Poaster is shutting down

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Poaster, a social media network for pseudonyms founded by @lastcontrarian , is planning on shutting down and pivoting to a new product. While I love that this product existed, I don’t disagree with the decision. Here is my full take

Pseudonyms can and should operate on all social networks. Whether it be twitter, where I’m posting now, or one of the new decentralized networks like Farcaster or Nostr. Pseudonyms technically don’t need a dedicated social network.

If you want to be completely anonymous, where you don’t build a following and don’t build up a reputation, well that requires its own dedicated social network. Blind is a great example. The structure of the network and app is built around anonymity.

While Poaster being centered around pseudonymity had generally the same structure as any other social network. The big difference being the audience was for pseudonyms only and anyone you interacted with was not supposed to use their real name.

However, it didn't change the actual features. The product looked visually like any other social network. The types of conversation on Poaster was clearly different though. Some pros and cons there.

The @lastcontrarian goes on to say: "While Poaster has had high levels of engagement, as measured by poasts/replies created and time spent in-app per day, the main challenge for us has been user growth." This is where I start to disagree.

The app is in TestFlight... User growth was dependent on people dming @lastcontrarian I can't even find the Poaster website when searching on Google While I can't obviously see the numbers, I would have taken an approach similar to @dwr with Farcaster (also is in testflight)

Final take aways I agree Poaster doesn't need to exist (I liked it tho) bc pseudonyms should exist everywhere However, I am conflicted with the metrics that were used to grade its performance I've started gonym.xyz because I believe in the Pseudonymous Economy

GoNym's mission is also to help enable millions of pseudonymous creators but not via a social network. twitter.com/lastcontrarian/status/1575506868470005766?s=20

GoNym will provide content so regular people can learn about the power of building a nym Courses to walk step by step through the process of building a nym privately and securely Tools like NymAvatar.com (very early) help get you off zero and choose a name and avatar

And much more planned... Today is the first day I'm tweeting so its bitter sweet to hear the Poaster news, but the future is very bright for pseudonymous creators