It’s always interesting to see people who like to talk about how they’re “sad to leave Micro.blog” even though they can make the choice to stay.
If I can choose to not be sad, I will always choose to not be sad.
@simonwoods But people have limited bandwidth. It could be a positive, but still sad, decision to focus it elsewhere.
I get what you mean, but as someone looking to shift my online focus (admittedly not from places I’d be sad to leave) I can see why people might say that, and am inclined to applaud them for it.
@jamescousins Yep, I understand why people make different decisions. Still odd since you can just... keep the account, and then reconsider your options after taking a break or trying other things? IDK. I don't think of Micro.blog as a hugely demanding place where people are expected to prove loyalty and emotional investment for the sake of their own health or anything like that.
@simonwoods As I understand it, the Timeline of micro∙blog is optional. There's no need, nor obligation to use it. People can use the blogging part and never the social media part, and still have great value out of a subscription. Vice versa, you can use the Timeline without paying for a blog, just as with any social media platform out there.
@jamescousins As for bandwidth, that's a personal choice. Yes, the big networks push followers in your face like it's expected to follow as many accounts as possible, but you can simply ignore that and use the Web as it suits you. But I suppose most prefer to be compliant rather than self-actualizing.
@renevanbelzen @simonwoods Even having that takes some bandwidth. I do not use my Facebook account, but never having deleted it, it still takes up a bit of room in my brain. (And occasionally I’ll go in to find a few year’s worth of ‘happy birthdays’.)
I’m evaluating my use, so find such active withdrawals quite interesting, in part because it isn’t what I would do.
@jamescousins You do realize that once you delete your Facebook account, it just isn't displayed on the Facebook website? The rest (tracking across the Internet) continues. Facebook is a roach motel, you can enter, but never leave. So deleting your FB account for peace of mind is just wearing rose-colored glasses, ignoring what goes on behind the scenes, IMO. Same goes for social interactions on FB. People know you from FB, and will keep remembering you, talking about you (more freely now you're off FB).
@renevanbelzen Yes. Indeed, they’ll track even if you never had an account. I have plenty of blockers set up to try to avoid that.
Having said all that, my pi-hole suggests no requests at all to Facebook which makes me incredibly suspicious since I can’t believe my software blockers are that effective.
@jamescousins It's a cat-and-mouse game between engineers of Facebook and of tracking blockers, I presume.
@renevanbelzen That seems to be most of the internet now, ad blocking is the same (and I know the arguments about revenue for site owners, but some are simply unusable without ads).