1. As folks are asking, no, I'm not leaving Twitter at this time, for reasons I explained in April, when the current owner first started his quest to own the place (see the attached article). What I am doing, however, is re-evaluating how I use the site.
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2. And not just how I use Twitter, mind you, although that is the current hot topic du jour. I'm thinking about social media generally, and the utility of "being the product" in exchange for ease of use and an audience. I'd be lying if I said it doesn't have advantages...
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3. ...for someone like me. I like having a largish audience and Twitter not requiring me to do much besides being quippish. But even before the new guy, the deal has been getting increasingly lopsided and requires more effort from me to use useful and usable.
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4. It's become less *fun,* honestly, and the steps that the new guy seems determined to take will make it more so, and more prone to trolling and impersonation and misinformation. The value proposition for me could go south fast.
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5. If the value proposition goes south, then the question is how much of my time/effort I want to give the site. I don't want to walk away from 200K followers, and I enjoy (most) of the interactions I have with people here. But I also have other places I can be...
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6. ... including my own site, where I don't have to worry the owner is a bored, overly-rich shitlord trying to monetize every last possible thing because he overpaid dramatically for it. There are options, for me at least, because I stuck with my own online space all this time.
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7. Now, I'm well aware that if I draw down on Twitter, not everyone here is going to follow me elsewhere, and, well. That's life, and the decisions that will have to be made. I've gone through several Internet phases already. Nothing lasts, it's always in flux.
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8. Which means this "crisis" is also an opportunity. How *do* I want to be online in 2022 and beyond? I'm on Twitter because it's easy, but what if I made an effort elsewhere? What would that look like and how would I do it? I'm thinking about these things now.
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9. So, anyway. In the short-to-medium run, I'll still be around here. But I am recalibrating what Twitter is worth to me, and making plans to do more things elsewhere, especially with my own site. Which I should have been doing already, honestly. I'm looking forward to it.
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10. Also: Hey! Here is my personal site. Bookmark it in your browser, put it in your RSS feed, subscribe to in email, etc. I already update there daily and have for 24 years. Make it part of your everyday online experience if you like.
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11. And now, as usual, here's a cat to end the thread.
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It's time I got back into reading Whatever regularly instead of just reading your tweets here, I agree.
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Out of sheer curiosity, do you find that the daily updates to your blog help you in your other writing endeavors, or is it more of a daily routine task you check off like doing pushups or what have you?