I wonder how long until this post is flagged/"shadowbanned". Such was the fate of almost all of Ed's posts on HN, with little surprise as to why.

People who don't adjust their prior outlook in light of newer data may not be the best fit around here. I'm OK with that.

What is the newer data?

Extensively discussed elsewhere in this thread. Just start at the top and start reading comments.

Can you summarise? I only reached your comment after scrolling past all the others and I still don't have the answer.

Is the new data that models are more useful for coding than they once were?

Cost of tokens goes down over time. Like by a lot. And it will continue to do so.

Imagine being in 2003 and saying compute costs won’t go down. That’s Ed lol.

EDIT: Some quick research on this so you guys have actual numbers: https://gist.github.com/dwaltrip/a037be938d2b5ecc8b8b238736e....

There's multiple separate angles that all contribute to token-costs going down: chip improvements, engineering improvements for running inference in general, AI architecture and training advances that give similar intelligence in a smaller model, improvements in the quality of the training data, data center design / economies of scale, networking and rack-level improvements that are multiplicative with chip advancements, and so on...

If you analyze the situation for 5 minutes, it's blindingly obvious that price-per-token will continue to improve. And there's a very similar case for intelligence-per-token as well.

And don't get me wrong -- I have many concerns about how this is all unfolding and how it will impact society. But let's get our basic facts straight.

That sounds like a reading comprehension skill issue? In which case I don't see why me summarizing would move the needle.

But if it helps, no, the data being discussed is surrounding the economics of running inference and R&D, nothing to do with the utility of models for coding.

Yours is the first from the top to mention this. You might want to consider the physical location of your comment before telling people to read the thread. We could do without the rudeness, too.

> A $20 subscription 2 years ago is not providing the same level of intelligence you're getting today.

That subscription was then and is now likely still subsidized.

For all we know, there could be 10 people paying for a ChatGPT subscription and not using it enough to subsidize 1 power user _and_ still have money left for profit.

Oh they'd be sure to let us know if that were the case.

Why would the AI companies advertise that most of their users do not use their subscription in full??

People tend to believe OpenAI and Anthropic can make money any time, the only thing they need to do is to stop training newer/better models. Source? Sam & Dario, of course (trust us, bro). It may (if they sell access at API price) or may not be true, but the scenario where training is stopped is simply unrealistic at this point.

> I assume targeting big centralized networks such as X and Facebook is good enough.

Exactly, and make non-anon networks the norm enough so that most people will never trust anything said on fringe social networks.

Well, the way Apple sees it, their hardware ships with a perfectly good OS. And they know their hardware has so far been so good that even if they ruin said OS, they'd still make money. What we (and Apple, as competition) need is a serious macbook-killer with full Linux support.

Bring back the keynotes. I want to hear people cheering and booing again.

I started with DO in 2013 when they offered 20GB SSD, 512MB RAM for $5/mo. For some reason I paid no VAT then, but I do now. Their $4/mo option now is still 512MB, still 1 vCPU, but 10GB SSD. So it's like the last decade of technological progress with regards to RAM, CPU and storage that should either lead to price cuts/spec bumps didn't happen. And yeah, DO got expensive before AI bought up all the memory.

You didn't consider inflation. 2013's $5 is $7 in today's money. Today's $4 equals roughly 2013's $2.82.

So a near 44% price reduction for a 50% reduction in only one of the components. Looks like progression to me.

It used to be "innocent until proven/suspected guilty." Now it's more like "let's see that ID, you know, just in case..."

I'm not a legal expert/lawyer but I do think a lot of this is not the company just randomly wanting to do it, but lawyer driven development. No company wants to introduce more friction for no reason, unless somehow there's precedent or risk involved in not doing it. Curious to know what legal precedents or laws have changed recently.

The only possible non legally driven reason I can think of would be if they think the tradeoff of extra friction (and lost customers) is more than offset by fraud protection efforts. This seems unlikely cause I don't see how that math could have changed in the last few years.

How much money are people here spending on tokens for this thing?

> We'll Keep Fighting. Just Not on X

Yeah, somewhere where regular people that aren't terminally online won't ever have the chance to see it. This is a dumb decision. I'd very much like for open, distributed social networks to win, but that's not a reality we'll be living in anytime soon. X, for better or worse, gets you eyes, more so than any other alternative social media.

>X, for better or worse, gets you eyes, more so than any other alternative social media.

But that is actually what they called out: they're not getting eyes anymore. Views at X have cratered so hard that it's barely worth the time.

