Twitter is still influencing the rest of the web (look at its influence on reddit since Musk bought Twitter, and Spez started wanting to live in his skin). I don't think we can just take the good without the bad and assume a net positive.
this post was submitted on 15 Sep 2024
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I don't know why you guys keep pretending X is Truth Social levels of dead. Is this just copium or are you really that far removed from reality? X is absolutely in a significant decline but it's still the dominant microblogging platform by a mile. All politicians, all media organisations, all celebrities use X. And ultimately these are the accounts that will determine whether X remains relevant in mainstream society.
Even assuming 25% of Twitter users are bots (probably a significant over estimate), and even if half of Twitter's users quit in the next year, it would still be 150x bigger than mastodon
(Mastodon has ~1m MAUs, compared to ~421m for Twitter)
From my understanding, Bluesky (despite its recent growth) isn't particularly big either. Threads claims to have a lot of users and I assume it would have the easiest time attracting normies, but I am still sceptical of its long-term viability. I feel like the people leaving X would have quite a bit of crossover with people who despise Meta.
So that leaves us with a fourth competitor, which is nothing at all. Anecdotally I think this is what I am seeing the most - people who leave X are just abandoning the entire concept of microblogging, since the point of it is to speak to a large audience and none of the competitors can really deliver that right now. The appeal of Twitter was that everyone (who was interested in microblogging) was on it; smaller, niche communities are fine for discussion boards and group chats but microbloggers don't really want to be screaming into a void where most people will never hear them. Microblogging was never even particularly popular anyway (when compared with other forms of social media) and I wouldn't be particularly surprised if the downfall of X eventually kills the concept for most people in society.
iirc when you sign up for threads it links your Facebook/Insta account and there's no way to delete your threads account without deleting the whole thing, so their numbers are likely inflated
Only if we're talking about total users.The number of monthly active users (MAU) shouldn't be affected by this, unless Meta is counting an active Facebook/Instagram who has opened a Threads account as an active Threads user (regardless of their Threads usage).
All true.
With that said, Bluesky has had one hell of a growth month - not just from Brazil - and that's nice.
I prefer Mastodon to what is ultimately still a for-profit corporation ("public benefit" notwithstanding), but both are better than Twatter.
I'd like to like Mastodon better. I'd like it - ot a simular open, decentralized platform - to be the one that everyone uses, if anything.
However, I do not like it as much. And Bluesky is getting the momentum, which is important.
They're also at least theoretically relatively open and decentralized (but we do all know how that would go long-term)
But like you said, either is dramatically better than Twitter. Heck, just having many healthy options is good.
It's my perpetual gripe with many of those open tools that I love ideologically, but practically find lacking in some respects, typically UI/UX (including the pre-experience of the decision whether to use them). I don't have all the skills or knowledge to fix the issues that bother me, as it's often far eaiser to know what's wrong than how to fix it.
I understand and endorse the philosophy that it's unfair to demand things of volunteers already donating their time and skills to the public, but it creates some interdisciplinary problems. Even if capable UX designers were to tackle the issue and propose solutions or improvements, they might not all have the skills to actually implement them, so they'd have to rely on developers to indulge their requests.
And from my own experience, devs tend to prioritise function over form, because techy people are often adept enough at navigating less-polished interfaces. Creating a pretty frontend takes away time from creating stuff I'd find useful.
I don't know if there's an easy solution. The intersection between "People that can approach software from the perspective of a non-tech user", "People that are willing to approach techy Software" and "People that are tech-savy enough to be able to fix the usability issues" is probably very small.
all media organisations use X
NPR quits Twitter after being falsely labeled as 'state-affiliated media'
It's not dead though, it's still linked to everywhere, from big news to niche communities because it still has that critical mass and inertia.
And I have to be cynical of the Fediverse, but realistically, what replaces it, at least here in the US? Discord? No, thanks, I'd at least rather have information be public.
I'm speaking as someone who has never used Twitter, but I can't ignore it, as much as I'd like to.
If you think X is getting linked at anything approaching the level Twitter was back in the day ... where have you been? That platform is slowly bleeding out his billions of investment (well, some of his, but lots of other peoples' money I don't mind seeing burn, either)...
It's still everywhere in my news/internet diet.
It's bleeding, for sure, but it's big. Its gone bad. But I think its premature to say its collapse is a good thing, because it just won't go away.
It will be interesting to see where it ends up after the election, one way or another.
