I admit I’m guilty. I had a Facebook account once. But i deleted that one years ago. I had an Instagram account once. also deleted that one years ago. I had a Twitter account once, deleted it once the crazy, spoiled idiot took over. I had a Reddit account once, deleted it when they went full-moron
The Shit shows
I joined it after some “social pressure” after resisting for a while. It was kinda fun in the beginning, but commercialization made it worse and worse rather fast. At some point i stopped attending and didn’t even silently check on it anymore. A bit after that i deleted the account. Nothing of value was lost.
Joined out of curiosity and because I’m into photography and wanted to share some pictures. Also was a bit of fun in the beginning, but at some point i noticed that i started to think idiotic thoughts like “if i post this, it could get some likes”. Which disgusted me. I’m not some influencer marketing slave zombie. A while after that i deleted my account and nothing of value was lost here as well.
Had my first account on there rather in the beginning. It was fun. Lots of weird people from all over the world. Was nice to just blast out some random thoughts and sometimes getting a response on it from somebody. But i somehow got bored with it after a while and deleted the account. A few years ago i created an account there again. I think i wanted to follow some specific people and also stay up to date and “in the game” with what this IT business madness is. Actually connected with a small handful of local people there, which lead to attending a few very relaxed meetups with fellow nerdy people. Also gave some talks there. Rest in peace “Infrastructure as a Meetup”-meetup, you were a good one (more on that maybe in another post). Overall it was sometimes fun, but not as much as in ye olde days. Already thought a while about getting rid of the account and thanks to The Idiot taking over, the decision was very easy in the end.
Created my account there quite some while ago. When the “old” layout was still the only one. It was really fun for a long while. Having all those niche communities in one place made it very easy to discover new things. But in the end the turbo capitalists once more took over and shat into everyone’s soup. When they decided to basically block alternatives clients the fun was gone for me. I let the account alive for a little longer, but once they announced to feed all the Reddit content into some Artificial Imbecile i deleted it instantly. A little bit of value was lost for me, but nothing serious.
Back to the basics
All of this threw me back into the corners of the internet where i actually feel comfy. Mastodon is a so much nicer place to be than Twitter every was. Lemmy, while still rather small and missing some of the communities i liked on Reddit, is also so much better. Being on a platform that has not been created with the main goal of earning money with it really makes a gigantic difference. The instances are all just run by some random people for the fun of it. They sometimes ask for a little donation to keep the lights on, but that is obviously more than OK. I’m thankful that somebody is running the instances I’m on. Keeping stuff updated and online can be challenging, so it is really OK to ask to at least share the bill. It is very nice to be back in the weirder internet. Where people exchange knowledge because they’re interested in a topic. Where people actively mix computer stuff with occultism. Where i don’t have the feeling every second person is trying to sell me something.
So i guess i have to say “Thank you!” to all the nasty, idiotic, greedy tech bros for ruining the commercial social media platforms. This drove me back into the waters where i belong. Also probably a “Thank you!” for actively fucking up the rest of the internet. It keeps doing things like we did 20 years ago interesting and actually makes it necessary.
I really like the basic idea of the internet, but we must drive out the money.