Let’s review what Elon Musk has done just in 2023:
- Changed Twitter to X.
- Plans to implement a small monthly payment for everyone using the X system.
- Plans to collect user biometric information, job, and education history for “safety, security, and identification purposes.”
- Brings back shadowbanning.
- Uses user data to train AI models.
- Limits replies to verified users only.
Elon has made so many terrible changes to Twitter that I can’t remember what the breaking point was for me.
Fortunately, there’s a lot more competition in Twitter-like social media platforms. Mastodon may currently hold the position as the most established platform, but there are numerous other services competing to become the next preferred place for online users.
About 10 years ago, Angelo Sotira ($spyed) fired one of the other co-founders, Spot, and started pitting paying users against non-paying users. Free users had a marker on their profile saying “Needs Premium Membership.” The site also marked whether you were a paying or free user everywhere. Sound familiar?
They drew more controversy in 2018 when they hired this marketing firm to come up with a lackluster new logo everybody hated. Because, you know, it’s not like they had a bunch of artists using the site or anything.
Big yikes. Goddamn that’s dumb