Why the Others Suck

Yesterday, I published my resumé of spending a year on the Fediverse: what makes it unique, how it failed to reel in most Twitter users, why it changed my view on social media. That post was pretty abstract – I felt that the concrete challenges of the Fediverse, its current implementation and features are being sufficiently discussed elsewhere. As an addendum to yesterday's post, this one is more concrete: I'd like to share my thoughts on current "Twitter-like" social networks and the reasons why I don't use them.

Please don't take the title and the language of this post too seriously – it's intentionally a little provocative. Needless to say, you have the right to enjoy the platforms mentioned here, or conversely, to not enjoy the Fediverse. Do what you think is right; these are just my opinions.

With that out of the way, let me answer the question: Why not...

Stay on X?

X(itter) is coming closer to collapse with every passing minute. It is barely a social platform anymore – really, it's the playground of a very divorced man who is so desperate for attention that he has decided to look for friends in a circle of the most pathetic fascist losers on the internet. Since Musk's takeover, not a week has passed without him alienating the user base further through some of the worst business decisions in internet history. In the meantime, the platform goes to shit in every way imaginable. Shockingly, laying off all non-engineers, for example, also has real-world consequences that simply make Twitter less useful in practice for things it may have been good at once.

This may sound mean, but I believe that if you are staying on "X" in hopes to preserve what you felt on Twitter, you suffer from a case of digital Stockholm syndrome. Face it: it's over. You cannot save it and you likely gain no benefit from staying. Let it burn, and let it die. Find something that brings you joy instead.

Bluesky?

Honestly, I only see two possible scenarios for the future of Bluesky, assuming it doesn't fail dramatically:

1. It will never really get out of its "beta" phase – it will stay invite-only and slowly become completely irrelevant in silence, not unlike Clubhouse (does anyone remember?)
2. It will open up and become big, but decentralisation efforts will be dropped in practice, either because nobody has sufficient means to create their own server or because investors realise they do not benefit from an open protocol

Given that even after over a year, the Twitter disaster doesn't seem to stop unfolding, I find the first scenario decreasingly less likely. It essentially doesn't matter how good Bluesky is, what matters is that it feels like Twitter to a lot of people. Even the most change-averse users will migrate at some point if the current trend continues.

The second scenario is, I think, what Bluesky is destined to become if it keeps growing. ATProto, the protocol behind Bluesky "federation" is already completely convoluted and full of strange design decisions, to the extent that some think it's more about "decentralisation-washing" than actually creating something that is effective or practical for anyone other than Bluesky PBLLC. The fact that federation still isn't enabled and that Bluesky plans to enable it only for their own servers in early 2024 – given that'll actually have happened by then – supports this argument. I want you to remember this the next time someone promoting Bluesky complains about Mastodon being too complicated: Bluesky's protocol is so complicated that it is currently dysfunctional in practice. The reason that the platform is "easier" is simply that it hasn't delivered on what was and still is being promised about it.

Either way, by joining Bluesky, you're putting your trust in the ideas of a man who, in retrospect, was possibly the most wrong about Musk's Twitter takeover and who was also the initiator behind Twitter's crypto and NFT crap. But hey, you do you – surely, this billionaire-owned social network that, for all we know, is just another walled garden, will turn out great. To me, this just looks like we're trying the same thing all over again that already failed us last time.

Threads?

Given my opinions on Bluesky, you can probably already imagine my take on Threads. Meta/Facebook already owns a large portion of the social media world and if I had to pick one company, I would say that Facebook is probably the one sharing the most responsibility for the terrible state of the social web today. From being the first platform to lock in billions of users, selling all their data to advertisers and then ruining the service for everyone, to helping fascists get elected and enabling literal genocide, Facebook has demonstrated time and time again that you would be an absolute buffoon to ever trust them again with anything whatsoever.

Regarding the promises about interoperability, I have my doubts that Threads will ever really support AcitivityPub, but in case it does, I think the rest of the Fediverse should stay clear. Unfortunately, the free interoperability of a community-run network like the Fediverse is also a weakness that can be exploited by a player like Facebook.

For what it's worth, it doesn't seem like I'm missing much by not being there anyway.

Other independent networks?

There are some other alternatives for microblogging that gained some popularity during the Musk manoeuvres.

Let me take cohost as an example: in principle, I have nothing against it. While cohost is a corporation, it's worker-owned (not VC backed) and it seems like they genuinely care about their goals. They also try to offer something different from the other microblogging networks out there, which is great. The more we (re)diversify the web, the better – so, I'm glad it exists and I won't stop you from using it.

That said, I would not put all my eggs in the cohost basket. Honorable goals aside, they are still a centralised service powered by proprietary software, meaning if they go under, it's aus die Maus. And unfortunately, they already seem to be in quite a tough spot financially. Pebble, a microblogging platform that emerged around the same time as cohost, died after just one year of service due to a lack of funding. Operating a not-for-profit, community-oriented and centralised social media platform seems almost impossible. I'll be happy if cohost manages to prove me wrong, though.