G. Willow WilsonI've been trending in this direction anyway, but next month Twitter will become an announcement-only platform for me. Personal prediction: there will be no mass migration to the fediverse or spoutible or anywhere else. Instead, a return to internet 1.5 norms is underway: smaller, more niche communities, many of them walled gardens. The global public square/water cooler is on its way out as an ideal.
Why do I think this? Partly bc Internet 1.5 platforms are having a renaissance, Reddit and Discord in particular. Most people don't want the entire planet to follow the conversations they have with their friends. That is a useful discoverability feature for content creators/media people (myself included) BUT there are ways to manage. Ppl will still go to Twitter, FB, Insta etc for news; posting announcements there will still have value.
What is happening now on Twitter is not migration; it's dispersal. People are leaving for a whole host of different platforms. As long as twitter remains an essential clearinghouse for breaking news and up to the minute info, it will shuffle onwards, but it's finished as an incubator of mass culture.
Coles Street Pothole@GWillow I think you’re right. I’ve likened my Mastodon instance to a community bulletin board that can, if I want it to, be partially merged with other boards. But there is no central public square. And my Twitter use is mostly read-only, for news.
JJ Peterson@GWillow Its not an essential clearinghouse for breaking news, it’s more like breaking announcements by journalist/influencers pretending to do news, but who are actually just enabling blatant fascism and white supremacy by staying on Twitter. They think they are too important to not be on Twitter.
Joby (chaotic good)@GWillow Yeah, I've found that Twitter is still unrivaled on that front. I don't post to it any more, but I do still check it for breaking news or to see if other people are having the same problem as me with a platform or service.
Patrick, Grand Arbiter
tptigger@GWillow This reminds me of what happened when Livejournal started becoming hostile to fannish activity: a slow scattering with no consensus of where to go next.
Craig Grannell@GWillow I think you’re right, but I do wonder whether Twitter will even survive as the place for breaking news. Musk seems to be doing everything to erode trust in the platform. And if we’ll be at the point where only paying subscribers get visibility and all polls are paying folks only, I can’t see too many networks with any integrity or editorial standards taking Twitter that seriously.
@craiggrannell We'll see! Media outlets prioritize eyeballs above all things, including integrity, so I imagine they will continue hanging around until the eyeballs disappear.
📎🖐️ Alan Taylor 🎬 📚
screw_dog@GWillow I tend to agree. One idea I've been mulling over is that internet 2.0 was partly a fad - that many who've left FB/Twitter/etc haven't gone to other platforms, they've stopped using social media qua social media all together.
@GWillow Oh, and I've been wondering if we're seeing a really important societal shift away from having a "mainstream culture" created via mass media to only having fragmented, overlapping, niche cultures in a way that hasn't existed for possibly generations
StephaneWithAnE@GWillow I agree with you overall, but the situation could shift a lot faster in one direction as people are going to be fed up of relying on multiple platforms soon, while the "big" platforms are aggressively shoving ads and monetization in their face. I'm hoping that in 1-2 years, Mastodon will have greatly evolved to enable rich federations of interconnected social networks.
@GWillow Also, I told a friend recently that a lot of people will realize within 2 years that supporting Twitter was a mistake because of the collateral damage it caused. A bit like the influence of the GOP on US politics over the past 10-20 years.
Thom O'Connor@GWillow This is interesting analysis, thanks for sharing. Genuine question - do you think there is some feature or characteristic of the Don 🐘 that precludes it from also being a place where organizations also share primary news and announcements?
@thomoco Yes, many. fragmentation. Limited search functionality. Servers shutting down and/or de-federating. No news org is going to rely on a platform where they might be blocked by servers hosting thousands of users with no little to no explanation or redress.
Millions@GWillow if you had told me 10 years ago that Reddit would be one of the more civil corners of the internet in 2023…
@stevemillions I hear LiveJournal is hip now too. 😂
Jodie Troutman@GWillow Agreed, though even as an announcement-only platform, it's gonna sink like a stone when I'm not paying $8/month to actually show up in someone's feed.
Jamie Coville@GWillow That's what happened with message boards after they took over from usenet. Which was on one hand, a little sad, but also an understandable shift. Too much noise, not enough signal.
Karl Nelson
Dave Clark@karlnelson @GWillow I find I still lean heavy on Twitter for Sounders posting and that's my bad
@bedirthan @karlnelson Sports people are still firmly entrenched on Twitter, yes. But most of them are active elsewhere too--I've been trying to fan out to individual websites (like SaH), Insta, various Discord servers, etc, to see what the vibe is and what is evolving.
