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Let's be real, if your "last straw" moment wasn't several weeks ago it's unlikely this is gonna be it. But if it is, shame on you. All the silencing of journal

Let's be real, if your "last straw" moment wasn't several weeks ago it's unlikely this is gonna be it. But if it is, shame on you. All the silencing of journalists, banning accounts for saying "mastodon", or saying anything negative about Tesla, or criticizing Musk in any way, that didn't do it. But now you have been mildly inconvenienced and it's the last straw. Really?

recuter 4y ago
[flagged]
SilverBirch 4y ago
There's two reasons to leave a service, you can make a political statement - you leave because you disagree with their politics and you don't want to endorse them by associating with them. That's a legitimate reason to leave (although extremely often people declare they're doing this and then don't). But it's also perfectly legitimate to say "I'm leaving because the product got worse". It's sort of orthogonal to the political reason. Some people don't buy from Nestle because of Nestle's terrible track record, but I don't buy from Nestle because they're not selling anything I want. The second reason, generally is the thing that actually kills services. Digg didn't die because it conducted business unethically, it died because they fucked up the product, and that's what's happening here.
- ImaCake 4y ago
  This is an excellent reply. Microblogging lends itself to absolutist statements. I guess sometimes people forget that the black and white thinking on twitter is a function of the medium and not a fact of reality.
sho 4y ago
Ha, fair response. But the truth is I haven't much cared, you're right. Twitter is a private company, they agreed to sell and Musk bought it, if he wants to screw up his asset and his reputation by doing ridiculous things, that's his prerogative. I don't really follow much of that drama, nor do I regard twitter as some kind of indispensable public utility. But yes, now it is personally inconveniencing me, and so I'm looking at alternatives.
wpietri 4y ago
Eh, that seems a bit unnecessary to me. I left Twitter nearly two months ago. Ultimately, I just couldn't stomach supporting Musk by continuing to view ads, contribute content, and give people positive feedback (via likes and retweets) that helped them stay: https://twitter.com/williampietri/status/1593662348568326151 https://twitter.com/williampietri/status/1593662348568326151 But I don't think that people who stayed are necessarily morally defective. There have always been reasons to quit Twitter and reasons to stay. Most people stayed either because they decided Twitter was a net positive for them or because Twitter is a habit-forming drug, or a bit of both. It's not only unsurprising to me that some take longer to quit than others, that's part of what made me leave: to undermine, ever so slightly, the rewards for staying. If this disruption to their usual method of consumption is what pushes them over the line, great. We live in an age where it's impossible to live an ethically pure life, so I'm happy to celebrate steps forward as people take them. Good job, Twitter quitters! Welcome to the club.
abdulhaq 4y ago
The thing about last straws is they're usually just a small bit of straw
- misnome 4y ago
  And, different camels can carry different weights of straw.
kortilla 4y ago
God forbid someone stops using a product because it’s no longer nice to use. No no no, every commercial interaction must be driven by a deep political alignment strategy.
concordDance 4y ago
> All the silencing of journalists, banning accounts for saying "mastodon", or saying anything negative about Tesla, or criticizing Musk in any way, that didn't do it. Not all of this is accurate. Sure, hating on Musk for banning linking to Mastadon is legit, but there isn't a ban on criticising Musk, there are countless accounts with tens of thousands of followers happily ranting about how evil Musk is. Similarly Tesla. Also, if you're talking about the Thursday Massacre aren't they all reinstated?
bratbag 4y ago
How dare people care about the functionality of a service. Only moral judgements are allowed.
rsynnott 4y ago
I mean, I think there are going to be a lot of people who _don't_ care about Saint Car's antics, but do care about Saint Car making the site unusable. And killing third party clients will make it unusable for many people. Personally, my last straw was the journalists, but if I hadn't cared about that or other ridiculous Musk behaviours, _this_ would still drive me away; I haven't really used Twitter by any means besides Tweetbot in about a decade. They're essentially different issues. The journalists, and the Fauci stuff, and the unbanning of various Nazis, are all, essentially, content/moderation issues, whereas this is a usability issue.
dudul 4y ago
What happened to "it's a private company! Just build your own!"?
misnome 4y ago
Yes, if this inconvenience is the case, this is definitely the last straw. Despite yours, and apparently the new owner's perspective, not everyone on twitter talks about or cares much for Tesla and metadrama, it's the people we follow, and how. But half of my timeline, and most of my colleagues have left, the only thing that has kept me on so far is that the Tapbots Mastodon app https://tapbots.com/ivory/ https://tapbots.com/ivory/ isn't ready yet, because I like their UIs. Meanwhile I've collected lists and screenshots of where the people leaving said they were going. I've not had an actual reason to physically move over yet though; forced to use the site would be that. I've been using third-party clients for over a decade, every time I've had to use the site directly it has been a nightmare. With a client app you never saw people you didn't follow anyway, and so as long as it's more effort to leave than stay... you don't have to think about it. Even if it is only specific third-party clients - then even the job of searching for and finding a different client is more effort than I want to put towards this site and its new ownership..
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
Zababa 4y ago
Silencing of journalists, banning accounts for saying mastodon, for saying anything negative about tesla or criticizing Musk in any way is a net positive to my twitter experience. I'm on twitter because some people that I follow and some friends are on twitter, and I want to see what they say. Meta commentary about the platform or the owner is noise to me. I do not feel any shame about it, just like I don't feel any shame because I don't contribute to most software that I use, or that I don't help every single person that is going through a hard time. I've met a lot of wonderful people that do lots of things to help other people, and try generally to improve the world in their own way. They all objectively do more than me, and yet not a single one of them wasted time trying to shame me because I "didn't do enough". If I had to guess, that would be because it's not effective at all, maybe even detrimental to what you're fighting for. It's your ego being in the way, caring more about being right than doing good.

