@NicoleCRust
I am both a format nerd and principled to a fault. some mediums are interesting but not stimulating to me: eg. I don't maintain a presence in Tumblr but I am fascinated by it. Some mediums are stimulating but not interesting: I have an account on Reddit to bookmark things but have no interest in engaging in discussion there. All mediums have their own charms and harms, but twitter is exceptionally good at feeling simultaneously like a global space and an extremely isolating one: it's easy to think that "I am not part of the problem" there because it purposely hides patterned behavior and washes it off the feed with exponential decay.

I think posing the problem (not referring to you, many/most do) as being about musk specifically rather than corporate platforms generally makes it easy to dismiss as "musk is bad but not bad enough to leave the platform because the platform is bigger than him." I think this is factually incorrect, but there is something to it - twitter makes it easy to burrow yourself in a little bubble that doesn't look like a bubble.

You have to really remove yourself from the question to ask what does it mean for the platform as a whole to be owned by a single billionaire, which I don't think many ppl are doing. It's an informational weapon and it is the collective belief that it is a useful medium that sustains it. Even as functionality suffers in visible ways, belief operates on a different level than phenomenological experience, so I think FOMO is probably a stronger driver to focus energy on another platform - displacing the space of belief and habit occupied by twitter.

I continue to lurk there, making original posts only about how the medium sucks nowadays, and will continue to do so because I love seeing scams, especially floundering scams, and I am intrinsically interested in digital mediums, so I think less in terms of a binary "leave/stay" and more in terms of asking people to evaluate what role informational platforms play in their life, which is definitely less satisfying. What does it mean to have your information diet controlled by an actively hostile right wing force? etc.

@MatteoCarandini @bc_butler

This is quite the graph, from your thread: annual profit at Elsevier in 2020 larger than annual HHMI grants and Wellcome Trust grants. So much research left on the table, swallowed up by RELX shareholders and Elsevier's fat cats' salaries and R&D to extend its tentacles beyond being a mere publisher. What a missed opportunity.

#ScientificPublishing