Good that they have a web version.

But the most basic functionality of going to the next video is only available via scroll (no keyboard arrow down?) and it has a really long animation and delay?

Just feels awful to use.

I feel if you wanna win in this space, especially with people who prefer more "free" platforms, then the non-app version should be a bigger priority IMO.

This form of content is bad regardless of platform.

• CharlesW

  today at 9:44 PM

  The problem with TikTok isn't the form, which is effectively StumbleUpon for short-form video (or Dave Winer's "river of news" in video form, if you prefer).

  There's brainrot content on all platforms, but there's also ArtTok, BookTok, CraftTok, EduTok, FoodTok, GardenTok, HistoryTok, MathTok, MusicTok, PoliTok, ScienceTok, TechTok, and lots more.

  • Zak

    today at 10:45 PM

    Here's a study showing an immediate negative impact on prospective memory from switching context repeatedly on short-form video platforms: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/10.1080/09658211.2025.252107...

    Unlimited skipping until a video is sufficiently stimulating had a negative impact regardless of the content, while people limited to ten skips in ten minutes did not experience a negative impact. This suggests that the format itself has harmful cognitive effects.

  • wolvoleo

    today at 10:10 PM

    The problem I find with it is that it's such a monoculture. Everyone is copying everyone else.

    As an example: there's this stupid skit going around. Someone asks a waiter "Could I ask you about the menu please?". The waiter comes really close and goes like "The men I please is none of your business".

    It's an ok joke but I've seen literally 20 different people doing the same skit in the last two weeks and it gets so damn annoying. And it's not just this one. There's always one that is viral and everyone copies it.

    • kelipso

      today at 10:20 PM

      Yeah that’s what memeing is. What is this, 2000s internet and we start discovering what memes are or something.

      • saghm

        today at 10:35 PM

        Obviously meme formats from when I was younger (images and text) are fine, but meme formats that are newer (video and text) and brainrot. Or maybe it's just the same thing every generation does where they think the generations before them were hopelessly out of touch but the kids nowadays have no taste...

      • wolvoleo

        today at 10:35 PM

        Memes were usually funny though. And just pictures so easily ignored if they weren't. I feel like this is just attention seeking.

        • amarant

          today at 10:44 PM

          Weren't memes always just that? I think we're just old

        • panick21

          today at 10:41 PM

          Most memes and most application of memes were not that funny. Scrolling reddit 10 years ago is not that different from TikTok just with pictures instead of videos.

        • girvo

          today at 10:43 PM

          Eh. They really weren't. "I'm firin' mah lazer" wasn't funny and yet for a while it was ubiquitous. I'd wager in fact that most memes weren't inherently funny: their purpose is in-group signalling for the most part.

      • jatari

        today at 10:28 PM

        You can use youtube and never come across a "meme" like that.

    • bmlzootown

      today at 10:34 PM

      They've made it into an actual skit now? I remember when it was just a regular old meme.

  • Avicebron

    today at 9:56 PM

    I'm pretty sure BookTok is just porn for women who really like the plot of 50 shades of grey..

    edit: which is to say I'm not positive the format isn't the problem.

    • CharlesW

      today at 10:11 PM

      > I'm pretty sure BookTok is just porn for women…

      Those aren't the kinds of book-related videos that I see, so at some point The Algorithm must've decided I wasn't interested in porn for women (not that there's anything wrong with that).

    • amelius

      today at 10:10 PM

      Is that also short form?

      • Avicebron

        today at 10:24 PM

        How would I know? I don't use tiktok, this is second hand from an ex

  • ajam1507

    today at 10:02 PM

    Short form video is the brainrot.

• hnthrowaway0315

  today at 10:38 PM

  This. It is just mental drug.

• WD-42

  today at 10:00 PM

  This. If people are looking for freedom, the thing to do is to stop using TikTok or anything like it, not to make a federated version of it.

  • amelius

    today at 10:09 PM

    A federated version could provide a path away from addictive and polarizing content, and endless viewing.

    • CharlesW

      today at 10:14 PM

      Exactly, BlueSky demonstrates that it's not the form, but the engagement-at-any-cost feed algorithms without user-controllable knobs.

      • WD-42

        today at 10:31 PM

        Bluesky proved no such thing. Merge bluesky with truth social and you’d be back to the same thing again. Both platforms are just full of people retreating into smaller bubbles, the underlying issues are still there just less common.

• pizza

  today at 9:58 PM

  Why?

  • flawn

    today at 10:35 PM

    https://jmarriott.substack.com/p/the-dawn-of-the-post-litera...

    This is a great writeup on why short-form content is overall a net negative for us with a human brain.

  • sodapopcan

    today at 10:08 PM

    I feel justified turning this around on you and asking what is good about it? It's disposable media. In and out of brain in seconds. There are any number of better ways to waste time let alone ones that don't show you ads.