recuter 4y ago

[flagged]

SilverBirch 4y ago

There's two reasons to leave a service, you can make a political statement - you leave because you disagree with their politics and you don't want to endorse them by associating with them. That's a legitimate reason to leave (although extremely often people declare they're doing this and then don't). But it's also perfectly legitimate to say "I'm leaving because the product got worse". It's sort of orthogonal to the political reason. Some people don't buy from Nestle because of Nestle's terrible track record, but I don't buy from Nestle because they're not selling anything I want. The second reason, generally is the thing that actually kills services. Digg didn't die because it conducted business unethically, it died because they fucked up the product, and that's what's happening here.

ImaCake 4y ago
This is an excellent reply. Microblogging lends itself to absolutist statements. I guess sometimes people forget that the black and white thinking on twitter is a function of the medium and not a fact of reality.

sho 4y ago

Ha, fair response. But the truth is I haven't much cared, you're right. Twitter is a private company, they agreed to sell and Musk bought it, if he wants to screw up his asset and his reputation by doing ridiculous things, that's his prerogative. I don't really follow much of that drama, nor do I regard twitter as some kind of indispensable public utility. But yes, now it is personally inconveniencing me, and so I'm looking at alternatives.

wpietri 4y ago

Eh, that seems a bit unnecessary to me. I left Twitter nearly two months ago. Ultimately, I just couldn't stomach supporting Musk by continuing to view ads, contribute content, and give people positive feedback (via likes and retweets) that helped them stay: https://twitter.com/williampietri/status/1593662348568326151 https://twitter.com/williampietri/status/1593662348568326151 But I don't think that people who stayed are necessarily morally defective. There have always been reasons to quit Twitter and reasons to stay. Most people stayed either because they decided Twitter was a net positive for them or because Twitter is a habit-forming drug, or a bit of both. It's not only unsurprising to me that some take longer to quit than others, that's part of what made me leave: to undermine, ever so slightly, the rewards for staying. If this disruption to their usual method of consumption is what pushes them over the line, great. We live in an age where it's impossible to live an ethically pure life, so I'm happy to celebrate steps forward as people take them. Good job, Twitter quitters! Welcome to the club.

abdulhaq 4y ago

The thing about last straws is they're usually just a small bit of straw

misnome 4y ago
And, different camels can carry different weights of straw.

kortilla 4y ago

God forbid someone stops using a product because it’s no longer nice to use. No no no, every commercial interaction must be driven by a deep political alignment strategy.

concordDance 4y ago

> All the silencing of journalists, banning accounts for saying "mastodon", or saying anything negative about Tesla, or criticizing Musk in any way, that didn't do it. Not all of this is accurate. Sure, hating on Musk for banning linking to Mastadon is legit, but there isn't a ban on criticising Musk, there are countless accounts with tens of thousands of followers happily ranting about how evil Musk is. Similarly Tesla. Also, if you're talking about the Thursday Massacre aren't they all reinstated?

bratbag 4y ago

How dare people care about the functionality of a service. Only moral judgements are allowed.

rsynnott 4y ago

I mean, I think there are going to be a lot of people who _don't_ care about Saint Car's antics, but do care about Saint Car making the site unusable. And killing third party clients will make it unusable for many people. Personally, my last straw was the journalists, but if I hadn't cared about that or other ridiculous Musk behaviours, _this_ would still drive me away; I haven't really used Twitter by any means besides Tweetbot in about a decade. They're essentially different issues. The journalists, and the Fauci stuff, and the unbanning of various Nazis, are all, essentially, content/moderation issues, whereas this is a usability issue.

dudul 4y ago

What happened to "it's a private company! Just build your own!"?

misnome 4y ago

Yes, if this inconvenience is the case, this is definitely the last straw. Despite yours, and apparently the new owner's perspective, not everyone on twitter talks about or cares much for Tesla and metadrama, it's the people we follow, and how. But half of my timeline, and most of my colleagues have left, the only thing that has kept me on so far is that the Tapbots Mastodon app https://tapbots.com/ivory/ https://tapbots.com/ivory/ isn't ready yet, because I like their UIs. Meanwhile I've collected lists and screenshots of where the people leaving said they were going. I've not had an actual reason to physically move over yet though; forced to use the site would be that. I've been using third-party clients for over a decade, every time I've had to use the site directly it has been a nightmare. With a client app you never saw people you didn't follow anyway, and so as long as it's more effort to leave than stay... you don't have to think about it. Even if it is only specific third-party clients - then even the job of searching for and finding a different client is more effort than I want to put towards this site and its new ownership..

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

Zababa 4y ago

Silencing of journalists, banning accounts for saying mastodon, for saying anything negative about tesla or criticizing Musk in any way is a net positive to my twitter experience. I'm on twitter because some people that I follow and some friends are on twitter, and I want to see what they say. Meta commentary about the platform or the owner is noise to me. I do not feel any shame about it, just like I don't feel any shame because I don't contribute to most software that I use, or that I don't help every single person that is going through a hard time. I've met a lot of wonderful people that do lots of things to help other people, and try generally to improve the world in their own way. They all objectively do more than me, and yet not a single one of them wasted time trying to shame me because I "didn't do enough". If I had to guess, that would be because it's not effective at all, maybe even detrimental to what you're fighting for. It's your ego being in the way, caring more about being right than doing good.