> Secure Scuttlebutt takes a more social approach and organises its network in terms of pubs. There is no central discovery, you can only find users that you "meet" in a pub.
The caveat is: those users can’t meet _you_. I used SSB for a few months, joining pubs, commenting, trying to participate. No responses. (Not a huge surprise—you can get lost in the piles of people on Twitter, Reddit, etc.)
However, eventually I discovered that no one could see my contributions unless they added me—and SSB (or Patchwork, in this case) gave me no way of advertising my presence. This was pretty self-defeating. So now I don’t have to just build a ‘presence’ inside the network, I also have to build a ‘presence’ outside the network to announce that I’m somewhere inside the network. The SSB tools also give you no inkling that this is the case. So just know to bring friends!
Yes, they consider this a feature, not a bug, though. Their social network is proudly invite-only, so you need someone to pull you in. Once somebody subscribes to you, your content will be visible to all their subscribers.
The caveat is: those users can’t meet _you_. I used SSB for a few months, joining pubs, commenting, trying to participate. No responses. (Not a huge surprise—you can get lost in the piles of people on Twitter, Reddit, etc.)
However, eventually I discovered that no one could see my contributions unless they added me—and SSB (or Patchwork, in this case) gave me no way of advertising my presence. This was pretty self-defeating. So now I don’t have to just build a ‘presence’ inside the network, I also have to build a ‘presence’ outside the network to announce that I’m somewhere inside the network. The SSB tools also give you no inkling that this is the case. So just know to bring friends!