I just checked their Facebook and X page. The X page is getting much more eyes. For instance, they posted their article "The FAA’s “Temporary” Flight Restriction for Drones is a Blatant Attempt to Criminalize Filming ICE" to both accounts. The results:

X: 1,500 likes, 50 comments, 846 shares.

Facebook: 58 likes, 8 comments, 22 shares.

Bluesky: 94 likes, 3 comments, 51 shares.

Interesting indeed. The story doesn't seem to be radically different on TikTok. It goes up to 15K views, that's still 3 times less than X.

Seems clear while their reach has decreased over time, it's still the highest on X.

I do agree with the decision, but declining reach is not the primary reason, it is merely what got them over the line.

I think it has been proven again and again that these "engagement numbers" are a mix of bots, social media company itself trying to inflate the numbers, and real engagement. Unless there is an impartial third party, these numbers are there to attract advertisers. In this situation, I would trust the source themselves, i.e. account holders.

Yeah, the idea that this is simply, mostly or even partly about engagement/eyes is bunk on it's face. I'd even argue it a bad faith position to defend.

You realize these numbers are meaningless right?

Even if you assumed there isn't some Elon "like multiplier" being applied to these numbers, the amount of bot activity on X is staggering.

You have no idea how many humans are being reached without metrics about links being followed.

but the article opening with a paragraph saying "The Numbers Aren’t Working Out".

One can't justify quitting because the number is falling, and claims the number does not matter at the same time. or can it?

Much fewer bots on X than Facebook. I think you are completely wrong.

Likes are obviously correlated with the number of views a post gets. I am not sure what point you are trying to make.

That assumption is only true if there is no manipulation of likes. I believe that the presence of bot farms has been extensively documented by now, which should disprove the usefulness of likes on any social media platform nowadays.

You are making lots of assumptions when evaluating GitHub projects that you aren’t writing here.

GH stars can indicate: which of many forks of a repo might be the most active, which of many projects in a category might be the most used/trusted, the growth trajectory of a projects (stars over time).

But it's worth their time to stay on platforms like Bluesky and Mastodon? Something isn't adding up.

You can just look at the numbers. They're seeing 15x more engagement on BlueSky, and even more engagement on Mastodon compared to X:

X post: 124 comments, 79 reblogs, and 337 likes

BlueSky post: 245 comments, 1400 reblogs, and 6.2K likes

Mastodon post: 403 reposts, 458 likes

There's more ROI posting on BlueSky or Mastodon, even ignoring the fact that BlueSky and Mastodon are projects clearly more aligned with internet freedom than X is.

(edited for clarity)

Which post are you looking at? I just posted the numbers for the first post I could find that was the same across X, Bluesky, and Facebook (a little hard since the feeds for all three are different). The X post had 16 times the number of likes as Bluesky and 26 times the number of likes as Facebook. The X post had 17 times the number of comments as Bluesky, 6 times the number as Facebook.

Your post made me randomly spot check another one from a month ago ("The U.S. government on Wednesday..."), the numbers aren't quite as drastic but X is still ahead. Likes/comment shares:

X: 280, 4, 172.

Bluesky: 182, 2, 98.

Because of the algorithms I wouldn't be surprised if you'd be able to cherry pick some Bluesky post that's ahead. But a casual browse through both feeds makes it look like X gets much more engagement.

The people on BlueSky and Mastodon aren't the people they need to convince in the correctness of their message.

If you actually care about getting your point across, hostile environments are exactly the place that you need to be broadcasting. Especially when they haven't put up any barriers for you.

EFF leadership just totally doesn't get it.

Unless the goal isn't what they say it is and they just need the cheerleading squad to make it look like their fundraising is effective.

If an organisation had any serious chance of moving the needle by staying on X, musk would simply find a reason to ban them. X leadership isn't interested in fair and balanced discussion.

An online argument has NEVER EVER EVER changed anyone's mind.

Source: I've argued with strangers on the internet since the mid-90's.

Don't feed the trolls was the rule back then when trolls were just actual people arguing for the sake of getting a reaction - and now the trolls are either a piece of software connected to a language model or paid to argue in bad faith. Like WOPR says: the only winning move is not to play.

This just fundamentally isn't true. What people see online massively influences how they think, to the extent that entire media conglomerates have been bought and sold to do exactly that.

I specifically said "online argument". You talking to someone online, in text format. You can change people's minds in video calls, sometimes. No amount of 1-on-1 online discourse has ever changed anyone's mind on anything.