It's so big that it can take a lot of bleeding before it dies. It doesn't help that there is no significant enough consensus yet on an alternative.
It seems like some people are flocking to bsky, probably because it has better visibility and seems more accessible than Mastodon ("What's an instance? How do I pick?"). Others are heading to Threads just because it's there already.
If enough people move to some other platform to generate a critical mass, they'll pull others too. Until then, inertia will keep X rolling a good while to come.
The future isn't one big town square. The future is lots of interconnected communities.
I, for one, have no interest in the corporate internet.
I share your hope. I'm just offering the caveat that it might not go as quickly and smoothly as you expect (unless I'm reading your comments wrong - do correct me!)
I never gave a timeline, I don't think. All I see is fewer links and major investors writing down their investments. 🤷♂️
I disagree, not really an unpopular opinion.
The only reason that this is unpopular is that there are a lot of things that happened to the web that are far better than some overhyped group text vomiting website going downhill.
*Popular opinion
For me, it kept a lot of the worst of the idiots away from places like reddit.
As soon as xitter got bad, lots of them left. You see, those kinds of weaponsied, unhigned right wingers are so repulsive to be around, they can't even stand each other. More so, they dont even want to have a conversation or an exchange of ideas. They literally just want to rant at people, parroting the lines they read somewhere else at anyone they think disagrees with them.
If everyone agrees with you, you have no one to rant at.
Unpopular?
Outside of our very small internet bubble, yes that's an incredibly unpopular opinion. By and large, people love Twitter, as evidenced by it still being one of the most-used platforms around.
I'm not sure that widespread use of the platform is indicative of widespread love of the platform. People are entrenched, have sunk so much into it, and can't find acceptable alternatives (cries in Fediverse). I'd guess that most people still using the platform do so out of necessity/ obligation while wishing for something better.
I mean to some extent you aren't wrong.
If it wasn't for Twitter going downhill I am not sure if Mastodon and the rest of the Fediverse would had become as populated as they are now. While Reddit might had maybe gave some usership, both combined going bad really helped.
I don't see this as an unpopular opinion, but I do agree with it - at least here (Brazil) Twitter was evolving into a containment cage for nutjobs and morons, until it was blocked. (And it's damn easy to find who's who in the Bluesky diaspora, as the nutjobs/morons miss Twitter while the saner people are glad to see it locally gone.)
Unfortunately most of our local politicians remained there with the crazies.
I think that's what is kind of dangerous about the decline of it. At the end it's just a cesspool full of "those" people who are even further removed from reality
Public micro blogging overall is a bane, so yes.
Exactly, that's why I never used Twitter, and it's why I don't use Mastodon. I don't want to follow people, I want to follow ideas, and the Reddit/Lemmy model fits what I'm looking for better.
I mean Musk said Twitter was a Bad Thing and problematic.
Then a year or so later bought it, and immediately started doing things which reduced it's popularity and influence.
I think he wanted to run it into the ground or make it a fashist/rightwing/propaganda site before the US elections and it looks like he's pretty much there. It's in a horrible state. Could be worse, but it's really bad.
I think he had no god dammed idea what he was doing and still doesn’t.
Unpopular opinion? I thought this was a popular opinion.
I never had a twitter account. The entire premise was dumb to begin with. The only way I came in contact with twitter was when shitty journalists just took tweets and used them as a story. But that's more of a journalism problem than anything else.
I thought it was just getting good.
I never actually had an account or much inclination to use it but it seemed like the first online service ubiquitous enough for local government and business notifications. In that sense, it was just starting to be a real benefit for an informed populace
However ~~downvoting as~~ that seemed more like a prerequisite to your posted opinion - I’ll agree that it’s fine for all the loonies to rant at each other there, but that makes the opinion “popular” …… crap, wrong community
The SCP facility has been breached
Once it finally crumbled, they have to go somewhere
No twatter links sure, but they'll go to shittier sites
Or worse, the very sites you use
Twitter is defined entirely by what is followed, you can stay completely out of the toxic far right stuff and block those that don't know where they are. There are still plenty of sub communities there that exist no where else and you can control your feed better than Lemmy and other forum like systems. Twitter overall is declinimg but it's not the full picture because what is happening doesn't impact lots of people who use the platform that much.
i feel like all good things there good when there on the edge and then comes mass adoption and along with it the bots the ads and the bs ive noticed alot of the old reddit trolls that used to farm the ama groups moving to lemmy
Imagine thinking that platform only "went bad" recently.