 8 Sep 2023

You're right you have a solid local environment start guide. The favourite ones I've seen though are ones where they provide a single bash script that does everything.

Here's my favourite example of a CONTRIBUTING.md, think that's where I got it from: https://github.com/josephholsten/boring/blob/master/CONTRIBUTING.md

50 sats \ 0 replies \ @k00b OP 8 Sep 2023

Solid rec. Thanks!

50 sats \ 0 replies \ @k00b OP 8 Sep 2023

I agree (in general) tbh. It's why I said industry experts which is kind of a way of saying people who might favor unnecessary complexity and disapprove.

0 sats \ 4 replies \ @TonyGiorgio 8 Sep 2023

strongly typed languages are FUN, much more than they are actually useful

lol no

0 sats \ 3 replies \ @Michelson_Morley 8 Sep 2023

Hey I heard you in a podcast recently, im a fan! But yes they are. It's fun for a developer to get code-hints and "not have to worry about runtime errors" but if you already know JS, introducing typescript is just going to make your project bloated. I know this is a very unpopular opinion in programming, because programmers love playing word-games, love thinking about type and data. I love it too. But react with typescript is ugh.

0 sats \ 2 replies \ @TonyGiorgio 8 Sep 2023

Appreciate it.

But no, that's how bugs happened. Especially when you're going into it like "I know js well enough, I won't have bugs".

Like numbers changing their types because a js library decided to swap what it returns. That's how you lose money.

50 sats \ 0 replies \ @k00b OP 8 Sep 2023

Like numbers changing their types because a js library decided to swap what it returns. That's how you lose money.

What kind of butthead would make that kind of mistake though. 🙈

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @Michelson_Morley 8 Sep 2023

This is what tests are for.

1599 sats \ 0 replies \ @tnuts420 8 Sep 2023

you make a lot of good points, as a matter of fact...

no in all seriousness though, i think that is a solid steel man argument. you mentioned everything i could think of, and a few things i'd never even considered.

1578 sats \ 0 replies \ @grayruby 8 Sep 2023

Awesome. Love the kick yourself but ending in I am going to work my ass off to not have a reason to kick myself.

Nice work.

782 sats \ 3 replies \ @kepford 8 Sep 2023

First off, I love this approach. I think you hit on some good and fair criticisms while still managing to make me curious. My one critique is I would kill the bullets and just say that stuff. Move them to notes and just have images on your slides. In my experience if you have to much text on your slides people end up just reading them vs. listening. I'm sure there is disagreement on this but years ago when I was working on my presentation skills I recall hearing this advice and I found it to be true. Slides should complement your talk. Not be the script for your talk. Just a few of my thoughts.

10 sats \ 0 replies \ @m00ninite 8 Sep 2023

Yep. The very last thing you want to be doing in a presentation is reading from the slides. They should mostly just be overview or a way to remind yourself of what to talk about.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @Storyteller 9 Sep 2023

I agree. Images. More images. An image of Stacker.news. An article. So they see what stacker.news is.

Write down your full text. Or zoom it and add an AI assistant to zoom and you get the transcribe of your whole text.

Then print it out and highlight ONE word that summarizes a whole section!

If you have 15 slides on each slide you should have 3 bullets. Each bullet is one word.

That way they cannot look at the slide and start reading.

The presentation contains 3 words per page. BIG. And an image that summarizes alm the 3 words (the theme of the 3 words. Next slide obe image to left and 3 new words etc. End sheet: 1 word. Start sheet one word. Stacker.news.

People will then listen. What is the story connecting these dot-words.

Dang. We have to listen to him we got only one picture and 3 words. Without his voice we can’t make any sense of those words:

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @k00b OP 8 Sep 2023

That's very helpful advice, thanks!

I'll try to figure out what I can move to notes

754 sats \ 4 replies \ @WeAreAllSatoshi 8 Sep 2023

From a tech stack perspective, I’d argue that no microservices is actually a good thing right now. It allows you to iterate faster. For every feature that requires DB, API, and UI changes, you’d have to coordinate multiple deployments to release. Maybe at some point it will be worth it to explore microservices, but I personally don’t think it’s a negative right now

493 sats \ 0 replies \ @kepford 8 Sep 2023

Yep. Over engineering before you need it is a big mistake I've seen over the years. When starting a new project the most likely issue is no one will use it. Not that it won't scale.

0 sats \ 2 replies \ @ek 8 Sep 2023

I agree. I read somewhere that microservices are not a form to organize code but teams.

That made a lot of sense to me.

I also got quite burned at my previous company with microservices.

