are we repeating the cycle?
These past days, I was very busy with playing Magic the Gathering and Pokemon TCG. Oops.
But when I wasn't busy with that, I was reading about Bluesky.
It's everywhere right now - Bearblog, the news, other online spaces talking about the great eXodus. It ranged from singing praises to it just being the new thing or "at least it's not X". I have to say, some things about it are really enticing and cool; aside from it being a new shiny thing to try out, I love the idea of the starter packs, the import tools, the custom domains (and those also serving as a kind of verification system), algorithmic feeds, thread and feed preferences, labeling and more.
But what keeps me critical is wondering if we aren't just repeating the cycle?
People have spoken about the fact that it feels like old Twitter. Isn't that... bad? Even though it may feel good to some right now who miss it, we know how Twitter ended up. I'm not just talking about the controversial acquisition and what happened after; even before that, people were unhappy with it. It was just amplified later. I am not sure the custom feeds and other features are enough to prevent what happened with the culture on the platform even without anyone buying it. And how will another acquisition be prevented? I know they say they are designed to not be controlled by a single company, but I fail to see how that is implemented right now, when people rightfully call out that it is neither federated nor decentralized yet. Is there even a plan on how to monetize Bluesky and make it profitable? Are the people on there now making themselves comfortable okay with these plans?
I just remember how it used to be, on any of these social media platforms, really. We all got comfortable with good features, no ads, no restrictions when they were new. But the more users came and the less VC money flowed, the worse it got. Ads, premium, restricted features and settings, features got taken away, others got added solely for the money, content becoming walled off. The monetization of platforms is a direct cause of enshittification. So as long as Bluesky has no model that is working, not enshittifying and that you agree with and find ethical, I would be cautious in rebuilding there.
Looking in from the outside, I am just not sure everyone has fully learned the lesson that there was to learn. You cannot just create a new spot with a different feed and more moderation options and call it a day; there were a lot of other driving factors in why so many platforms went to shit that are now still unaddressed.
There is also one other thing I wonder about but I find hard to put into words. I'll try: It seems like back when Twitter, Instagram and others were new, we were driven there because of wanting to connect with friends and share (personal or journalistic) news and pictures more easily with the people we care about. To broadcast what you're doing, just sending it into the void was a novelty for many. So we arrived there, but over the years the platforms and their culture, their features (like followers, likes and more) trained us to behave a certain way, to expect certain things online and they changed what and how we post (or if we post at all). We adopted the posting conventions and specific tones, many of us stopped being genuine because it was cringe, or we stopped sharing much. The focus was on either quietly consuming, or, if you are a content creator, to vomit your stuff in all directions with anything that could help game the algorithm.
Isn't now a great time to reflect on your behavior on these platforms and how it warped from how it was in the beginning because you changed to fit in or to protect yourself? You're now free from its constraints and training. You may have started using them for one goal, but it has clearly changed for many, maybe including you. So do you want to go back to business as usual? Do you still want to perform the same at a new place? Do you still need that in your life, just because it's "how it always has been"?
Yes, you spent the past few years doing that on a service like this; but consider if you aren't just going through the motions if you sign up for old Twitter and continue the same things new Twitter trained you to do over a decade. And then in 10 years, when this service is shitty, you'll migrate again to one that hasn't monetized yet. And then...
Edit in 2025: Interesting reads about this whole thing here and here.
Published 19 Nov, 2024