I don’t understand how one could possibly think that requiring a Google account would make it easier to onboard new users…
Simple. "Log in with Google" is a lot less friction than getting people to sign up to a new service. Even more so for a mobile-focused application like Surf/Flipboard.
doesn’t exist elsewhere.
Isn't it "just" a feed reader with a pre-curated list of feeds? Doing that is not complicated. The hard part is doing it in a way that it is easy for non-techies.
If your goal is to get the masses to try something new, making it as easy as possible to onboard them makes absolute sense. That includes letting them sign up using something that 98.123456789% of the people use.
And if you already are out of Big Tech hell hole, then you likely already know how to find and manage and curate your own feeds.
It would also help if they could be more like Craig Ferguson and just focus on having a fun and entertaining show.
The six people that still watch late shows on TV are certainly not the demographic interested in being lectured on before going to bed. The Colbert Report worked because it was more in time with its audience.
Just a static website?
If you are asking where to host a bunch of static pages:
unless someone is truly interested in working with me on this project (...) there's really no use in sharing it.
Yeah, but doesn't it go both ways? How can people find out if their vision is aligned with yours unless you show what you have?
I mean, I share the feeling of not wanting to make any big announcement when it's not usable, but at least putting out a link to the repo and some roadmap would help others to see if they would be interested in helping you.
Any particular reason to keep it private?
You don't need a "platform", you need a Fediverse indexer + search engine.
I don't use it for any production site, but it works really well for development, though. I can run multiple docker services on my local machine, add a cloudflared service for each of them and forget about port conflicts, etc. To do that without cloudflared, I'd have to setup a traefik proxy and mess with my home router.
It's Dan's whole M.O: he gets excited about some new project, goes on a rushed coding rampage, releases some alpha-quality code, then loses interest and starts the chase for the next shiny toy.
the project is unfinished
Understatement of the year. Dan has posted "loops next week" for more than an year already...
You are right. I thought it was just a different take on the flipboard client, but more focused on the different feeds.