Feels like the promise of "everyone can just work on their own projects" + "we can scale better" turned into "no one knows what everyone else is doing" + "if one service breaks, everything else may break in unknown ways because no service is really independent and the one guy who knows how to fix is on vacation"

Currently, only the image proxy is a microservice. This makes sense imo.

Basically everything that would be a container anyway can be turned into a microservice without drawbacks (?)

I know I am probably selling microservices short here

0 sats \ 1 reply \ @k00b OP 8 Sep 2023

I also agree. This may be a caricature of industry standards. Still, this is something I can imagine an "industry expert" saying so I'm not sure if I should axe it.

493 sats \ 0 replies \ @ek 8 Sep 2023

I think it wasn't about axing it, just personal opinions here :)

same for "no typescript"

1053 sats \ 2 replies \ @JohnRawlins 8 Sep 2023

that was very honest and forthright, i dont think it read badly, but what i do think it might do is make someone that doesn't like you try and poke holes in the site, somehow.

you know, only because people are generally spiritually stunted, but otherwise it was a very honest and nice presentation.

how about a few slides (3-4)ish about what you actually enjoy about the thing, and why you've built it in the first place?

and maybe 2-3 slides max on what you'd like to see it grow into, if you can hypothecate something that's nebulously open, yet realistic enough to have already been in your dream for this place?

it read well though, I've been a writer of various hats for the last oh, honestly since I was in grade school... it's never really stopped.. put it this way: in 4th grade, we were supposed to turn in a paragraph a week with 6-8 of our spelling words in it. I took the liberty to write a 4-6 page story every week, using all of my spelling words.. Teacher loved it. Been journaling, blogging, writing, editing things, and helping others with their writing ever since. :) even wrote a book of poetry.

anyway, nice presentation man, I dug it.

50 sats \ 1 reply \ @k00b OP 8 Sep 2023

Thanks John! I take this as high praise as an unpracticed writer myself.

it might do is make someone that doesn't like you try and poke holes in the site, somehow

I imagine so too, but I don't like hiding much.

how about a few slides (3-4)ish about what you actually enjoy about the thing, and why you've built it in the first place? and maybe 2-3 slides max on what you'd like to see it grow into, if you can hypothecate something that's nebulously open, yet realistic enough to have already been in your dream for this place?

This is a great recommendation. I kind of just assumed that was obvious but you're right if this was all you knew of me you might think I wasn't incredibly optimistic.

493 sats \ 0 replies \ @JohnRawlins 8 Sep 2023

you are most welcome Keyan, let me know if you want another lookthrough or any other help.

and yes - spot on: if this was all i knew i'd just assume you were some super creative guy in a basement that coded a nice website, and doesn't know where it's headed. :)

848 sats \ 0 replies \ @Car 10 Sep 2023

it was the most bearish talk I ever heard in my life, but I weirdly enjoyed it

https://imgprxy.stacker.news/LOIY3Skk1M5g7gLkOqOgGAV8XIG3FGHqgP9RR2ca0Qk/rs:fit:600:500:0/g:no/aHR0cHM6Ly9pLmliYi5jby85Wm4yckdHL0lNRy0yODkwLmpwZw

here is a quick 30 sec video I took of it stackers

https://streamable.com/61m850

908 sats \ 0 replies \ @midas 9 Sep 2023

lol, the day after I wrote a post on how to earn sats with SN!

Love the overview and awareness, though. Maybe think about intergating Nostr - but I read about a Reddit on Nostr somewhere already.

Also, since I joined, I made as many sats as if I had been clicking mindlessly on a Bitcoin faucet each hour. I think there's way more value here!

Cheers.

908 sats \ 0 replies \ @birdeye21 9 Sep 2023

Love it brotha 🫡 love the high awareness, feels refreshing

I agree with @kepford, more visual!

893 sats \ 1 reply \ @SimpleStacker 8 Sep 2023

It's a good presentation because of the memes. A good selection that doesn't feel forced. A+ for the memery

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @k00b OP 8 Sep 2023

Thanks that was one of my concerns going in but they came to me relatively easily.

832 sats \ 0 replies \ @Chep 10 Sep 2023

I wish I could've seen this live. Enjoyed reading through the slides!

493 sats \ 0 replies \ @0fje0 8 Sep 2023

Apart from the tech-stack parts (which I'm not able to assess anyway), your deck basically answers all of the concerns I've had about SN.

It's really reassuring to know that you're not only well aware of these potential issues and challenges, but actively striving to empty the list. And a big part of the reason I'll be sticking around to watch all of this unfold!

