30 July 2023 | Why You Still Here?

Mastodon has shown that it’s not a Twitter killer.

Post has shown that it’s not a Twitter killer.

And Threads? That came out of the gate with so many missing features for its app that even describing it as a “rival” as this stage is being too generous. And it certainly is no Twitter killer, either. So, why is anyone still using Twitter at this point?

Oh, of course I know why: inertia.

The only thing that keeps that self-immolating platform going is pure inertia and nothing else. Journalists and politicians have convinced themselves that everybody has a Twitter account and that it’s the only way to communicate in real time, so of course they are not moving away from it. (They also keep thinking it’s the biggest social media network in the world: it is not.) It’s a bubble they insist everyone else resides in as well. And those Twitter users with large followings are, well, basically, otherwise obscure people with large social media followings: why on Earth would they want to give that up? So they’ve all convinced themselves that they are providing a much needed service and that somehow, they have built the platform by doing so and are owed...something.

Here’s the kicker: Twitter (I will not be calling it anything else) is a micro-blogging platform that is (still) free to use. Using it does not make you a “content creator” who is crucial to its success. You are a person telling us your shower-time thoughts. Some of you amass followers in the thousands, tens of thousands and even more: good for you. So what? Despite the overuse of the word “influencer”, people with well-known accounts have no power, no money and no influence really on anything. What public policy has changed because of a Twitter poll or a retweet “if you agree”? It’s understandable why government agencies might find it useful and sure, even news outlets, not to mention misinformation actors. But treating it as the only recourse for information and therefore, it’s imperative to give legitimacy to a platform that has been deteriorating in front of everybody? Puh-leeze. It’s doing the task of de-legitimizing *itself.* If you are remaining there because you think your presence is some act of social protest or defiance, well, no, it really is not: you’re there because you just don’t want to give it up.

Like I said: inertia.

And now with its rebranding, well, what precisely are you promoting here? You are doing nothing more but the free marketing work for a thin-skinned (and deeply unserious) owner who will manage to get everyone to start saying "I posted to X" or some variant like that. This makes you a useful idiot. The owner is not a genius in that regard, just savvy enough to know that you’ll keep coming back because you don’t wanna go home.

The platform is garbage, and its alleged rivals have proven to be severely wanting. Guess you better just go back to doom scrolling, otherwise what else is there do to as the world burns?