The social web is sticky. But when the spider comes, this would-be prey wriggles free. That's related to my recent stance on X (Twitter). I've written almost entire blog posts in a few different comments sections this week in response to others' takes on certain social media sites. So of course it's time to blog a summary below.
X (Twitter)
Last April, I deleted my 10-year old Twitter account. Two months ago, I rejoined Twitter to see for myself if it was really worse or better from Elon's influence; I was curious. I had liked Twitter enough before to give it another chance. Twitter literally no longer exists. It's X now; X is not Twitter. And I don't know what X is or is becoming. It seems like it's crashing down. Some reports say Musk is pushing X to morph into an "everything" app. I'm pretty sure that won't work, especially in the USA. Even if it does work, I don't want that. As Harry McCracken has said, our smartphones are the "everything" apps. The changes at X seem frequent, drastic, and haphazard. Change is hard, even for the better. But these changes don't seem better. They're perplexing. Here are just a few of the latest:
- X deletes a bunch of user content. Oops?
- X is removing the "Block" feature. Because Mute?
- X Blue is requiring user photo and ID submission. Orwellian?
- X might fail, says owner Elon Musk. Telegraphing maneuver?
Enough is enough. I don't need X. I thought it might be good to have one foot in a right-leaning social site and the other foot in left or moderate social circles. But the surrounding unsoundness of X is too off-putting. It's time to eXit. It's getting the aXe.
Bluesky
I've been dabbling in Bluesky for about a month. It's nice, clean, simple, and kind of quiet. The layout/UI is a copy of Twitter basically. But the network is small (a plus in some regards), lacking a wide selection of people to follow. Its growth is stalled/slow. And it seems a bit redundant when Mastodon is already a good social site. The other weird issue to me is that Bluesky chose yet another "standard" for federation. Though technically good, it's not the same as ActivityPub. So will it actually federate with Mastodon, Micro.blog, or maybe Threads?
Threads
It's fine. Maybe it will release a web UI. Maybe it will gain all the table-stakes features of all social media. And maybe it will federate with others (but will it create its own new "standard" protocol for it? Seems likely). But if you want all that, you can have it now on Mastodon. So why Threads? Then there's, "Why not Threads?" Answer: because it's yet another Meta service, linked to Instagram, linked to Facebook, connected to and controlled by Mr. Mark Zuckerberg. On one hand, he knows social media, technically. On the other hand, having so many large social sites under one person is a risky concentration of power. Haven't we learned yet? Threads is more, adding onto too much. Enough already.
I might want to keep this for photo sharing only (still considering). But see also the negatives associated above with Meta. Otherwise, I'm not invested in Instagram. I had deleted my previous account years ago.
It's still my close friends/family/local community only. And marketplace is sometimes useful. Overall, Facebook is kind of a social utility at this point.
Micro.blog
This lesser known social media service is nice, clean, and simple. On principle, it eschews many standard social media features, like the "Like" button. The people on it are down-to-earth, thoughtful, and helpful. The microblogging site also includes a traditional blogging platform. It's an intriguing, if not sometimes challenging, mix. I used it first for blogging, having moved all my WordPress/Blogger content there. But I moved my blogging back to WordPress, so now I only use Micro.blog for social things. It's hard to say I need it though because Micro.blog federates well with Mastodon. I now follow, and can interact with, Micro.blog people through Mastodon. So once my annual subscription runs out next March, I don't know if I'll renew.
Mastodon
All this leads to Mastodon. I've been using it more, finding new interesting people to follow and talk to. I auto-post my blog stuff to it from WordPress.com. And Mastodon has all the social media features (except Quote Posts, which are said to be coming). It's federated (I plan to also try Pixelfed and Peertube). I had fun for a while, experimenting with all the social media things. I knew it was temporary and that I couldn't possibly invest enough time in them all. I had to choose. The antics of X have kind of forced my hand to close my account (hit the X button). I'm putting some others on the shelf for now and will focus on Mastodon.