2018-09-16
So, I decided to quit Twitter for a while. I don't know if I'll go back or not. When I quit Facebook, it was an easy decision. Leaving Twitter is harder; I admire lots of the people I follow there, and I frequently see good content there. But there are just too many problems that can no longer be overlooked. First, the content is algorithmically shuffled, which drives me absolutely bananas. I want to see all of the posts from all of the people I follow in chronological order. Period. If someone posts too much or too shittily, I'll unfollow / mute / block them. I'm a big boy. I can do it myself. Twitter, you don't need to do it for me. Second, in what I think might be a relatively recent move, Twitter started showing stuff in my timeline that I didn't sign up for. For example, I frequently saw stuff from users that the-people-that-I-follow had liked or even just from people that the-people-that-I-follow follow. Again, Twitter, I can do this myself. You insult my curiosity. You assume that I want to find more content, more people to follow, etc. If and when I do want to do those things, I'll do them myself, thank you very much. Finally, ads. Ads, ads, ads. I hate ads so hard.
So, I'm leaving. But I have some good news. I've been using Mastodon, and it's been a breath of fresh air. It's got its own problems, but it's way better than Twitter. It's a microblogging tool like Twitter, but it doesn't have ads, it doesn't shuffle the content, and it doesn't inject content to which I didn't subscribe! Woohoo!