This thread is for everyone to introduce themselves. I'll sticky this one
Hi, I'm Jeremy. I made this site last year out of frustration with the comment quality on sites like Reddit, and the anti-crypto rhetoric and lack of "subreddits" on HN. At some point I got tired of complaining about those sites on those sites and figured I'd just make a better version myself.
I'm a software engineer from the U.S (Virginia originally near Washington DC, but moved to NYC after uni). Majored in math in university. Been traveling the world for the last 5 years (47+ countries). I'm writing this from Seoul, South Korea.
I've been a pretty staunch advocate of universal basic income and remote work for about a decade now, ever since I worked my first office job. This video I made on wage slavery got 121k views. I think within the next decade AI and automation will wreck havoc on the labor market, leaving governments with no choice but to embrace UBI and stronger safety nets, ultimately resulting in greater freedom and higher quality of life for all.
These days when I post online it's mostly on Twitter (@jeremybernier) and occasionally this crappy Wordpress blog. My personal website is https://www.jbernier.com/
I'm ENTP and love debating and discussing controversial topics. My favorite courses in undergrad were the proof heavy math courses and philosophy, and I love applying logic to real world problems.
In my free time I like to play piano (when I have access to one), listen to and make music (there was a phase where I wanted to be an electronic music producer), play soccer, work out, read, write, and occasionally make videos.
Curious to learn about the other visitors here. Also curious to hear your ideas on what it would take to make a better Reddit / HN / Twitter alternative, and how to improve this site.
This site seems quite good. The "big difference" that attracts (attract- ed ) people to the "Big Players" (Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, etc ...) is that they are, well, BIG !
Unfortunately because of enshittification [ https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/enshittification ], we find that those Popular Platforms become less and less useful and usable over time, and indeed, sometimes are no longer fit-for-purpose.
But what they did (and to a degree, still do) have, is a large audience - and this makes for an attractive venue for many users. Go to a large street market, and it is likely to have stuff you want to buy, because it is large enough to have variety. A small market may well not have what you want, unless it specialises in your preferred interests.
Also a popular online venue will be visible to many users. In the cases of the "mega Apps", to the majority of users. Hence, my daughter could tweet about Customer Service issues on a train or in a restaurant - and get almost instant satisfaction from the establishment in question!
So, yes, zsync.xyz could be the next "go to" place, but is in sort-of sideways competition with places like Mastodon and also with various reddit clones ... Time will tell if enough people come here to create a "rolling stone" momentum that allows it to grow by orders of magnitude.
And of course, such growth is a double-edged sword. It is already a sufficiently interesting place for some of us (We are having this discussion now!), but it would attract a much wider spectrum of interests if it grows larger. But also then, you would have to deal with trolls and other nasties and possibly to engage / employ more Humans (or robots?) to deal with an increasing Systems Admin workload!
... and not to mention the Hosting Costs if you get Terabits to Petabits of traffic to the site!
I'm in the United Kingdom aka "Britain" with a Computer Science / Software background, though I try to be a "Jack of all trades" and taught myself the basics of Digital Hardware and Electronics / Electrical systems.
Good luck with zsync.xyz ... I'll be popping by here from time to time and may well mention it to friends and other contacts, too ...