56 sats \ 0 replies \ @k00b OP 8 Sep 2023

I’m a little concerned I made too much of a caricature of the criticisms. It needs work I think.

The last slide is a little punchy too with “literal life.” I could probably tune that.

10 sats \ 3 replies \ @DarthCoin 9 Sep 2023

oh man... I am disapointed you didn't use my meme for SN

https://imgprxy.stacker.news/de9jAukJCHQ05YvLKYPsrQz_HbsShgav9_5atTU6PM0/rs:fit:600:500:0/g:no/aHR0cHM6Ly9pLnBvc3RpbWcuY2MvMTNLV2I1Y1QvU04tdmFkZXIuanBn

10 sats \ 2 replies \ @Natalia 9 Sep 2023

welcome back!

121 sats \ 1 reply \ @DarthCoin 9 Sep 2023

Again just few days to beer refill. Will be a back and forth travel until October. I see you are hitting hard posting on SN. Great post about content creators!

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @Natalia 9 Sep 2023

Thanks!

Given that here is full of smart brains and more experienced plebs, it could be quite intimidating to share - at least this was how I felt when I first discovered here.

But after reading and learning many things here for about one year, I think I should do my part to give back.

10 sats \ 2 replies \ @Storyteller 9 Sep 2023

Sort of like reddit:

Don’t do that.

Own your own space!! I never say I’m sort of like my brother. You also don’t present yourself like Sort of like Mark Zuckerberg but cooler.

Own your space meaning: what is stacker.news

A place where you can tell your stories about nostr, bitcoin, tech and stack sats and spend sats

That is it what can you DO. A grandma should be able to understand it and even people who don’t know Reddit should be able to understand it. I don’t know Reddit!!

In that sentence don’t include any other names. You are stacker.news period.

If you say sort like….. X, people’s mind start jumping to the X and their mind is not centered on your “thing”. Their mind is not open to receive new information.

Their mind tries to relate and find out what.

0 sats \ 1 reply \ @k00b OP 9 Sep 2023

I see what you mean but I don't agree.

If I'm friends with your brother and you're more like your brother than most people, the fastest way for me to understand what you're like is for you to tell me you're like your brother ... with XYZ key difference.

My goal is to make people understand what stacker news is as fast as possible. The goal is to reduce the risk of confusion while understanding that it costs sounding special.

I'm surrounded by companies at TABConf who take your advice and no one could tell you what their company actually does. Often it's because they do 10 divergent things because they thought they shouldn't be restrained by understandable comparisons to things and confused even themselves in the process.

10 sats \ 0 replies \ @Storyteller 9 Sep 2023

Ok I see your point. If most of your audience knows Reddit it makes sense.

10 sats \ 1 reply \ @ek 8 Sep 2023

IF it does succeed, popularity could kill it

What's your definition of success btw?

21 sats \ 0 replies \ @k00b OP 8 Sep 2023

Creates timeless value for an uncapped number of people, ethically and profitably.

That's probably it.

0 sats \ 2 replies \ @Storyteller 9 Sep 2023

A man comes to you and offers his house for sale. The house he built. But right away he starts showing you a list of all the problems of his house. He actually paid his neighbours to find out more reasons not to buy the house.

Think a little bit about that scene.

A little strange right?

What would you do? What would you think?

The only reason I would think is: this man doesn’t want to sell me this house. He wants to keep it to himself. There is something special about this man or this house.

Why Why Why

I would ask why.

You have to give me a clear why I would ask this man.

0 sats \ 1 reply \ @k00b OP 9 Sep 2023

What if he answered, "because I want you to know the truth before you make an important purchase"

But right away he starts showing you a list of all the problems of his house.

All great salesman know sales are about building trust. When you reveal an inconvenient truth, it sets a ceiling on what you're willing to lie about.

Eg if I start by telling you this house needs a new roof in a year, when I tell you the air conditioner was recently replaced you believe me.

And when you tell all inconvenient truths ...

100 sats \ 0 replies \ @k00b OP 9 Sep 2023

I once sold a 30 year old car over the phone sight unseen by telling the guy every problem and issue and bit of history about the car without any hesitation.

He immediately knew I was telling him the truth because much of it was super inconvenient, and he instantly purchased it and paid $1500 just to have the car shipped across the country.

I paid $800 for the car and sold it for $5k (not including shipping).

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @Storyteller 9 Sep 2023

Last point. When you give a presentation you tell a story. It is too short to tell a story with elements of the HERO’s journey.

A presentation is a short story.

The best stories have elements of the Hero’s journey. Look that up if you have to give a longer presentation.

