John Gruber blogged about XCancel shutting down yet again, adding this in a parenthetical:
…let’s admit it at this point, there’s not just a lot posted on X, it’s resurgent in popularity
It’s true. Just telling folks what we’re against has not been enough to rebalance the web to open platforms.
@manton If true, it’s because fascism is becoming normalized. if true it means people don’t mind supporting a fascist.
@atomicbird.bsky.social I view it a little differently. There is some of what you said, but there are also many people who think “this is where we post”, not thinking about politics at all. I’d love to see Bluesky slowly pull some of those communities away.
@manton dark patterns and gated content blockers might work in the short term but do people actually engage long term?
@sander Might be too soon to know for sure. I feel like there was a shift about six months ago. Can’t really put a finger on it.
@manton X is the 15th largest social media platform by monthly use. It’s 6 times smaller than either Facebook or Instagram, 5 times smaller than YouTube, 3 times smaller than TikTok. Unsubstantiated talk of a ‘resurgence’ is a choice to promote it, not a politically neutral observation.
@writingslowly @manton by the way, I strongly support your work to promote interoperability, because these platforms clearly hate it.
@manton We need to pivot the messaging to the positives of open platforms rather than the negatives of the closed systems
@writingslowly 6 times smaller, 5 times smaller, 3 times smaller – none of these compute. Do you mean 1/6, 1/5, and 1/3 respectively?
