Cohost

Originally Posted 5/31/23

What is Cohost?

Cohost is a social media website created by the Anti Software Software Club.

What makes it special?

For one, it's a small team creating it. Because of this it really feels like a lot of thought is going into what features are added, and the team is working towards a common goal of making a solid social media site.

The second thing I found fascinating about the site is they're taking workers needs into consideration. I suppose that makes sense given almost all of the workers are either co-owners or founders, however usually with startups I sort of expect people to sort of work themselves ragged trying to get things off the ground with very little money. But when they were hiring, they were advertising fully remote and "$87,285/yr, with yearly cost of living adjustment, 3 weeks PTO + holidays, QSEHRA, and unlimited sick time". To me, these are fantastic things to offer for any company, and it makes it even more amazing to me they're able to offer this already.

Cohost is also pretty open about their financial situation, which helps add transparency to the site. Now, I haven't seen another post about the financial situation since that December 2022 post, so I'm not sure if they've done away with it or plan to do it less often or what. Still, pretty cool to get any information like that.

Other Features

Some features that I think make the site better is the tagging system, lack of algorithms, RSS Implementation, and markdown support.

Tagging System- If you've used other social media this is a familiar concept for you. When you make a post you can add a tag at the end. On Cohost, the primary way you find new posts is by following these tags. This means though it's really important, if you want your posts found, to make sure you tag them accordingly
Lack of Algorithms- I think this one speaks for itself. For me, personally, I like seeing things chronologically in the order they're posted, rather than in the order an Algorithm believes I should see them. Cohost does not use Algorithms, and it's on their main page as one of their selling points.
RSS Implementation- I talked in another post what RSS Feeds are. Cohost makes it as easy as copying a profile URL, and pasting it into your RSS Feed Aggregator, and that's it. Now, it's not *perfect*. Sometimes things don't load correctly for me. This happens for me with bigger sites like Webtoons as well though, so I'm not sure how much is on Cohosts end vs mine or just RSS feeds in general. Another issue is I could not get it to work with my instance of Nextcloud News. I have gotten it to work though with Freshrss and The Old Reader . The only other social media site to implement RSS feeds, to my knowledge, would be Tumblr of all sites. I personally like this addition because if I had friends make Cohost accounts, I could make sure I see any of their posts in my RSS Feed (in case my feed is ever too busy for me to scroll through entirely). It's similarly great for following artists.
Markdown Support- If you understand markdown, this allows you to really easily make interesting looking posts and gives much more creativity in formatting a post than what Facebook would offer. If you don't know Markdown, when you go to post there's a button you can press which will show you common commands. HTML and CSS is also supported which, if you don't know about them, don't worry about it! If you do know about those, you know then they add a lot of customizability when it comes to how things will look. But Cohost does also have some basic commands in the same spot the markdown guide is.

What are the drawbacks of Cohost?

I personally don't think Cohost is an attractive site for the average user. I think most people would get confused by markdown and just not want to deal with that. It's also a more simple looking site than things like Facebook or Twitter. It also lacks some quality of life things such as an easy way to upload media. Now, that said, if you know how to embed images/ links (Or follow the help guide they provide), this is pretty easy to get around. But, again, I don't know if the average person would want to deal with that.

A concern on the back of my mind of course is cost. I'm not entirely sure where they've gotten funding from so far, and I'm not sure if their Cohost plus system can provide enough money for them to keep going long term. So there's a risk of using the site, and having it go away after not too long.

Another drawback is not many people use the site yet. You can find some pretty active communities via the tag system, but I don't know any big names who use the site or any friends in real life who use it.

Why are we talking about Cohost again?

Overall, I think Cohost is a great site and I want more people to use it. I wanted to have a place to talk about it and maybe some people will see this and give it a try. When Elon bought Twitter, there was a sort of exodus in search of a better Social Media Platform. For me, Cohost is that platform. I really want to see the site grow and survive for years.