Mastodon wins, hands down, because it’s not the most popular. Because…
…we know how that turns out. (It was a mess before Musk bought it, we all just had inertia.)
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It used to have a normal side though. You could ignore the dumpster fire part and never even know it’s there (thanks to third party apps). If you had some sort of interest, you could find a community on Twitter. Those people have mostly left, at least everyone I followed that wasn’t into politics did (and I have seen a lot of people say the same thing).
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I paid for App.net (RIP) and I’m happy to pay for other services.
I don’t mind Ads so long as they’re not too intrusive (I.e I can switch off tracking and the ratio is not too high, e.g 1 in 10, not 1 in 4. )
Ads I have no issue with. (I understand that is how they pay the bills) Being algorithmically force fed content on my home feed is the issue I have with modern socials.
Edit: Also Instagram has the worst notification manager.
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Platforms that discourage linking and rely on algorithmic feeds—e.g., X, Threads, Instagram, and TikTok—aren’t “town squares”; they’re flytraps for eyeballs. The interests they serve—be it for wealth or power or both—are their owners’.
For the time being, Bluesky allows linking and serves up a non-algorithmic feed by default; whether it can or will do so in the future when its investors decide they want a return is another question.
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Love that, I’m going to steal it. 
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Threads is already rapidly sliding down the enshittification curve. I check it a couple of times a week now. The “For You” timeline, which is still the default, is dominated by engagement-bait and the notifications feed is now populated by recommended posts, which drastically diminishes the usefulness of that tab.
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I’m using Instagram mainly because I just share photos or sketches. I subscribed Meta Verified.
I have accounts of Threads, X, Facebook, Bluesky and Mastodon. Paid for several months for X but dropped their subscription.
Threads looks like X but it is not. Meta knows people need interaction and feedback while they acknowledge a social media platform can be less popular one day, so from the last decade they acquired Instagram, copied Snapchat’s core features (stories for only 24 hours), copied X’s interfaces, combining with followers from their other social media platforms (Instagram instead of Facebook because the latter doesn’t make sense).
The reason why Threads can be popular because most people including me prefer to be liked, followed and have interactions like meeting new friends. Meta really understands interaction does matter so users will be satisfied. Tbh all other platforms fail to do that.
The reason why I also hate Threads and even Meta is their psychological manipulation through algorithms, making people show off themselves or share too much to create controversy (more interaction triggering more reaches). Thus there are many contents which are meaningless.
The problem of X is that identity verification is nothing. Users who are verified will still publish something that is not real/copy photos without citing sources. The only content I will find it useful is the news or updates from the organisations of my community. (Facebook too)
There will be no ideal or perfect social media but a level of interaction is a must, and ads are fine but most of the times they look like not real or beautiful as billboards on the street.
Instagram became polluted with video and clickbait TikTok clone features.
Instead of looking for another platform that still favors photos and not memes or snarky comments, I gave up and simply do less social media overall now.
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I used to think that, too, because it worked for me, but for anyone at risk of persecution, it was often unavoidable. Unfortunately that was a lot of people.
I do limit my social media time in 10 to 15 minute blocks and keep it off the phone. My news and media consumption is on my iPad Air which is more cumbersome to bring with me while I’m waiting in line like running errands, lunch, and shopping.
Instead of reaching for my iPad to check the news, I reach for my Kobo ebook reader in my messenger bag. It’s a much less stressful and more pleasurable form of media consumption.
I don’t know that I’m saying anything new here but I’ll throw my thought on the pile. I don’t know that we will ever go back to a single platform like Twitter, at least not anytime soon. I think BlueSky has the best potential to be the most successful Twitter-like platform, but it won’t have everyone. I think Threads is almost its own thing to be honest…it just feels like a different kind of engagement. And Mastodon? Mostly nerds.
I have accounts on Threads, BlueSky, and Mastodon. BlueSky and Threads are the closest in that I see more overlap of people there. Mastodon is mostly where I see podcast hosts hang out the most. BlueSky has started to get more companies which I like because I miss that kind of interaction from Twitter. It will be interesting to see how many accounts continue to cross-post on both of those platforms.
Here’s my conundrum, though. I got rid of my X account because of what X was turning into (and probably what Twitter was even before Elon bought it). But I feel like I might need to go back to X for my job. Which is really frustrating.
I never left Twitter/X and I think it has gotten better and better since Elon saved it. The commodore 64 interraction is fantastic. If certain rabbit holes bother you, don’t go down them. Reddit is probably the most vile place on the internet, but I never see anything other than what interests me, C64, Backpacks, Macgaming, etc.
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Which client do you use for that?
I still check my account about once a month to see if I have any DMs. But I don’t know how long that will last.
“A newly released disclosure report from Fidelity’s Blue Chip Growth Fund, which has an equity stake in the social media company, has once again adjusted the value of that holding. And by Fidelity’s calculations, the site is now worth less than 25% of the $44 billion Musk paid for it.”
for Reddit? the web on mac. I bookmark https://old.reddit.com/hot/ and it only shows my subs postings. Nothing from the outside.
September 30, 2024 at 12:54 PM EDT
“newly”… and why do people care what its value is? I don’t pick my apps, services, or companies by how much they are worth according to media. It’s privately owned.
Fidelity isn’t media, it’s a partial owner of X.
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you posted a 3 month old Fortune magazine article. That’s media my friend.
After not engaging with Twitter since Musk banned 3rd party clients (deprecated the API with no notice), I recently bit the bullet and deleted my account.
The value is important, it gives people an understanding how healthy the platform is.
The ongoing devaluation is a reflection of how much Musk paid over the odds for Twitter, that he has done nothing but alienate advertisers since he took over, that he has no safety/moderation team in place which is inviting scrutiny by regulators, that the platform is shedding users, and that X (it’s not been Twitter for a long time) has led to knock on effects on the other businesses Musk is involved with, especially Tesla.
From being the darling of liberals, both Twitter and Tesla are largely persona non grata in those circles.
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