vagueshape

Sol/Vague

@vagueshape

21, aspiring anthropologist

log inask
vagueshape
@vagueshape
wyverewings
@wyverewings
jkap
@jkap

cohost was built off of the lessons learned from a life spent on social media, looking at the mistakes others had made, looking at what they did right, and trying to build a platform that combined the best and accounted for the worst.

i hope that at some point in the future someone will look at the mistakes we made and the things we got right and do the same to us.

wuest
@wuest

A thing I have said in passing, and I believe earnestly:
A place like cohost can, and SHOULD, exist. The existence of cohost, even if it was far too short, is the necessary groundwork for whatever the next Actually Good Place On the Internet will be.

eramdam
@eramdam

THE COHOST SPIRIT MUST LIVE ON, I WANT TO SEE ANOTHER WEBSITE WITH NO NUMBERS EXIST IN THE WORLD. PLEASE.

You must log in to comment.

in reply to @jkap's post:

BagelHero
@BagelHero

Will be positively citing design decisions made on Cohost for years to come, I'm thankful you all managed to hold up the project for this long.

(I hope y'all can land elsewhere softly, as an aside 💗)

login to reply
SiliconeValleyComic
@SiliconeValleyComic

You made me not feel self conscious about posting a silly little webcomic, public numbers really are poison. View counts are poison too, I love that I don't know if my comic has reached a hundred thousand people or like 5, a few likes from the couple of constant hardcore fans are what made me keep going. I will be moving on to other places but I'll keep my ear to the tracks hoping for another wonderful place like this to pop up. I'm also debating if I should have "Ohost" in my comic close down or if I should keep the spirit of this place very much alive in the panels of my strip. I know I'm sure as hell having eggbug in the background of my future strips for the rest of eternity.

login to reply
AndreL
@AndreL

I don’t think we do have a template. As an outsider it seems to me there were two goals to this bold experiment:

  • Make a website which brought joy to users. This happened!!!!! It was a wild success!!

  • Make a successful company which put the interests of employees and customers ahead of outside investors, more or less in perpetuity. This didn’t happen. I think Cohost/ASSC’s experiments in capitalization structure, financing, and revenue streams were just as important everything on the web app side. Alas they show us what didn’t work, not what did. Though there are still important ideas there, maybe a slightly different approach woulda worked!

login to reply
Codarobo
@Codarobo

I hope that for every “this site had its problems” you’re also hearing all the “this site was so important to me”s. Both are true but never underestimate the importance of what you’ve done here!

login to reply
jkap
@jkap

oh i'm not hearing that the site had problems. i simply do not see my haters. i would be the first to tell you that the site had problems and that it was largely good in spite of that.

login to reply
mifune
@mifune

I really hope someone will do that, even if it's just for the basics like what posts look like, and what features a site like this needs.

I got to sense the Tumblr, but better here. And I'd love to see Cohost, but better.

login to reply
zandravandra
@zandravandra

cohost showed me just how noxious metrics had become to my life. being able to engage with people online without my first reflex being “oh god do they follow me back / are they mad at me / what’s their Importance Number” have done me immense good

I truly hope more places out there follow your lead because it made me a better person

login to reply
Pinned Tags