    • SpecialistK

      today at 10:16 PM

      Better ways to waste time.

      If I'm on the toilet not having a fun time, pardon me for wanting to see some cat videos instead of solving a Rubik's Cube, I guess?

      • sodapopcan

        today at 10:27 PM

        You're pardoned, but I have much more fond memories of magazine baskets in bathrooms. Today you should at least have a Switch in there ;)

        But also, of course people aren't just using these apps in the bathroom, they are using them everywhere. If they didn't exist, you wouldn't miss scrolling the bathroom.

        • SpecialistK

          today at 10:40 PM

          The Economist app and Inoreader are higher on my front page than Instagram is, so I am being slightly tongue in cheek.

          But I do maintain that there is a place for mindless time killing. Life is stressful, I'm constantly switching between different projects and responsibilities, and a few minutes of mindless scrolling is nice.

          But it is very addicting and can very easily vacuum up many hours of time I can't get back.

I want this to be succesful so much, but almost nothing works in the mobile app

Needed 2 tries to sign up, and uploading a video from the camera roll failed (5-7 tries)

• nagaiaida

  today at 9:51 PM

  yeah, there's a consistent pattern of overpromising across this and other projects by the same person

how good is the For You feed? the tiktok secret sauce is the creepy algorithm, who's clamoring for "crack but not addictive?"

This is actually pretty exciting. Excited to see how this turns out. But I am wondering how to keep it financially possible to operate the platform. Also, 95+% of the users probably don't care that much about censorship and privacy enough to switch platform.

I can appreciate the effort, but the UI is indistinguishable from tiktok.

I didn't deep dive into this, but just for context and comparison, here are some other tools which are building TikTok like tools on Bluesky-

https://techcrunch.com/2025/02/01/here-are-the-apps-battling...

the format isn't inherently bad, it's the algorithm optimizing for engagement over everything else that's the problem. short video is actually great for tutorials, explanations, behind-the-scenes stuff. i make AI-generated video content and the short form works well for documentary-style clips where you're mixing stills with selective animation.

the real question is whether federation changes the incentive structure enough. if the recommendation algo is still optimized for watch time, you just get tiktok with extra steps. if instances can tune their own ranking, that's actually interesting.

• Pulcinella

  today at 9:33 PM

  Counterpoint: The format is bad. The constant stream of videos, skipping between videos at (relatively) your own pace, the anticipation about the next video; it's similar to electronic gambling machines.

  • logicchains

    today at 9:51 PM

    >electronic gambling machines.

    Gambling is bad because it wastes people's money. Short-form videos just waste people's time, the same as the hours of television that older generations spend watching every day but with more diversified propaganda.

    • jonplackett

      today at 10:06 PM

      At least you have to go a casino for gambling. Short form video wastes your entire life away.

    • em-bee

      today at 10:01 PM

      "just" is doing a lot of heavy lifting here. people wasting time staring at screens is the prevalent problem of today. with TV it was not as bad because there was/is only one in a room so it becomes shared experience. phones are worse.

    • Pulcinella

      today at 10:02 PM

      Go a little further. Think about "how." How do slot machines get people to waste their money for hours-on-end? How does TikTok use short-form video to get people to scroll for hours-on-end? What is the mechanism?

    • Almondsetat

      today at 10:08 PM

      "just" waste people's time? their most valuable resource?

  • dangus

    today at 9:41 PM

    To use the analogy of other vice industries like gambling or alcohol, would you rather buy those products from shady unregulated vendors or more transparent regulated entities?

    That’s the type of analogy we might make in this case.

    Obviously many people (literally billions) like this format and use it in relative moderation to unwind and kill time. Hell, I’ve even gotten productive helpful information out of the format on occasion.

    It’s also taken a critical role in journalism and current events.

    Unless you’re advocating prohibition, the cat is out of the bag.

    Being able to find a short form video alternative that isn’t owned by commercial/government interests is a positive thing.

    • OrangePilled

      today at 9:49 PM

      [dead]

• qudat

  today at 10:38 PM

  There’s a reason why we don’t want to show kids fast pace videos with cuts that are less than 4s: it’s not good for the brain. The format is just not good for us

• WD-42

  today at 10:09 PM

  Question: how many people do you think would watch your short form ai videos if they had to actually seek them out and choose to watch them? The reason why the format is problematic is because it feeds off the dopamine hit of scrolling to the next piece of unknown content.

  It’s well known that if people need to be intentional about what they consume they consume far less. Something tells me 15 second AI videos aren’t at the top of most people’s lists.

• folgoris

  today at 10:10 PM

  It's not just bad, it's the worst format that could exist, if radio and TV have already ruined the attention span this one seems to have the aim of doing just that by showing short content with almost no effort to understand it, a lot of context switching every 10-15 seconds and videos designed to attract as much attention as possible.

• nosrepa

  today at 9:32 PM

  The less ai generated video I see the better.

