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Heresy: Why do we need a replacement for Twitter? There was a world and a life before Twitter, and there is one without Twitter as well. I deleted my Twitter

Heresy: Why do we need a replacement for Twitter? There was a world and a life before Twitter, and there is one without Twitter as well. I deleted my Twitter account about a year ago and have not missed anything. People and topics I am interested in I can updated on by many different means.

cmrdporcupine 4y ago
I don't think Mastodon is meant to be a replacement for Twitter, or will ever be that. It would be a mistake to treat it that way. It's more like this place than Twitter, in a way. Or, it's kind of similar to how Usenet was in the early 90s. It's a simple linear feed of who've subscribed to, or what the people you've subscribed to have "boosted". So you find the interest groups you're into and join a node that matches that, then find the people you like on various nodes, and follow them. There's no recommendations really. There's hashtags, but few ways to "discover" them and they don't seem to get heavily used right now. It's maybe like Twitter when it first launched. Certainly not what it became (which I never personally participated in). It certainly doesn't have the level of "action" or "engagement" you'd find on Twitter. And that's probably a good thing.
howinteresting 4y ago
Networking.
cgh 4y ago
I follow various scientists, authors and so forth and I like to read their thoughts or see their recommended reading. And as silly as it sounds, it's wild to see eg William Gibson and Gerry Conway, two guys responsible for some of my formative adolescent reading, interact with one another at random.
- hedora 4y ago
  For academics, why not read peer reviewed work? For authors, other communities exist as well.
  - bigfudge 4y ago
    Peer reviewed work has a much higher bar for people to say stuff. If you want to know what academics think, as opposed to what they are motivated to write and get past a reviewer, you need something like twitter. Plus, some academics are interesting people and say stuff of interest away from the specialism.
rchaud 4y ago
> Heresy: Why do we need a replacement for Twitter? There was a world and a life before Twitter, and there is one without Twitter as well. Yes, and it was much harder to shill newsletters, courses, conspiracies and cryptocoins back then on the back of minor internet blogger fame. There is significant money to be made in all of the above, which is why a replacement for Twitter (holding people in a dopamine cage) is inevitable, whether we need it or not.

cmrdporcupine 4y ago

I don't think Mastodon is meant to be a replacement for Twitter, or will ever be that. It would be a mistake to treat it that way. It's more like this place than Twitter, in a way. Or, it's kind of similar to how Usenet was in the early 90s. It's a simple linear feed of who've subscribed to, or what the people you've subscribed to have "boosted". So you find the interest groups you're into and join a node that matches that, then find the people you like on various nodes, and follow them. There's no recommendations really. There's hashtags, but few ways to "discover" them and they don't seem to get heavily used right now. It's maybe like Twitter when it first launched. Certainly not what it became (which I never personally participated in). It certainly doesn't have the level of "action" or "engagement" you'd find on Twitter. And that's probably a good thing.

howinteresting 4y ago

Networking.

cgh 4y ago

I follow various scientists, authors and so forth and I like to read their thoughts or see their recommended reading. And as silly as it sounds, it's wild to see eg William Gibson and Gerry Conway, two guys responsible for some of my formative adolescent reading, interact with one another at random.

hedora 4y ago
For academics, why not read peer reviewed work? For authors, other communities exist as well.
- bigfudge 4y ago
  Peer reviewed work has a much higher bar for people to say stuff. If you want to know what academics think, as opposed to what they are motivated to write and get past a reviewer, you need something like twitter. Plus, some academics are interesting people and say stuff of interest away from the specialism.

rchaud 4y ago

> Heresy: Why do we need a replacement for Twitter? There was a world and a life before Twitter, and there is one without Twitter as well. Yes, and it was much harder to shill newsletters, courses, conspiracies and cryptocoins back then on the back of minor internet blogger fame. There is significant money to be made in all of the above, which is why a replacement for Twitter (holding people in a dopamine cage) is inevitable, whether we need it or not.