Diaspora's Curse - Jason Fried

Diaspora's going to do one of two things.<p>Option one, with approximately 98% probability, is "fail hard". A few geeks will run nodes and brag about it on places like HN, and that'll be it.<p>Option two is that Diaspora succeeds, which will require some way around making everyone run their own node; basically, some company with the infrastructure to step in and host services for people, for cheap or preferably free. If an existing company -- one which already offers services most people use -- were to do this and make it easy enough, they'd probably end up running a huge percentage of Diaspora.<p>What sort of company would do that, you ask? Why, the company which already has all the info Facebook doesn't know about you, and would love to get access to the info Facebook does. You know, that search engine with the colorful logo.

&#62; Expectations are too high<p>Jason's third point is, I feel, the strongest. People aren't contributing to Diaspora because of Diaspora, they're contributing as an act against Facebook. The enemy of my enemy is my friend and all that.<p>I'm not sure if that's a good thing. It's one thing to get in front of a movement and ride that to success. It's another to get in front of a movement that's predicated largely on hate. Diaspora would have to turn this into something positive (Internet users for privacy!) as opposed to just letting the anti-FB vibe run its course.<p>PS: not related, but here's a thought: why is it necessary to have a special node system? Won't a super-simple, super-private social network work just as well? Facebook's problems isn't so much with the tech as it is with the company philosophy - they seem to want to do everything in their power to screw you over for their benefit. Change the philosophy and Facebook becomes a much harder target to hit.

The reason people have donated so much is because they are upset with Facebook's new privacy policies.<p>How diaspora can succeed: do the same thing Facebook does, but fix the privacy.<p>How diaspora can fail: by making some pie in the sky social networking platform that will elude most non-technical people. Unfortunately, it sounds like it's going this direction.<p>I truly want to see Diaspora work. And it doesn't have to be complicated...at the moment, all they need is a decent social network (one that's built with the help of a graphic designer) and chances are you'll have at least one new user for everyone who donated.<p>Lastly, make it easy for people to move from Facebook to Diaspora. Ease of use will be the pass/fail here.

People are thinking about this wrong.<p>$170k = 4 young inexperienced people for a year to take on Facebook, WRONG.<p>This should be thought of an open source project, they should use the $170k to coordinate a large open source project to create this with experts from all over the web. I'm talking 40-80 regular contributors, 400 or more causal contributors. This is perfectly possible given the press they have gotten so far.<p>They need a leader, it's not clear to me which of the 4 is that leader, but they need one.<p>Also, whilst their eventual goal might be to take on Facebook, this is 5 years off at least. Facebook spent 2 years only in colleges and universities to get critical mass. Diaspora could try the same or work with niche interests like Ning does or do company social networks like Yammer do, to get started.

I expect what any reasonable person who just invested $170k in a group of four strangers with vague plans and no proof of concept would expect.

A fair and completely unsurprising analysis, the spotlight is definitely on too early and I will be surprised if they survive it's hard glare. Jason's thoughts on taking money are well documented but I've always disagreed with this as an over generalisation, it depends on the people receiving the money. Certainly the scale that they're aiming at will require mountains of cash and having some early on doesn't have to mean they will get carried away.<p>And of course there is the fact that the story is the money, not the idea, which is the worst sign of the bunch in my opinion!

I agree that they're probably screwed--on top of the normal how-do-you-get-enough-people-to-switch-that-users-get-real-utility-out-of-the-social-network issue, people now expect, by virtue of the fact that they've got $170k and lots of attention, that they have something ready to compete with Facebook by the end of the summer--but I don't think they would have done any better waiting.<p>By doing it this way, they got to strike while the iron was hot. Right as Open Graph and the dozens of "Facebook is pure evil" posts were fresh in people's minds, they asked for money. With startups, the best time to raise money is when people badly want to give it to you, and it's no different here. If they had waited a few months, not only might they have had trouble paying their living expenses for the summer and their tuition bills in the fall, but they also, had they asked for donations after a summer of getting a crude v1 together, would have had a much harder time getting the money because Facebook privacy concerns wouldn't be as strongly in people's minds as they are now. Do you think they'd get anywhere near $170k with a v1--which would be nowhere near ready to kill Facebook--but in a few months when most people don't care anymore? In fact, it's quite possible that having a crude version 1 today would get them less money. Right now, they're selling nothing but ideas, which are easy for anti-Facebookers to latch onto. If they had a rudimentary implementation, potentially donors would be thinking about all of the ways in which the product sucks, not all of the ways in which it could be great. By having no product to criticize, they get the donors to dream.<p>And at least this way, they're set financially. They'll still probably fail, but probabilistically, they were going to fail either way. This way, if they do manage to ignore the hype and get a great product built, they'll definitely have money when they need it.<p>Another way that this does help them is something PG has pointed to--fear of failure. If they were just friends hacking this thing together in their spare time, maybe they would have made some grand statements to a few friends and family members, but there'd be a pretty low barrier to saying, "oh, building something with Facebook's capabilities is extremely hard. And even if we do a decent job, we probably won't get any users. Let's go play video games." But now, they can't give up entirely. They have to at least build something that sort of gets the job done. Thousand of people gave them money to do so, so they have a duty to do it. And millions of people read the articles about Diaspora and will read about it again if they fail. If Diaspora becomes a joke, every potential employer of theirs will think of them as "the guys who failed miserably at building Diaspora." All of a sudden, failure comes with a very high cost.