The general sentiment people observe online definitely changes how they think, it moves the Overton Window considerably. And that's exactly what the bots[0] on Twitter and other platforms like TikTok do, they argue about whatever they get paid to argue for in bad faith, endlessly.

People see this, not knowing it's all artificial, and go "ooh, MANY PEOPLE think like this" and start thinking it's normal to think like that.

[0] I'm using "bot" as shorthand here for bad faith actors, usually the first level is just spamming static canned arguments, stage two is some kind of smart system that responds to the replies somewhat in context and stage three will ping an actual human who will come in with VERY specific deep-cut arguments.

Source: I argue online a lot for fun and relaxation.

So how do you know you've never changed someone's mind? Also, the opposite is just retreating to echo chambers where everyone agrees?

I personally don't care if EFF leaves X. However the message in the article does not line up, it's a bad decision and not justified by the reasons cited.

TBH echo chambers are just fine as long as you know you're in one.

I have peeked outside of my curated chamber and the people in there are completely batshit insane. Like objectively not following any sane logic or reason. And no amount of online discourse will not make them change their ways unless they WANT to change.

They're still on youtube with low hundreds of views. Surely video content requires more effort to boot.

cant they just copy an paste the same messages? like are they trying to manage critical 'seconds' and the eff?

That's why this is clearly a political jab and not a real decision.

And the EFF is also looking at conversion rates for those views. Are you convinced that the Elon-pilled still on X are interested in donations to the EFF compared with the weirdos on Mastodon?

This is on point but someone is taking offense by being called a "weirdo" (thus the down votes, I think). Yes, we are weirdos on alternate social media, just like we are weirdos who use Linux, Emacs, write Lisp, etc.. It's weird, i.e.: Unusual. "Geek" might have been a better term to use though.

Geeks and weirdos donate to EFF. :)

On average, they're getting <9,000 views per post on X. With 100 - 150K followers on both Bluesky and Mastodon, I'd expect their impressions to beat those X numbers.

But as they say in the article, their reason for leaving isn't solely the low impressions. It's the low impressions, plus "Musk fired the entire human rights team and laid off staffers in countries where the company previously fought off censorship demands from repressive regimes," plus X's unwillingness to give users more control, consider end-to-end DM encryption, or offer transparent moderation.

So the real reason is Musk, hidden amongst some platitudes to make the political motivation less obvious.

Its wild that we've gotten to the point that 'allows tyrants to silence users on their platform' is no longer something we're allowed to dislike without it being a 'political' stance. Some time in the last 30 years acting like a reasonable and decent human being became a political statement.

This is BS to be honest, they don't like Musk, which is ok, I have no problem with that. And they are reconstructing a reason to leave.

Musk fired 90+% of Twitter, not just the human rights team.

Bluesky and mastodon are the direction the EFF would like the internet to take, so their presence there is not tied to effectiveness in the same way.

The reason to leave ex-twitter and the reason to keep using lesser platforms may not be the same reason.

Probably the reason EFF keeps using mastodon/bluesky is not for reach, but to support federated platforms.

As an activist organization EFF needs reach people, but also it needs to show people alternatives to surveillance capitalism exist and encourage their use.

There's presumably engagement on those two.

It's better to have a smaller core of highly engaged people than a mass of disengaged eyeballs glazing over.

"...and we win by putting our time, skills, and members’ support where they will have the most impact. Right now, that means Bluesky, Mastodon, LinkedIn, Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, YouTube"

So pretty much all major sites except X. They are saying LinkedIn is more important to reach people than X, really?

Retreating into smaller and smaller echo chambers where they get their way?

They're also still posting on LinkedIn, Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, and YouTube (in addition to BlueSky and Mastodon). It's silly to suggest that anything outside of X is an echo chamber, or that one must communicate on a platform dominated by white supremacists to expose your ideas to a diverse audience.

Does it have to be either/or?

Volunteer your time to do a dual strategy with content that fits both. Comms takes time, the EFF is adapting its comm strategy.

Surely copy-pasting a short text and possibly a link is not actual work that takes time.

All they would need to do is set up some cross-posting pipeline and the work would be pretty much zero.

They could even drive people to click on mastodon/bsky links this way if they wanted people to go to the decentralized web.

This take is not valid.

Pushing messages out to multiple platforms is a solved problem. Parent said

> It's better to have a smaller core of highly engaged people than a mass of disengaged eyeballs glazing over.

which to me, it's better to spew a message out into the ether with the chance that someone might happen upon it rather than close things off entirely.

Well, perhaps it's time to reconsider your perception of Bluesky and Mastodon.

