a narrow Twitter? Post.news
Recently a writer I follow mentioned a positive experience with Post.news and I gave it a try. I read very little news these days and thought this might be a great way to cut through the noise.
Notice: I’m experimenting with different LLMs and I’ll be including notices when I use an LLM to write, edit or research a post. At the end of the article I’ll share the prompts and tools used as well. This post was drafted by ChatGPT then I rewrote about half.
New platforms promise to deliver a better user experience or a new niche in online discourse. One such platform gaining some traction recently is Post.News. It seemed promising - a potential refuge from the trolling and flaming that have become Twitter's infamous trademarks.
Post.News is presently an American and politics-centric platform. I read some comments that left leaning posters on Twitter are leaving for platforms like Post as they are tired of the constant trolling. If you spend a lot of time each day consuming American, political and left-leaning news, then Post is likely a great tool. If you prefer a wider range of content, you can follow producers and writers (like Twitter) and customise your feed to your liking. That alone doesn’t seem especially distinctive to me as pretty much any social media platform offers that.
What sets Post.News apart is its unique gating system for accessing full articles or posts. Rather than paying a subscription for a given publication, you purchase (or earn) points which can be used to unlock individual stories. Some argue that this mechanism ensures readers are invested in what they're about to consume. I find it’s just a more efficient way to pay for what you eat. And a recognition that the typical online news consumer doesn’t read most of a given publication. This also seems a logical maturity step from the print subscription to digital subscription and then eventual unbundling of the content and services.
Post likely won’t appeal to a brand loyal new consumer - eg someone who just reads the WSJ and NYT. But for the typical new omnivore who hats being gated constantly and doesn’t see the point in paying for and registering for 20 paid user accounts, Post offers a decent alternative. There are already a number of all-you-can-eat digital subscription services out there, so I’m not sure whether the Post experience will be the one to break through.
This gating system also seems to present a new approach to monetising content. It requires users to show a certain degree of commitment before accessing full-length content. While this approach is innovative, it doesn't necessarily provide a compelling reason for users to switch from their existing tools unless they are a news omnivore already frustrated with all the gating out there.
Despite its novel monetisation strategy, Post.News feels like another entry in an already crowded field of social networks. It doesn't offer an experience that fundamentally distinguishes it from the rest. Users are already juggling multiple platforms, and adding another one only makes sense if people leave another platform and maybe that is the space they will thrive in. If you are on Twitter mainly to consume news and commentary about news, Post may be a better, focused alternative. The value proposition of any new platform should be to offer something qualitatively different, and on that front, Post.News falls short. And maybe it isn’t possible to offer a distinctly different experience now given the saturation in the space. Maybe it is more about offering a better niche product that appeals to an unaddressable need in the other platforms. It’s like that old saying that if your try to please everyone you will please no one. Major platforms like Facebook try to please everyone and end up pleasing no one.
For me, I’m deleting my Post account and keeping my focus on one platform for posting (Substack) and one platform for reading content (Email).
While Post.News offers some unique features and attempts to innovate within the social network space, it does not provide a compelling case for why users should adopt it over their existing tool unless you fit the specific segments described above. The platform may need to provide a more distinct, value-adding experience to stand out in the crowded social network landscape. As it stands, the platform potentially appeals to a news omnivore with a focus on American politics and related content.
The challenge for any platform isn't about inventing new ways to gate or monetise content; it's about facilitating quality conversation and content. Maybe Post will manage to break through and provide that segment with a compelling experience, interaction and content. Then their monetisation approach will be an added benefit to those involved.
Used ChatGPT 4.
Prompts:
Help me write a blog post about post.news website in the style of Connor Clark Lindh on Substack. The context of the post is: a Substack write I follow recently mentioned Post and after exploring it seemed promising as an alternative to Twitter where you can read news and commentary but without the trolling and flaming that Twitter was famous for. Yet after signing up it seems to just be a very USA centric, leftish version of Twitter with a unique way of accessing full articles or posts. I do like the article gating method Post has developed but it just feels like more overhead. I still think that focusing on one platform for posting (Substack) and one for reading (Email) is better than attempting to build more social networks.
Rewrite it as a blog post without the “hi hi” or the sign off. Also, focus the article more about how even with the unique approach to monetising articles it doesn’t off a compelling reason to use it rather than existing tools as it doesn’t offer an experience different to any other social network.
After these two prompts the article draft was “close enough” that I felt it was good to start with. I iterated my thinking about the topic as I rewrote sections as well.