If you haven’t heard of Post News, you’re one of the many that haven’t. It’s a brand new platform that only appeared about two weeks ago, unlike Hive and Mastodon, which have been around for a while. It looks like it’s similar to what Twitter is, except that you might have to pay to read journalistic articles.
When Elon Musk took over Twitter, many users ran for the hills to social platforms like Hive and Mastodon. The developers of Post News saw the brilliant opportunity to make a portal that’s like Twitter, but not. All it needed was funding for the launch, which it received from a16z.
So now that you have the boring facts, here’s the interesting part. The investors, a16z, played a massive part in Musk’s acquisition of Twitter. It contributed about $400 million to make sure that happened, so why is it helping Post News in launching an alternative? Not only that, but one of the members of a16z is basically best buddies with Elon at Twitter, in that they work very close together.
The founder of Post News is Noam Bardin. If you’re wondering if there’s a conflict of interest here, Bardin doesn’t seem to think so in his latest Post news article. Just because they funded the platform, it doesn’t mean that he agrees with them funding Twitter or any of their principles. It’s strange to me that a16z would fund a competitive platform… or maybe, that’s how they get a return on investment. Fighting between the two social networks means more funds for them.
In any event, Post News is only in the beta phase now. You can sign up, but there’s a massive waiting line for people ready to move over from Twitter. If you want to subscribe to a news publisher, you’ll need to pay with a subscription, which is how the publishers will earn money for their hard-earned journalism. It will be interesting to see how this progresses.