Worth the time? Can you not just use some automation or tool to post your stuff to multiple platforms including X?

I find it really hard to believe that even with lower views on X than the past, that it's literally not worth the tiny about of effort to get their messages posted there.

Nobody who's not terminally online ever used Twitter.

I was about to say, Twitter has long been one of the largest collections of terminally online people and that's only gotten worse as various groups have abandoned the platform and social media as a whole has seen a decline. Most people who have a life spend their time elsewhere on the web or don't participate in social media at all.

Nobody who's not terminally online ever used BlueSky.

I stoped using Twitter (around when it was changing to be X) because 60-70% of the accounts I cared about left the platform. More and more people will look elsewhere as more organisations and people who aren’t into Musk’s politics leave.

I think that a lot of people unconsciously quit Twitter/X due to friction/hassle.

By analogy, think of news websites that are generally paywalled, take ages to load and only offer 'USAID propaganda'. A lot of people just won't open a link to the New York Times and their ilk because of this friction. You might as well get the same story elsewhere.

Twitter/X has become similarly 'meh', perhaps even more so. A 'tweet' is measured in characters, originally SMS message length, now biglier, but still small. In theory you could get a feature length article on the NYT-style bloated news websites, so the friction could be worth the effort - in theory. But for a tweet? Why bother, particularly if it wants you to provide your age and other details that shouldn't be necessary, but marketing dictates otherwise.

As for Musk and his politics, I don't think Bezos is any better, as for Rupert Murdoch and the other press barons, they are equally odious. Yet, if the product is any good, I can overlook such awkward realities to a certain extent. If Amazon can get me that vital part I need tomorrow rather than 'in twenty eight days', then take my money!

I am a moderately heavy user of Telegram as I prefer to get curated news from there. If bad things are happening, I want to get my news from the natives, not from the 'Epstein' empire. Much is cross posted to X but much is not. All considered, nothing beats Telegram, particularly as far as friction is concerned, it makes X, WhatsApp, Instagram and much else seem to have a dated user interface.

IMHO, EFF need to embrace Telegram, not least because it reaches people in parts of the world where the EFF message resonates.

Do regular people that aren't terminally online use X? I don't know any.

Something like 20% of Americans use Twitter.

Case in point

I don't know any X user that I wouldn't describe as "terminally online" and the same goes for the Twitter days too.

The few people who were not terminally online left Twitter around the time it was renamed.

The most terminally online people left Twitter for BlueSky.

Even if that was true, like so what? Why would anyone care? They are happier over there, so?

>Even if that was true

It is true.

*Normal people who don’t want to hang around in a Nazi hellhole

Twitter: Normal people who don’t want to hang around in a Commie hellhole

BlueSky: Normal people who don’t want to hang around in a Nazi hellhole

Half this post is about how few people they're reaching on X.

> Yeah, somewhere where regular people that aren't terminally online won't ever have the chance to see it.

You think those people are on X?

> Yeah, somewhere where regular people that aren't terminally online won't ever have the chance to see it.

Honestly the first time I read this I thought you meant to say "will have the chance", because I don't know of any normal people that used Xitter in years. Most are now just on Instagram. Then again, my generation and geographical locatin might have something to do with that.

>Yeah, somewhere where regular people that aren't terminally online won't ever have the chance to see it.

The entire point of microblogging platforms like twitter is for you to be terminally online.

What the heck else do you call the service that invented "You can SMS your updates from wherever, and it will be sent out to all your followers"?

Having to "Keep up" like that is what being terminally online is

I love getting on the computer to write stuff like “Twitter is the only website where people aren’t terminally online”

Not if you're shadowbanned

Based on what they are seeing, nobody is seeing their posts on X either. That's the point. Did you miss it?

The post was longer than 280 characters, and is therefore invisible to this average internet user. Apparently.

What are you talking about? X is exclusively the domain of terminally-online people.

No that's reddit, Facebook, insta and TikTok.

> This is not true at all, and it's a silly statement. X isn't mainstream anymore, and the people who think it is are simply stuck in a bubble.

Most organizations have an X account and announce things there because people actually see it. Most prominent political figures are there as well.

> I suspect you might be one of the "terminally online people"

Depends on what that means for you. For me it means people that can't stop posting and commenting, that have made social media their life. I don't qualify for that.

> you're denigrating as not "regular people".

Not really denigrating, it's more like people that are on alternative social media might already be more conscious about what the EFF is and does, so they're the ones that need it the least.

Can you link a source to that 20% of adults figure? I cannot believe 1 billion people use Twitter