The Hero’s journey is a mental map. It triggers emotions within the audience’s mind. It has been passed from generations to generations for ages in all cultures.

So people in an audience expect to see elements of the Hero’s journey in each presentation.

Let me give you an example:

A hero, was not awake, finds a mentor, goes through a deep low, fights back, learns a lesson and come back to his tribe. With the lessons learned. And dies.

Emotions emotions. The audience feels her pain. The Female warrior.

So the audience bonds with her. The hero’s journey goes right through the audience’s heart. It is a golden arrow that goes right through the heart. The place where the emotions are born.

In your presentation there is no hero, there is no struggle, there is no fighting, no low, no highs, no tribe, no lesson. In this short post I will create a hero for you. One you won’t think of. You want to continue this short story and find out who the hero is?

Without a hero there us no story. There is no cause. Nothing to fight for. No life.

People will not relate to your cause. They are looking for the hero. They see you and they think is he the hero?

They don’t bond with your cause.

It is difficult to create a hero this fast for you tomorrow.

Without a hero, a struggle the presentation is flat. No emotions are triggered.

My best advise:

The audience us the hero!!!

They have a stuggle. Their time and attention is held in other social media. They don’t get paid for their time!!!

That is their struggle.

They will hear all these objections. So they keep asleep.

Don’t go to stacker.news. Neo stay asleep.

YOU are the mentor. This presentation is the enticing moment. The white rabbit moment in the Matrix. Follow the white rabbit.

You basically tell them…. I the mentor bring you the bad news. Stay asleep. Listen to all these objections. Don’t go to stacker.news.

And then they wake up… why is he telling me this….

To make this plot work you can say…

At the beginning….you are on your social media. Nostr, everywhere.

You hear stacker.news, another thing…

I’m going to tell you:Dont do it. Just like everybody will tell you. Actually I have paid my community to tell me all reasons why somebody should NOT come to us!!

You see when you have a special place and a gem you want to keep it to yourself…..

Here are your reasons not to do it….

And then you end: it is a special place. For special people only. Don’t do it.

Maybe their journey will then start…..

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @Storyteller 9 Sep 2023

What do you expect them to do at the end? Go check it out?

What is your call to action?

What do you want the audience to do?

Are you closing the circle by saying: these are the objections. We are working on them. Together with the community.

You now know how honesty and the truth gets rewarded by tge community.

If you have anything any news you want out there in the world and you want to get paid sats to bring this news : go to stacker.news.

If you want to put your sats on the news you value. Go to stacker.news.

The truth that is valued is paid for and rises. Instant feedback by tge community. Instant honest feedback.

On stacker.news we put our sats where our mouth is (instead of the saying we put our money where your mouth is)

This is it: if the community doesn’t value this comment: DO NOT GIVE ME ANY SATS!! ZERO SATS please!!!

0 sats \ 1 reply \ @Storyteller 9 Sep 2023

If you are like me you want a critical review.

I think that transition and reason could be stronger.

Why have you chosen as a founder to raise all objections about a product you founded?

If I were sitting in the audience at this point all kinds of questions would pop up in my mind!!

And you lose me here because.

Why would this founder raise all these objections?

Is he insane?

Is he trying to be vulnerable?

Is he afraid I in the audience will raise all objections so he is doing it himself?

He is NOT critical. This is a gimmick a game he is playing.

You have to come up with a better “story” an honest story WHY you chose to list all these objections!!!

Why not just say: I’m open for suggestions. I want to make stacker.news the best place to be for bitcoiners.

BECAUSE we at stacker.news are an open community I as the founder created a poll where I asked the community to shoot on Stacker.news. That is how open we are at Stacker.news.

And I paid people sats for their honest opinions! So I wanted people to be extremely critical and because I value that I put my sats on that!

This is how Stacker.news works: if you value what someone says you pay sats.

Now here is what the COMMUNITY who LOVES stacker.news came with:

…….

I think it takes a strong founder to go out to his customers and ask what is the worst things you see in my product. Most founders guess internely what they thing are the objections.

You are a strong leader. You go out and ask the difficult questions. And you PAY me to tell you the truth.

No where gave I seen this. Not on nostr, facebook, youtube, twitter. ONLY on stacker.news.

You get paid to tell the truth.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @k00b OP 9 Sep 2023

He probably is insane. He doesn't mind being vulnerable. The audience has already raised all these objections individually and he's just letting you know about them if you don't know about them already.

If there's any gimmick here, it's that by saving you from doing a critical review yourself, your energy can be spent on appreciating the product's value (if any) free of concern about what's being hidden from you.