Social media is broken. This is a common sentiment today.
At this year's Eth-Denver, reporters for IBT were introduced to the app that will fix it.
It has nothing to do with crypto (many apps don't at Eth-Denver), but thanks to dev Arjun Khemani, this year's event brought us face-to-face with Airchat.
Arjun explained Naval Ravikant's latest brainchild — a social media app called Airchat that captures your voice, morphs it into text, and broadcasts it, letting listeners grasp the human behind the screen.
So why do we need Airchat?
Why a platform that does what Twitter does but adds voice?
Why Airchat is The Next Big Thing
We've experimented with two iterations of Airchat.
It's like they're from different planets.
The magic of both Airchat versions is that they don't use algorithms. That's right—zero, zilch. And yet, giants like Bloomberg and Forbes barely mention it. Maybe they didn't test it enough. It's crazy to us!
On Airchat, your feed is pure—your timeline is only from those you follow. If an outsider comments, it stays hidden from your followers unless you like it or decide to reply to it.
It's geared to be the most customizable social media app ever.
As Naval said of Substack...
"Look how Substack is taking over blogging with one simple little feature: monetization and keeping it simple."
— Naval Ravikant
With Airchat, Naval is keeping it old school like the days of Usenet. Usenet created pretty much all of the internet lingo we use, like "btw, rofl, FYI, SO," and even :)
Airchat is sacrificing virality—but it has it in other ways—for a traditional atavistic algorithm we saw in the pre-internet days.
The algorithm will not work for you. You will have to search.
How Airchat Enrichens Its Users Lives
Airchat is populated with virtuosos of all backgrounds, including tech CEOs, 30 under 30 entrepreneurs, ultramarathoners, and celebrities - but with the possibility to interact with any of them on a whim.
It's the raw authenticity of Airchat that makes the difference.
This could change. Airchat is very young. Yet, we wanted to give you three lessons Airchat taught me over the last month:
#1 The Old Scott Adams Saying
"Figure out what you what you want, figure out what the price is, and pay it."
Airchat reminds us of Medium or the early days of Twitter.
There's a lot of wisdom, no toxicity (for now, of course), and every thread is full of people trying to make their best impression.
Unlike LinkedIn, where everything feels so fake and using it for even a second instantly sends a 500lb 80mm diameter titanium bolt of depression through my brain and I lock up and can't do anything, Airchat doesn't do this.
#2 Why Social Media Feels So Insidious
We heard this one from Naval:
"Classic social media allows you to quickly curate yourself into a filter bubble where it's only content from people who agree with you, and so you end up with a very one-sided view of the world, a very extreme view."
Airchat helps you get out of your bubble by encouraging you to speak about your experiences (+ there's the empathy and accountability of voice).
#3 Bitcoin is an Escape Valve
Naval is a big-time crypto investor. But he's not delusional.
To him, investing in Bitcoin is only one financial escape valve; others include investing in stocks, real estate, oil or hedges against inflation.
Final Thought- How to Get on Airchat
Unfortunately, Airchat is "invite only," as it stands.
But it opens to more users every day. It's what we wanted Threads to be: familiar yet better where it counted. It's a social media platform where you feel your time spent matters — whether to laugh, learn, or entertain yourself.
