The State of Hubski doesn't happen every year. It's happening this one.
Not only are we coming to the end of the 2010's, 2020 will be the year that Hubski turns 10. I created the mk account 3313 days ago; part of launching news.arc includes the creation of an admin user.
Since launching, thenewgreen, akkartik, b_b, insomniasexx, rob05c, sounds_sound, and forwardslash have all been part of team Hubski in one sense or other. I am grateful to all of them, and anyone that uses the site owes them the same.
As you all know, thenewgreen has been instrumental in building what user base Hubski has, and he remains a committed (if not totally consumed by Forever Labs) believer. insomniasexx, b_b, and sounds_sound take much credit for community development (and our better design decisions) as well. forwardslash remains a constant source of technical support, and much of the code base bears his fingerprints. rob05c delivered a monumental improvement by migrating us from files to a PostgreSQL database, which meant that Hubski wouldn't eventually freeze like the Tin Man. rob05c, if you are reading this, I now have some understanding of your integration, and can actually troubleshoot. akkartik helped me cut my teeth on Arc, to deal with early scaling issues, and I remember one day calling akkartik when I deleted our DNS name servers.
mike, steve, ecib, and cgod were pre-Hubski friends that became integral early on, and gave me confidence in what I was trying to do was worthwhile.
We don't have any analytics for user metrics, and I have become even more ideological when it comes to internet privacy. Props to alpha0 for calling me out for using Google Analytics about 9 years ago. We've been busier, but we've been less so. I suspect disabling posts for newbies isn't a growth hack. I have some anti-spam/pro-human updates in the works.
I could create a massive list of shout-outs to the many friends that I have made here, but I know for certain that I would neglect to include a few critical ones, and I am going to avoid the creation of that guilt. You know who you are, and it's wonderful and absurd that I communicate with several of you as frequently (or more) in person, or by text. I know that I am not the only one that has meaningfully expanded my IRL social network on account of Hubski, and that makes me downright weepy.
Ok, fuck that. I'm going to shout-out kleinbl00 and lil, because kleinbl00 and lil. But I don't love the rest of you any less.
Having quit my day job and launching a VC-backed "startup", the last couple of years have left me struggling for balance, and Hubski (not just the website) has been a victim of that struggle. I am not proclaiming enlightenment, or even balance, I am not denying therapy, but I can say with some confidence that I have learned some important lessons that are translating into reasonable behavior with increasing frequency. Hubski remains as important to me as ever, and it is important to me that it gets fitting care. This fall, I have pushed more fixes/updates than the last two years combined.
Despite my ominous predictions, we outlasted Google Plus!
- The best way to serve people is to develop tools that make it easier for people to do what they want. Google often does this very well. In my opinion, Google usually succeeds by taking a pragmatic and efficient approach to address a need. However, now that Google is building a social network that spans across their applications, it will be more difficult for Google engineers to build applications that simply align with a particular need. Instead, Google applications now must not only align with a specific need, they must align with the needs of the Google+ meta-application. Over time, I think that this will create an infrastructure that first impedes innovation, and later, impedes quality of service.
Huh. Not completely off-the-mark...
Hubski is here to stay. Something that doesn't evolve into a reality-bending parasitic shit-show ought to, right?
The State of Hubski is good this New Years Eve of 2019.
Happy New Year, Hubski!