• shooly

  today at 9:43 PM

  > if the recommendation algo is still optimized for watch time

  "people don't want to watch my AI slop, it's the algorithm's fault!!"

• OrangePilled

  today at 9:42 PM

  [dead]

Recently released on the Appstore https://blog.joinloops.org/loops-is-now-on-the-app-store/

I like the app but it really needs a mute function (ideally an option by default).

For 20+ years World of Warcraft has dominated the MMORPG genre. There have been a host of challengers and they've all miserably failed. In fact, there have only been a handful of successes (eg UO, EQ, FF14).

And what do almost all of these challengers have in common? Some version of "the PvP is going to be amazing". Why do these companies like PVP? Because it's essentially user-generated content. It increases time spent in game without having to create content, which is expensive.

Thing is, players of this genre don't want PVP. Even in WoW, I'd be surprised if 10% of the playerbase actively engages in PVP activity. So, by focusing on PVP, you're actually cut your potential market by 90%. Before you've written a single line of code or created any artwork. Put another way, you're spending valuable development effort on features only a tiny minority of players care about or even want.

I'm reminded of this whenever somebody on HN talks about federation. The only people who care about federation are... other people on HN. It does literally nothing for users. It greatly complicates the implementation. The last successes of federation are POTS and Email. It's quite literally never succeeded since. And the problems with federation that POTS and Email continue to have to this day should be an object lesson in why it's a bad idea.

Choosing federation from the start is choosing to lose. I'm sorry but it's true.

• rrr_oh_man

  today at 10:42 PM

  This didn’t go where I thought it would. You made me chuckle. Thanks!

It's interesting, I doubt it'll ever be successful.

Look, the reason a lot of content makes it's way to Youtube, tiktok, and twitter, etc is because the creators can earn money from the platform. On youtube and tiktok, you can send gifts to your favorite creator. That incentivizes creators to create content.

loops will never have that feature. It's really hard to legally distribute money like that. But further, the decentralized nature of it means that you'll never know if your funds ends up in your creator's account or the instant account.

Without any sort of path to make money, the only content on the platform will be works of passion. Maybe that's a good thing, but it means these people will ultimately burn out.

But on the plus side, it means you probably won't end up with an endless stream of AI slop.

• wolvoleo

  today at 10:13 PM

  Instagram pays hardly anything. I don't know anyone doing it for that reason. It's more advertising for their other services. Like onlyfans, selling physical stuff, lectures, events etc.

  And of course the people who do it for fun, usually the best content. It doesn't matter they'll eventually stop. There's always new ones.

  I'm not sure about tiktok, but I doubt they pay much more than insta.

Open source meth is still bad in absolute terms even if it’s better than the alternative meth

Congrats. All that remains now is spending $$$ on some D-level celebs to lure in the users...

two hardest problems for a platform like this.

1. users and initial flywheel. 2. content moderation.

"Open-source TikTok" is like reading "open source slot machine". Not something you should be proud of, no matter how much you sugarcoat it with "All the fun of short-form video, none of the corporate control"

• avidruntime

  today at 9:32 PM

  Short form content is a medium that isn't going away. Short form content is not inherently harmful, although short form content replacing or displacing other important mediums arguably is. When I think about the issues stemming from short form content, I don't think about the inherent medium, I think about the providers and their capabilities to use the sum of all consumed content by a user in the name of a ulterior motive at scale. While I haven't investigated it too deeply, Loops seems to be an effort in patching that. Is your objection in the marketing language or in the inherent technology?

  • Almondsetat

    today at 10:01 PM

    Short form user generated content being served in our faces in a constant and ever updating feed fucks up our brains. It does not matter if it's proprietary or FOSS or non profit.

    >Is your objection in the marketing language or in the inherent technology?

    I think saying it's like an open source slot machine is pretty much self-explanatory

There have already been some TikTok alternatives that have become popular after it got bought by the Trump / Oracle / Silver Lake group of buyers.

One alternative I’ve heard of that apparently became popular is Skylight: https://techcrunch.com/2026/01/26/tiktok-alternative-skyligh...

We do not need another tiktok.

• brody_hamer

  today at 9:19 PM

  Censorship.

  • sheiyei

    today at 9:38 PM

    No, health advocacy (societal and mental). Better formats exist

    • ftchd

      today at 9:43 PM

      This format is present on all video platforms, an "open" version is definitely a step in the right direction

    • logicchains

      today at 9:48 PM

      A small minority of loud neurotics shouldn't get to dictate what social media other people use. I don't know a single person who feels like social media has affected their mental health; it seems to be a uniquely American leftist thing.

      • Almondsetat

        today at 10:06 PM

        Small minority? What about all the studies and statistics both from third parties and from the social networks themselves showing a direct effect on the _majority_ of users? Not that I expected a better argument from someone that crams in "leftists" as an unwarranted snide remark

[dead]