I think another issue is their solution to the problem is flawed. Most users don't have a desire or the ability to run their own server.<p>Running a basic application on a web server seems trivial to nerds, but to average users it seems impossible.

I think their surest way to fail is to do a very close Facebook clone. Let's not forget that those upset by Facebook's privacy are but a vocal minority. Catering for them won't be enough to get everyone to move. For most people Diaspora would be just a harder to use version of Facebook with less people on it.

Diaspora's curse is that it is a solving a problem that only exists in the eyes of people who don't need somebody to solve it for them.<p>Does anyone think my mom or my sisters give a damn about facebook privacy issues? NO! The only people that seem to are the types that come to HN and we all, for the most part, run our own webservers with our own blogs and pictures and soforth anyway.

$170K isn't that crazy. Since when do programmers have to do the whole starving artist routine to get respect? Living close to the edge doesn't make you work any better. If it did, you would have to question companies like Google who give their employees really good benefits.<p>$170k split four (or more) ways actually doesn't sound like much, especially when you consider their location (NYC), and their massive student debt. NYU isn't a cheap school.<p>On a personal note, I lived in Harlem on a $24k/yr grad student salary this past year. It was a reasonably comfortable living, but being poor in New York City adds a lot of stresses to life that don't exist elsewhere. Walking around piles of dog shit and trash every day takes its toll after awhile.<p>I was actually surprised how well I made out, considering I was making the least amount of money I have ever made since age 19 and living in the most expensive city I have ever lived in my life. That being said I could be a lot more comfortable with just a slightly higher income.

I paid them a little just to support them. A failed attempt is better than no attempt.<p>That said, I tend to agree with most of what Jason said. Their pitch is much more sales than substance at this point.

"You want attention after you’re good, not before."<p>This one simple thing defines success in the majority. I really dig much of Jason Fried's insight.

My issue is this; Diaspora is two things;<p>- firstly it is a very complex sounding solution (which is great in a way - I love technically interesting ideas/research)<p>- secondly it's not a direct solution to the problem.<p>The issue, as I see it, is that Facebook have a stranglehold over the social net. The solution isn't about hosting our own content (that is clearly impractical for the majority of social users). The solution is about splitting the infrastructure between multiple providers - but in a way that allows a fully integrated experience for users.<p>That way the "industry" will be self regulating (because if a company looks bad people can migrate quickly away from it).

Even if diaspora fails completely, all the investors will have still gotten something else for their money. The fact that diaspora overshoot their initial 10K goal by such a wide margin coupled with all the ensuing publicity the story is getting, is sending a loud and clear signal to Facebook that people are very dissatisfied with the current Facebook direction.<p>In fact, they're so dissatisfied, that they're willing to put their money where their mouth is, which is a very strong signal to send to Facebook.<p>Even if diaspora goes nowhere, it might still have a positive impact on Facebook.

I agree with more-or-less with Jason Fried. It's easier to succeed when expectations are low and you exceed expectations. I guess the more money you raise, the more the expectations are, and hence it's difficult to exceed them.<p>Then again, it's not Diaspora guys' fault that the press seem to have taken to them as saviours of the world.<p>On a related note, @jacobian has predicted Diaspora to be the new Chandler :) <a href="http://twitter.com/jacobian/status/14120142558" rel="nofollow">http://twitter.com/jacobian/status/14120142558</a>

I think the Diaspora group should consider "outsourcing." Hold a competition to pick 6 projects, which will get $20k each. At the end of the 2nd phase, they should pick the "winners" and integrate their code. The winners get another $20k.<p>This gets the initial pressure off of them, allows for a large amount of audience participation, and could attract a lot of programming talent to their project.

Diaspora may or may not succeed. The whole "node" concept turns me off, personally...<p>I'm more interested in the idea that is could compete with Facebook at all. Facebook has become too big for a small startup to just step up and replace it.<p>The reason I say this is that startups tend to follow the founders' vision, then get iterated based on customer feedback.<p>But "replacing Facebook" isn't a solidified enough vision to act upon. The project team would need to first find out what "Facebook" means to the average user. Because, like it or not, the readers of HN are NOT the average FB user. There would need to be some dedicated research done to determine what feature set would even appeal to the masses.<p>Once that is done, then we can talk solutions and build a team to make it happen.<p>But trying to point at any extant project and say it is the replacement project... I just don't buy it.

