Don't do everything.#155

As I’m reading through these feature requests, I’m seeing a creeping potential for just another social network or some other source for our addiction to Likes.

I think many of us appreciate the mission statement found at the glass.app homepage and hope you’re able to balance an enthusiastic and engaging platform for artists to express themselves and create connections they might not have otherwise discovered in the distopian landscape of corporate owned social media.

I disagree with the requests for Likes or other effortless attempts to acknowledge constructive comments.

Do what you set out to do and have the courage not to do what people expect of you. Pretty please.

Agree 100%. This is special because it is not Instagram. I haven’t posted on social media in many years but this app has my interest. We need to be careful not to squander that!

I think there needs to be a balance between what’s truly useful to progress the UX of the app and restricting features that basically turns it into another IG clone. Maybe not having likes is a good thing, as it means people have to articulate why they think an image is commendable in words, and not just click a thumbs up icon. And if people feel they don’t have time to sting some words together then maybe that’s a reflection on them, and not the image. Either way I’m looking forward to how glass evolves.

If comments like “nice photo” “great capture” “nice” or even 😍 are constructive then I agree. But these seem to be replacements for just a like. If 50 people all like the composition of a shot should all 50 comment the same thing or find 50 different ways to say the same thing? I go past many shots I like but don’t want to repeat what others have already said or can’t think of a specific thing to say about the photo other than I just like it. Not allowing fake accounts and hiding like counts would be a way of not making it like Instagram but still providing a way to indicate how well the picture is received.

Even with a hidden like count, I would personally turn them off on my photos. If having it is mandatory, I would probably leave the community. Sorry!

I think there’s a balance to be struck. It’s hard to not see a lot of insta’s features and be like hey we need more of that, because insta has really nailed them down.

I trust the devs though to keep with their creative vision of this app. Hopefully just because we vote for something doesn’t mean they’ll do it. There are definitely things on the suggestions that would improve quality of life, but I hope the devs do it “their way” if it treads close too close to what people asking for just being insta clone features.

Promise we don’t everything 😅

I think it’s fine if not everyone who likes my photo tells me. I really think the devs need to give the community time to evolve with a fundamentally different set of affordances than the dark pattern apps it’s trying to escape.

Tools that help us find new great photos or have new people find our great photos are great. Tools that feed dopamine addiction and mob action not so much.

I’d love to hear more from the devs about their interaction/interface philosophy. Based on the many suggestions so far there’s going to be a lot of pressure to reimplement the tools we’re used to even if they are bad for the community. How will you respond to such pressure?

I am legit so happy I found this app. Please don’t give in to the IG feature clone requests. I will happily pay double the price to keep this going. Sure maybe some tweaks to search, grouping photo sets to swipe on when you go down the feed, but no likes?? THIS IS AMAZING.

I’m trialing Glass. It seems to me that Glass is marketing what it isn’t, rather than focusing upon what it offers. And those offerings are pretty slim to me. I expected better, deeper engagement and some kind of community communication capability that allowed for discussion of art, creativity, and photography. That’s a bit sad.

I agree with the original comment. Please do not give in to building Instagram-like features even if they are upvoted by many. Stick to being the “opposite of IG” platform and you will succeed.