The existing solutions are fine, though. The reason we got into this mess in the first place was because we thought a centralized service would enable greater interaction than RSS provided. All we got was a lame 140 characters and an edit button a decade later. Then some asshole bought it and kicked everyone back to square one. The solution isn't 'building another monolith with better moderation', it's upsetting the unified architecture in the first place. Twitter's centralization was a design concession that is past it's time.

It's a shame people keep using that Dropbox example too. I've seen hundreds of people use iCloud and Google Drive over the years, but maybe 2 people total who used Dropbox. Is it more popular outside the States or something? I get that it's a mantra HN entrepreneurs repeat to themselves when they see their startup struggling, but I don't understand it's context in this conversation when they had their lunch eaten by every other company competing with them.