And now I use Mastodon, because I can use Ivory, the Mastodon client by TapBits (the maker of TweetBot).
Of course you don’t have to use that app because Mastodon doesn’t have any algorithm. It’s just chronological. It’s great. There’s nothing stopping someone from making a client that has an algorithm. But the service isn’t trying to hide stuff from you and promote nonsense that someone paid for.
The article mostly seems to be about "don't interact with idiots on the internet" though (well, no shit!), not about the broken recommendation algorithm.
Well therein lies the problem, no? Reflexive outrage, cringe and disgust are some of the strongest ways to engage your audience. Any rational social media owner (particularly one that owns an unprofitable hellsite such as Twitter) is going to capitalize on that, because Twitter isn't and was never a charity. It's an advertisement platform that deliberately limits your expression to prevent you from taking the attention away from the ads.
So now we're on X, and everyone somehow thinks things will gently come back together again. Why? Do we not see the smoldering corpse that Jack Dorsey left for us, expecting a spirit to rise from the ashes and thank the most pious @users?
I never used Twitter, so eulogizing it has always struck me as an uncomfortably postmodern compulsion. From the outside looking in, Twitter was disproportionately popular and relied on FOMO generated from lifestyle influencers to draw in the majority of it's users. It had no clear path to profitability, also relied on baiting people with sensationalism for ad revenue, and ultimately suffers from the same critical flaw of fickle centralized control that damned Twitter originally.
I've seen this style become "popular" and I have nothing but morbid fascination.
It can definitely have a cost of readability if you're not familiar with it but this one is very well done and clear. The author makes really good typographic decisions in the paragraph breaks and section headings that provide plenty of structure and keep it from being disorienting.
So idk I am generally joyfully curious about this style and think this is a solid example of doing it in a way that enhances expression without sacrificing clarity.
Whether we like it or not, prior to Musk buying twitter, the old twitter was essentially burning capital and had less than six months of runaway money in the bank, essentially it was 6 months away from bankruptcy.
Contrary to what many people said, twitter is still alive and doing overall okay. Most people are still there, tweeting and doing stuff.
OP just liked the old unsustainable twitter.
Unironically, this person staying on twitter (despite twitter making them “go insane”) is literally what keeps twitter alive.
There’s no way to play this kind of games and win. OP should move to a different platform if the current state of twitter does not suit them.
And all of that is to say nothing about Musk’s politics, rule changes, his personal tweets being shown to non-followers, removing the ability to block users, third party apps, and other reasons people may not be happy.
Yeah Twitter was burning cash, but they were also overspending. The fact old Twitter was mismanaged isn’t evidence X is doing great.