First the Caveat:
I do think that the innovator is best situated to see beyond the horizon and define the products of the future.
As Henry Ford said, "If I'd asked customers what they wanted, they would have told me, 'A faster horse!'"
And feedback needs to be balanced with many other factors that the user, me, isn't necessarily thinking about, such as the roadmap, optimal use case, business model, etc.
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But since this is a feedback thread, here goes:
I see a big area of opportunity in the space of community and social.
If PI.FYI wants to be more than recommendation engine but also a network for people to connect, which really helps build a platform, then there is so much growth potential.
I like parts of the redesign and appreciate the willingness to break things in pursuit of innovation. (I'm along for the ride!) But at the same time the redesign kneecapped the community/social aspect of things.
The activity feed is no longer as easy to view — making it hard to really engage with where others are engaging and go to where the energy is.
The loss of the leaderboard means that we no longer have visibility into the leadership provided by the most engaged users. Don't have to bring back the same style leaderboard, but there needs to be some sort of gamification or positive feedback for the most loyal voices on the platform.
Rising Users — I love the idea of amplifying new voices, but why does a user rise? Initially the rising users board was populated by the newsletter celebrity recs, who aren't even active or present on the site.
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Again, it is very possible that the community/network features that I want to see don't actually fit with the vision or the business model, which isn't at all based on engagement (ads) but depends on subscriptions.
— One option: add layers of community features that are only available for paying users — like groups, forum threads, leaderboard access, etc.
Bottom line: PI.FYI is special. Keep taking bold moves—breaking, pivoting, and trying new stuff. But don't leave the users behind.
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This rec exposes—to me, at least—that I care a lot about the platform, so I've decided to make it official and becoming a paying user.
Nov 5, 2024
Related Recs
📰
a couple of my friends who worked at the seattle times + seattle stranger posted screenshots of their newly minted pi.fyi profiles on their ig stories (presumably after hearing about it in some journalistic capacity) and i was intrigued
being on facebook twitter and instagram for p much the entire time those platforms have been around made me really jaded so i was just generally excitable about new social media (was semi-active on clubhouse when that first launched, got really excited about dispo before david dobrik got megacanceled, etc.) and pi.fyi fit the bill
microblogging is so intimate and human and just feels central to the early-00s "wild west" vibe folks loved about the internet, how it was a space for limitless expression and delightful serendipity of finding someone / something cool online and knowing that it was a real person being real with you. as the channels for that kind of expression became rapidly streamlined and commercialized, the "share what you like" charter felt so fundamental to what the internet should be to me and it seemed like tyler + staff were working really hard on figuring out how to build tech that intentionally facilitated that over "website is for advertising" like literally everywhere else
definitely behave differently on here than other platforms; i don't really post elsewhere. ~2022 i mass deleted every social media app (first twitter then tiktok then ig then reddit then youtube) and deactivated a bunch of accounts, eventually went back to instagram to be able to easily connect with folks i met irl / tap into events in my city but didn't really post to the account before this last december. i am verbose to a fault (which i can't / won't be on other platforms) but pi.fyi feels like an app where that's actually ok and kind of good maybe? being verbose about the stuff you like kind of feels like the point of liking stuff
i would / have shared this site with friends! but i'm not quite shouting from the rooftops that people should come here quite yet for the following reasons:
1. i think that twitter + ig have fried people's dopamine receptors to the point that "number get big" is the point of social media for a lot of folks; that doesn't really happen here
2. being earnest online is decidedly not the point of social media for a lot of folks; that does happen here and i think people finding it organically and intentionally participating is why it continues to happen
3. "every white person in (or thinking about moving to) brooklyn: the website" is not a super appealing sales pitch for my friends, who are largely not white (i do think that's just the case while the site is so young tho)
but yeah, perfectly imperfect fuckin' rips and i think within 48 hours of being on here i decided to pay for pro. really excited to see where it goes as editorial continues to flourish and people continue to sign up – there's something here that's been missing from digital space for a long time
Feb 13, 2025
✏️
- Loving the early-internet vibe aesthetically and spiritually. In the latter sense, appreciate the democratic nature of the ‘everyone’ tab - it feels wild and thrilling in the way of an aol chat space.
- In the same vein, mildly suspicious of the user spotlights; one of the reasons I left IG in favor of PI was the feeling that I was being fed paid or preferred content and it felt yuck. Popularity contests are out.
- Would be more inclined to pay for pro if there was some guarantee/agreement that the money was going towards keeping the platform ad-free *forever*.
- I like how it can function as a source of recommendations/aspirational user-generated content *and* as a personal mini- blog/collage of interests. I think that keeping its purpose flexible in this way would be smart. Suspect folks are burnt out on likes and follows and promotion, but love to digitally scrapbook towards self-actualization.
- Big yes to the ‘ask’ feature, enjoy when they’re wacky, and hope it remains central to the concept. Would maybe be more encouraged to engage upon opening the app if new, randomized questions were up top instead of recs.
Jan 27, 2025
💝
I've been thinking about this over the last week of using pi.fyi:
one of the many things that makes this platform special is that the mode of interaction is totally built around giving to and serving others.
Givings recs — a gift to others
Asking for recs — giving others the chance to give us something
Re-recing — giving honor to recs from others / giving others something good that we didn't create
Truly beautiful.
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...so since this is a feedback thread, I guess my feedback would be: even as features and enhancements are added, please keep it simple — don't stray from this basic framework.
Sep 26, 2024
Top Recs from @mattshawsome
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this is worthy of celebration: the lack of video—autoplay video, noisy inane video, panicky video, algorithmic, dumb video, rabbit hole video, any video—on pi.fyi is a good thing
Oct 5, 2024
🥾
this is going to hurt — A LOT — but it's getting to the point where there's no other option
3d ago
🥨
one of my 2025 habit goals
alone or with others, it is the best
Jan 21, 2025