An AI generated pictured of a surf / tiki bar that does not exist

I posted this on Discord to some friends about 2-3 weeks ago, and it keeps getting more accurate by the day.

Social Media has collapsed for me; it's a good thing. However, I still have small niches that I like to visit based on the subject matter. Until a few weeks ago, I had always felt like Twitter was the end all be all of Live sports. I can't count the number of football, auto races, and soccer games I have sat on the couch and watched the opinions of people I follow on Twitter go by as I watch the game or race. Then I found the MLB+ feed on BlueSky. I watched the All-Star game last week, and I have to admit it was pretty fun. The people on there all seemed reasonable, and I wasn't skipping every 3rd message because it was either an official ad or someone trying to sell something using popular hashtags on their own, as is common on Twitter. It felt like I was at a bar watching the game. A large bar, but a bar all the same once people started interacting with each other. Also, I have become addicted to the Moss and Gardening feeds on BlueSky, which are pretty cool. With BlueSky, you really have to find your niche.

Mastodon still feels very, very geeky, and I love it for that. I like that there is a hurdle to get into and set up on the site. That is a slight ( ever so subtle ) test to ensure you understand what you are doing as a gateway. This could also be advantageous for keeping out the bots ( better than $5/month ) and make Mastodon my favorite new social network in the long run. ( Are we calling this social 3.0 yet? Did that already get taken by blockchain peeps? 4.0? ). One of the things about Mastodon is that you rarely hear inside its ecosystem if someone you know has popped up. I posted about Larry 'Major Nelson' Hyrb leaving Microsoft this morning, and I went to see if he might have a Masto handle, and sure enough, he does, and also a BlueSky. I wish I had known that earlier, but most people advertise via Twitter, which I am trying not to log on to for any reason these days.

I hate Facebook Proper, and I only have an account with them because I needed one to get going on Oculus. I do have an Instagram ( it is weird that people don't say 'account' after Instagram. It is it's own thing - almost Kleenex-ian ), but I rarely post or read on it, and it is usually to keep up with my kids on the app. Threads is right out, and if and when they join with ActivityPub, I will immediately block it on the Mastodon server I run.

Then there is the elephant in the room ( at least for me ), Discord. It isn't threaded ( per se ), it isn't public, there are mods, it is the old-school IRC experience updated, but with one caveat… they are, in fact, keeping up with every conversation you have, and don't think those bots you invited also are not keeping up with everything too. I feel like Discord is in a weird place right now. While I love and cherish the service it provides, I am always hesitant because I know at the flip of a switch, someone could buy them and then use all those records for whatever they want in a Bluebird-like future.

The end game should be getting back to this form of writing ( blogs ) and RSS and coming up with good ways to securely thread and have invited group conversations that the host needs no record of the conversation's contents. It could be an excellent idea to toy around with. This is quite funny, considering the last tech wave was people that wanted to record EVERYTHING on a blockchain, and now the pendulum flies to the other side of the clock.