Nate Bowling (نيت بولينج)@GWillow @bedirthan @karlnelson have you discovered the bots that share the SaH and Oshan's tweets here? They're essential: @sounderatheart and @JeremiahOshan
@natebowling @GWillow @bedirthan Yes, I have! And I find myself starting to reply to them on occasion, then realizing that they're just mirrors. 😕 But, for sure better than nothing.
@karlnelson @natebowling @GWillow I'll see what we can do about getting a real SaH/RoValks account on here.
Also, @voght is here for your OL Reign learnings
Steve Voght@bedirthan @karlnelson @natebowling @GWillow Susie is here for real, too - @susierants ! Between the two of us most RoValks stuff gets shared here, but I'll look into setting up an actual real RoValks account on here when I have some free time.
@bedirthan @GWillow I'm using a mix of twitter accounts that are mirrored here (like @SoundersFC or @LIVESounders), and using @NetNewsWire to follow a list of Sounders folks on Twitter. Some people (hi, Dave!), I'm following in both spots. The NetNewsWire thing is only good until Twitter actually kills their API. Then... 🤷♂️
McDyer@GWillow
If I get the orange kitten I want (will kitten season start already!), I will go back to announce my Jorts merch, but it'll be my only interaction since last fall.
If I get the orange kitten I want (will kitten season start already!), I will go back to announce my Jorts merch, but it'll be my only interaction since last fall.
Dan Sugalski@GWillow I suspect as Mastodon support gets baked into various CMSes, and someone works out a lower-overhead mastodon install for orgs that are mainly broadcast then we'll see the fediverse become a secondary platform. Maybe it won't be the primary place for a lot of info businesses but it'll still get some engagement.
Michael@GWillow Yeah, this seems likely to me. I think a lot of people are waiting for something to be that 1:1 replacement for Twitter but I don't think anything will do that. I'm ok with this but that's very easy for me to say since I don't do anything creative to make a living.
Don MacDonald@MichaelKlamerus @GWillow Agree…I don't think anything will replace it fully either. That period of Twitter when a whole bunch of celebs, journalists, and politicians were doing unfiltered water cooler talk is over and has been for a few years. I have a feeling it going pay-to-play in a few weeks will accelerate the decline
NowWeAreAllTom@GWillow I suspect you're right about most of this but I personally am holding out hope that those smaller communities won't be walled gardens.
I think if Tumblr implements ActivityPub as they've indicated they will, then that could be a tipping point toward making federation the new norm for smaller platforms.
Will 
@GWillow I like the way you think.
miriam libicki@GWillow I’m glad I found you here, and I’m glad you post! I enjoy reading my feed every day, but I struggle to have any thoughts that feel relevant to post, myself. Mastodon successfully scratches the “news/opinion source” for me, but insofar as I ever “found community” on the old site, I don’t yet have that here.
@pineywoozle ‘s #3WordNote@GWillow I think that might’ve been the case if it weren’t so desperately needed right now to have a communal space to organize against what’s happening in the world in general in America specifically.
Just-Preston@GWillow Love the term Web 1.5 Lets get that "trending" or whatever happens on mastadon
Annalee Newitz 🍜@GWillow I completely agree. It reminds me of historical moments when people have abandoned large cities and returned to smaller villages and towns. The big platforms are good for yelling about news, but we don't necessarily want to make our homes there.
K. Tempest Bradford@GWillow highly agree. I'm happy for it, too!
Yoko's Asterisk 🏳️⚧@GWillow God I hope so. Actually, it's complicated? I will miss having a big bullhorn to yell about my work and other people's writing from, but I won't miss the notion of a single space where everyone is watching most of the time.
Art Hennessey@GWillow This makes sense to me. My personal experience is that there are a whole cadre of folks (creators, journalists, comedy) I used to follow who exited Twitter saying: follow me on Mastadon, Post, Substack, etc. I dutifully followed them to these other places. But, honestly, it seems that while they aren't posting on Twitter, they also aren't posting on any of these other platforms either.
Kate Branden@arthennessey @GWillow This is what I've found as well. I think it's platform-fatigue - too many platforms to post on, and starting over is hard. It's like everyone's left the party to go to a dozen different after-parties and without the whole group together, the energy fizzles.
@katebranden @arthennessey That's a good metaphor.
@GWillow @katebranden Another way I look at it: It took me around a decade to build and curate my Twitter timeline. I'm only about 3 months into any of these other platforms! 😆