This post hit the nail on the head and got me thinking about the whole thing again (Diaspora, not the problem they're trying to solve. I already promised myself I wasn't going to jump into that race with however many other groups see the gold mine and are going to chase it).<p>I'm starting to think this was something one of them through out as an awesome idea, they said hell yeah why not... and then the money REALLY started pouring in, and then the Times showed up... and it's just snowballed.<p>I wonder how serious they were even planning on being before it got so big.<p>Mine you, I hope I'm wrong, but it's just a gut feeling I have.

170K is not just a funding for Diaspora, it is also a SOS to hackers all around for a decentralized social web.<p>Surely it got many people to read into it and its highly likely some other group will make a version which actually works.

While the article makes very strong points, it fails to address that Diaspora wasn't <i>seeking</i> attention and merely had attention thrust upon it. Since everyone else seems to be following suit, I'll throw out my two cents worth as well :)<p>Diaspora needs to be exactly what they said it will be. To do that they need to Ignore Everybody (<a href="http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1350292" rel="nofollow">http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1350292</a>) and stick to their original timeline :)<p>Lets also not forget that they've actually got some code. That's better than some bloggers seem to realize.

I completely agree with Jason. The way Diaspora is starting goes against everything I've learned in my experience with startups. Unexperienced hackers raising a ton of money without as much as an MVP to show for it seems like a recipe for disaster. Probabilistically, they will fail, especially without any outside influences or wisdom.<p>I can only hope these kids have connections with people (and resources, such as PG essays) which can help guide them in making smart decisions. And I hope they listen.

What a Facebook killer needs most, is <i>users</i>. Diaspora has none, as it doesn't yet exist.<p>There already are other social networks that have plenty of users, but not enough to be a Facebook killer: Orkut (remember that? Apparently still big in Brazil, currently 100 million active users worldwide according to Wikipedia) and NetLog (big in Europe at 65 million users).<p>No matter how much traction Diaspora gets, I think it cannot possibly beat those.

To be fair I don't think they were out to raise so much attention, just enough money that they could actually spend there summer on this vs needing alternate employment.<p>They could turn money down but at this stage they already have the attention and that money could fund years of an open source project instead of having to worry about supporting themselves later to if things work out.

Reality check: most startups fail.<p>Did Jason give us the reasons this one will fail? Or just make the general prediction we all knew already anyway?

I generally agree with what the 37 signals guy say, but their view is never the only view.<p>Sure it might take most people longer to get something up with $150K than with $0K, but that isn't true 100% of the time. VC might be bad for most, but certainly not for all.<p>The talk in absolutes to get their point across - its a necessary method since everyone else is doing it.

Some people have the notion that when you have a good idea, all you need is some money and time in order to be successful. It's not like that. You can have all the money in the world (look at big corps like Microsoft), and you can have great ideas, but unless you can <i>execute</i>, the money and ideas don't matter.

Expectations for Diaspora are too high? Diaspora has a curse? I got the feeling from Kickstarter that people <i>without</i> expectations give money to a cause. When I donate money to Kiva, I know fully well that that money may never come back to me, and I am 100% ok with that notion.

Give them $25 for a t-shirt, it'll be like a pets.com t-shirt of yesteryear. Seriously though, even if these guys are a total failure, this whole episode shows that, if the conditions are right, open source software w/o a huge corporate entity can have a mass appeal. Exciting times.

All these guys did was try to raise enough money to pay rent and food (and barely!). Yeah, the whole world is watching, but they weren't exactly asking for the attention. They just struck a nerve.

Majority of FB users do not know or do not care about threats to their privacy. Diaspora will be percieved as something uber-nerdy. Try talking about "running your own nod" to a girl in a bar.

Does anyone think they were destined to succeed had they not been unexpectedly shoved into the spotlight and showered with cash?

When I first saw the title, I tried to figure out how Jason Fried was Diaspora's curse. :-)

This is just echo chamber hacker nonsense. Nothing wrong with a little starter capital.

You have to be cruel to be kind.

He forgot the fourth curse:<p>"Your thirteen year-old sister will crap her pants when she's told to download a social "node" on her computer in order to tell her friends that Abercrombie is having a sale."

Diaspora's curse: They don't actually have a working product to show off -- or any product at all. This whole farce has been amazing. I can't believe anyone actually thinks they're going to produce -anything- that can actually be run or used.

It's not Jason Fried it's Jason AFRAID.<p>Because sooner than later we will see plug-ins that enable distributed project management.<p>As these guys say, we don't need a centralized hub for social network. We also don't need one for projects (Basecamp).<p>It's the Campfire story again: Than he had an echo against "evil" Google. but what can he say to a few nice guys going open source? If Mr. Fried didn't roll his campaign against google free chat client, we would have a free one instead of paying for campfire. BUT HE WILL USE HIS ALLEGED "GREATER GOOD" VOICE TO ELIMINATE ANY COMPETITION.