I'm not very active on Mastodon, but saw this post - browsing the bluesky hashtag for a bit afterwards did not really give me much info. I can definitely imagine enshittification happening there, but what is causing the current drama in particular?
this post was submitted on 27 May 2025
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twitter was founded as an app that allowed you to basically broadcast a text message. back then, sms messaging only allowed for 140 characters max per message. that's why twitter became so big - it was basically a great way to shout headlines out to everyone who wanted to hear you. this was back in the days where the internet was still becoming a viable commercial thing and people were still mostly using tvs/cds/landlines.
now, texting is pretty much indistinguishable from emailing, and everybody's phones are fully on the web. the only thing imo that's still keeping tweets around is that people don't want to consider options that provide for a reason they might have to read more.
I am still having serious trouble following. Is your problem the fact that there's a character limit?
twitter is an outdated phone app that was built for SMS back when text messages had a limit. it should have had a predictable lifespan, but now it's become a fake-ai-assisted culture war battleground that's run by the world's biggest idiot and oligarch.
i'm having trouble following what the fuck you're having "serious" trouble following. and i'm starting to think you aren't asking this question in good faith.
Twitter definitely was not any attempt to emulate the function of SMS.
I can't tell if you don't know what SMS is for, or what Twitter was for.
where am i wrong? twitter - as i understand - started as a phone-based application which had a 140-character limitation. where did that limit come from?
It did not. It took 4 years before they launched an official mobile app. The char limit was solely a marketing ploy.
Think you replied to the wrong level comment :)
You are absolutely right! I will delete and re-reply. Thank you!
you're right, i'm wrong. i addressed it in another comment.
The limit was there because in its early incarnation it allowed post-submission via SMS. SMS already had the 140-character limit for other technical reasons due to the GSM networks.
Apparently somewhere here people have finally convinced you that you are entirely wrong about the origin of twitter.
But the word you've been looking for (which also describes Mastodon, Calkey, etc) is microblog.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microblogging