Many have chosen to look at the horizon instead of across the sky, in hopes of seeing a beacon of hope, shining through the bomb cyclone that is the future of social media. They are being told the wrong thing. It is okay that there is no NextTwitter.
I don't mean that there won't be a negative effect on anyone from a valued platform disappearing. Their loss is real, as is that of any other group that decided to use the social networking site. I hope they find a solution.
For the foolhardiness of a high net worth individual, we might have seen the demise of the social networking site after a few years. The future is lost because of the last life force that is left.
With Meta having bet on the wrong horse to the continued detriment of its core products, TikTok ascendant but beginning to lose its gloss and other also-rans spinning their wheels just to remain one step ahead of the wolves of private equity for another quarter, it seems like an opportune time
It seems, but it isn't.
Though it is premature to evaluate these platforms solely on the merits they possess today, it is not difficult to see that the alternatives are not very good. Some fall short because they are not like Twitter, some because they are too similar, and some because they don't have a proper direction. It's only to be expected when they didn't pick the moment of their debut. Who could have predicted what was happening right now? They have been given relevance. I am worried that they will be discarded at the moment of need.
The illusion of choice being offered is one of the forces in play. If someone makes money off of it, we have a few options for you to consider. Or something else. Getting you to keep making the product with as little disruption as possible is the important part.
It is similar to someone wandering out of their former home and being offered predatory, binding terms on a new home. This is a chance to make money. Moneyed interests are squabbling over the broken attention economy. It's the greatest respect for fishmongers. On the quay, the practice is done.
The choices that have been made on the platform have helped define and make sense of how we think about sharing information It has come and gone. I've been a hater for 14 years. I am happy for better reasons than schadenfreude.
The very nature of social media platforms, the basic functions they provide, how they work behind the scenes, how they should be led, funded, moderated are all up in the air. We have been told for a long time that the assumptions we have been told arefundamental.
The choice to rush to The NextTwitter must be rejected. It was more than a product, it was a moment in time that was unrefined and destroyed as many times as it created. These messy delights have a messy end. It would be like reconstructing a fallen castle with only superficial lessons learned. Don't watch it rise!
Don't get caught up in the bait. The chance for people to actually do something new, to get to work on defining the next era of how people connect, is unlike any we have seen in years.
I don't want to see these platforms fail or be destroyed. I don't want the limits of our online interactions to be determined by the eggs in the cursed nest. It will be influenced by the previous relationship.
We should all try something new. I don't mean a new application. No app for a while, how about that?
This isn't a bait and switch for me to beat the "let's all connect". You can't think for yourself and meaningfully create and question if you are doing so within the limits of the previous ideal regime in a time when new ideas are potentially of immense value. It isn't a matter of touching grass or having in-person conversations, it's just putting a little distance between yourself and the pen in which you have supposedly ranged free this last decade
My hope is that people take a few weeks to stop listening to these old ideas and just do other things. Read articles, check in on forums, watch a documentary, go skiing, play a game with your friends, but don't take part in the style of taking in and broadcasting information that you see on social media. If you don't want to leave behind what happened, how can you choose what to do next?
The perspective you develop can help clarify and improve your thinking on the questions that social media has claimed to know the answers to. They never had them to start with, and the questions are more interesting than any answer.
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