So... About that Locals

The impulse to turn the locals forum into – at best – an enhanced “comments section” for Rumble, or – at worst – a Twitter/Tik-Tok doomscroll app, is in keeping with what the rest of the industry is already doing. You can see this on Daily Wire, Crowder, and a bunch of other Rumble creators. This is likely in the short to mid-term, to yield a huge bump in “engagement” and ad revenue.

However, long term, I think it’s a huge mistake. Firstly, because Locals was originally conceived as a sort of “congregation” area for people interested in certain topics, not as a marketing funnel for creators.

The way I put it, it’s the difference between having an “audience” and having “traffic”. “Traffic” is what happens on the expressway. Millions of people zip past your content (and the ads interspersed in it) all day and night, and uptake is very short-attention-span. This is fine, if all you want to do is attract billboard advertisers (like you would see on an actual expressway).

But it’s bad news if you want to cultivate a stable, active COMMUNITY. Which is what an “audience” is. Think of it like sports team fans, or theater-goers. Unlike television or radio, where you scan the dial, and just stop on whatever’s interesting, the sports stadium and the theater are places you have to get up the motivation to GO TO, and hang out there, as an event, at least, but more precisely, as a habit.

Secondly, because we have seen what the “marketing funnel” approach leads to, on sites like X, Tik-Tok, and Facebook. It’s extremely volatile, very vulnerable to economic ups and downs, and tend to push creators into extremely shallow “attention” capturing content, which is likely to drive away any serious audience.

Overall, I think the change is a very discouraging turn of events, and I think it might be worth a mea culpa for being so willing to give the Rumble owners the benefit of the doubt for so long. In the end, it turns out being a pessimist is again the wisest stance.

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OH WOW LOOK! We again have proper quoting! It’s the glory days of 2007 all over again! \o/

Anyway, what I wanted to say is that this quoted bit reminds me of a thing Jamie Zawinski (the Netscape developer who came up with the idea of opensourcing Netscape and then eventually became a nightclub owner) wrote a while ago.

Personally, I can’t really vouch for his words as I only seriously started going out around that time, so it’s difficult for me to compare the before and after. But I do remember there were certain cult clubs around the Universty town I was in at the time, and later on I didn’t hear of any such places. So perhaps that’s the thing Jamie is talking about.

Anyway, now that even online places are stopping to be places people just go to to see what’s afoot, I think humanity will be in deep trouble. If all our human interactions are built around institutions (school, work…), without any unstructured interpersonal contact, not even online, then we really will be living in a Human Farm.

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“Dating” when I was 18, was basically one of four possible options:

  • Dinner and a movie with someone you met at work
  • An “event” date with someone you met at the church group
  • A “blind date” (your friend hooks you up with someone he knows).
  • “Clubbing” - which was basically JUST a meat market. In the late 80s and early 90s, nobody went to clubs, unless they were interested in weed, and poon.

Since I didn’t have any friends, and I wasn’t a party animal, I was left with option (1) and (2), and since I hated church when I was young, that left the workplace. And since relationships at work were strictly forbidden in those days, that more or less ruled that out as well.

All that aside, I agree with you. unstructured, unsupervised relationships are essential for normal human development. Even “middle of the road” psychologists like Jonathan Haidt are admitting this now. See “The Coddling Of The American Mind”. It is necessary for teaching good social skills, communication, self-organization, creativity, and leadership. If everything is structured, rule-bound, and guided, by the time a child is old enough to assert himself, then you’re just going to make a mindless drone out of him.

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I’m sure here will be easier to search and track conversation as things won’t get lost in the abyss.

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Yes, this Forum is so great, comments are at correct order.

Is it possible to fix Local at all?

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They’ll certainly fix some of the “bugs”. But a lot of what we here are calling “bugs”, they are calling “features”. Which is mainly why we’re here. :smiley:

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It is a bummer though. I feel like Locals hasn’t really lost their initial goal. It is just the way they are trying to reach it that we disagree with. This forum can be a really good solution as well. Just one more thing for @lunduke to juggle. I would happily volunteer as a super cool moderator if needed.

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Not me, for sure. I would earn the title “Captain Bantastic” in a heartbeat.

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This is my view of the situation as well. Locals is probably making a mistake with a new design (rewrite, more like), but the doom and gloom motivations @gmgauthier likes to project is likely not the intention.

Getting a consistent interface between mobile and web isn’t a terrible idea, per se, except that the mobile design really sucks. I paid little mind to it, since I do 99% of my Locals-ing from my computer anyway.

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OOoooh! Scary doooom and gloooom!!!

Boo! :ghost:

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This is such a huge upgrade to the constant downgrade of Locals. I dont mind Locals for the doomscroll, X-style posts but for actual engagement nothing will beat a classic forum

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Agreed this is much more comfortable than locals for engagement.

Also, good to see you @fputs !

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You know, this is really feeling like a solid replacement for both Locals and the Discord.

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It has kept me from doomscrolling on X for, what, 3 hours now? So it’s got that going for it.

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All I’ve got to say is: I’m glad I controlled my impulsive urge to start a Locals to supplement my Substack. In the moment it seemed like it could be great, but in hindsight I feel like we dodged a bullet.

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I doubt it. Since Rumble bought it, they lost interest in adding features that are not somehow Rumble related.

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I’m inclined to agree. It’s unfortunate, but that does tend to be the way these things go.

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Same here. I was tossing the idea of starting a Locals around for a while, but was unsure how many would join. Like you say, “dodged a bullet.”

P.S. My Substack passed 2,000 subscribers.

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Dude, that’s awesome! Congratulations on that.

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Dude! Well done! Keep it up!

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