I wrote this almost a year ago, about how waiting for the tech-bro overlords to deliver us a better app isn’t the answer.
Why have we become compliant little pawns in all this?
Are we so powerless to change the current situation that we sit back and hope somebody else fixes everything?
And then what? That person will sell the company to a Nabisco+Tide hedge fund subsidiary, and we’ll be back where we started.
Maybe centralized kingdoms of power and influence aren’t the answer.
I speak of this in regards of course to the creative community (artists, writers, photographers, bands) expecting something to be like early social media, so pure and good (read: let people click my links).
But everything requires jumping from platform to platform. Telling all your friends to sign up for this new thing, which is better than the other things, until the new thing turns out to be a dud, until another new thing comes along.
It’s Mastodon. No wait, Post. No, it’s Bluesky!
Going to a new restaurant in town doesn’t require that you sign up for a new account, you just go there and pay with your money.
This is how I equate email newsletters and websites.
Every smart phone ships with an email app and a web browser.
Yeah, but Seth, email is crazy, and nobody goes to websites anymore.
Okay, fine, admit defeat and bow to the rich tech megacorps – they’re surely the answer.
Or, we just go back to local scenes. Zines in the mail. Websites that we discover because our friend sends us a link, or we know the two people who run it.
Bring back directories, blogrolls, and webrings.
The allure of “everyone is on it” was a lie, made up of bots and people who didn’t care, but the platforms inflated everything to make you think they were on your side.
Buy a domain name. Set up an email list. Update your website.
It’s nearing 2025, and we’re tired of the platform game.