I don't at all agree. I think there is a lot of upside to the ones that I use (FB and Tw). Plenty of warts on both, to be sure, but I wouldn't want either of them to go away.
So, the try and try again aspect also seems like a good thing, to me. It shouldn't surprise us that many of these efforts that don't amount to anything. That is often the case when we try to make improvements on complex things that already work pretty well.
I'm too old to learn new things. There is no room left in my brain for anything else.
For everything that goes in one ear something else runs out the other. I'm liable to learn all about this new fangled notes thing and forget how to get home from work.
Glad to hear you're no more enamored of Dorsey's new thing than I am. I don't know if I'd go so far as to call him a Nazi, but I do score him as tied with Microsoft on the ability to babble incomprehensibly for as long anyone will ask, and that's almost as bad.
Agree also about Mastodon: I am not seeing the point of something that tries to be like Twitter, only much harder to use. I suppose some evangelist could persuade me of the theoretical upsides of the federated approach, but everyone being on a different server strikes me as nothing more than a pain in the ass. I can't like a post by someone who's on another server unless I'm already following them, and starting to following someone on a different server means having to jump through way too many hoops. And don't even get me started about trying to build lists; let's just say that the last two times I made a serious effort, the result was nothing more than a doubling of the feeling that Mastodon is a waste of time.
I tried Mastodon awhile ago and could not for the life of me get on. At one point they told me that I had to try later because too much traffic, I think. Then they started to send me notices in my email, but I still couldn't get in. So I gave up. I think that I may be like Worriedman and too old to learn new things.
Actually, I bet you did nothing wrong during sign-up. I had a similar experience, although I did finally manage to get an account. As you doubtless remember, Mastodon was swamped at one point, and that was the source of the horrible sign-up experience.
The biggest complaint I had with them was that they didn't do the smart thing at that time. They should have recognized (admitted?) that they were unable to handle the traffic spike, and just put up a page saying, "Sorry, we've had to pause the creation of new accounts for a bit." Instead, they just left things as they were, and let the excessive load cause whatever problems it was inevitably going to cause.
Possibly, they couldn't easily due such a thing, due to their inherent decentralized structure. Which, okay, but it's just another argument against the federated style, if you ask me.
Over the past 5 years, I've stopped using Facebook, disengaged with Twitter, and gradually lost interest in Instagram, which switched from photo app to dollar store TikTok. I've tried Mastodon, but it never grabbed me (mostly because no one is on there, I guess). The one nice thing about this new Sub-twitter is that it has a bunch of high quality writers and puts them in one spot to Sub-tweet. Sure, Bluesky may have the reporters desperate for attention, the A-list celebrities and people posting nudes, but Substack has people I like, so even without the nudes, I'll give it an honest effort to enjoy. So what I'm asking, Roy, is for you to devote time and energy to one more thing. No rest or relaxation for you, sir.
There's you and Scocca and DeLong, so I guess "cool," but Freddie Deboer? Never got into Twitter so I don't know how to create my own epistemic bubble of only people who aren't wrong about everything.
Social media was a mistake that we will try to make again and again.
I don't at all agree. I think there is a lot of upside to the ones that I use (FB and Tw). Plenty of warts on both, to be sure, but I wouldn't want either of them to go away.
So, the try and try again aspect also seems like a good thing, to me. It shouldn't surprise us that many of these efforts that don't amount to anything. That is often the case when we try to make improvements on complex things that already work pretty well.
we are sooooo social...
Roy, time management. if after you attend to yer stack, and yer life, if you have time left over take a walk in the park.
Ah, I've been seeing "Notes" from you for the last couple days, but when I clicked on them, they disappeared. This explains things.
I'm too old to learn new things. There is no room left in my brain for anything else.
For everything that goes in one ear something else runs out the other. I'm liable to learn all about this new fangled notes thing and forget how to get home from work.
That's why I like to learn new things, to forget about the old stuff. Like, I can't even remember who Aaron Rodgers is anymore.
That's a great system!
Glad to hear you're no more enamored of Dorsey's new thing than I am. I don't know if I'd go so far as to call him a Nazi, but I do score him as tied with Microsoft on the ability to babble incomprehensibly for as long anyone will ask, and that's almost as bad.
Agree also about Mastodon: I am not seeing the point of something that tries to be like Twitter, only much harder to use. I suppose some evangelist could persuade me of the theoretical upsides of the federated approach, but everyone being on a different server strikes me as nothing more than a pain in the ass. I can't like a post by someone who's on another server unless I'm already following them, and starting to following someone on a different server means having to jump through way too many hoops. And don't even get me started about trying to build lists; let's just say that the last two times I made a serious effort, the result was nothing more than a doubling of the feeling that Mastodon is a waste of time.
I tried Mastodon awhile ago and could not for the life of me get on. At one point they told me that I had to try later because too much traffic, I think. Then they started to send me notices in my email, but I still couldn't get in. So I gave up. I think that I may be like Worriedman and too old to learn new things.
Actually, I bet you did nothing wrong during sign-up. I had a similar experience, although I did finally manage to get an account. As you doubtless remember, Mastodon was swamped at one point, and that was the source of the horrible sign-up experience.
The biggest complaint I had with them was that they didn't do the smart thing at that time. They should have recognized (admitted?) that they were unable to handle the traffic spike, and just put up a page saying, "Sorry, we've had to pause the creation of new accounts for a bit." Instead, they just left things as they were, and let the excessive load cause whatever problems it was inevitably going to cause.
Possibly, they couldn't easily due such a thing, due to their inherent decentralized structure. Which, okay, but it's just another argument against the federated style, if you ask me.
Over the past 5 years, I've stopped using Facebook, disengaged with Twitter, and gradually lost interest in Instagram, which switched from photo app to dollar store TikTok. I've tried Mastodon, but it never grabbed me (mostly because no one is on there, I guess). The one nice thing about this new Sub-twitter is that it has a bunch of high quality writers and puts them in one spot to Sub-tweet. Sure, Bluesky may have the reporters desperate for attention, the A-list celebrities and people posting nudes, but Substack has people I like, so even without the nudes, I'll give it an honest effort to enjoy. So what I'm asking, Roy, is for you to devote time and energy to one more thing. No rest or relaxation for you, sir.
There's you and Scocca and DeLong, so I guess "cool," but Freddie Deboer? Never got into Twitter so I don't know how to create my own epistemic bubble of only people who aren't wrong about everything.
"Yr way over our heads." Ed Wood
Wait Elmo out. I’d like to think Twitter will survive his ownership.
Besides, even now, Twitter isn’t all that awful as long as you don’t engage with the crazy people.
(Sorry, not interested in Brewskis or whatever it's called.)