>>Of course the loss of CoHost is something some of us, myself included, are still reeling from.<<
That's sad. I'm doing what I can to help chosters settle om Dreamwidth, but you're right that each platform is unique and cannot truly be replaced.
>>I've never seen such a literal overnight migration.<<
I have, when Russia bought LiveJournal. Almost everyone left. I had too much material on that site to just leave, but my audience there plummeted. Fortunately a majority of them came to Dreamwidth.
>>On the other hand: I am pulling my hair out screaming as so many people I know and care about, who valued what CoHost offered, are scurrying to BlueSky. The platform is toxic, and has all the issues that Twitter had before the buyout. It's a moderation hellscape, where literal Nazis are allowed to run roughshod over the timeline and users are just told to ignore them.<<
My sympathies.
That's typical of society today, which is raddled with problems that people are told to ignore. Or they ignore things because paying attention hurts too much and they have no way of fixing anything.
>>The platform has a literal slider for how much racism and hate you want to see!! Why not ban those accounts?? Why let them thrive??<<
Probably money. Outrage sells, and most people care more about money than mental health, safety, or society.
>>I can't bring myself to use the platform. It makes me sad to see so many rush to it and praise it as a wonderful solution, for the reasons I describe above. But what hurts more is that by not participating, I functionally cease to exist to so many people.<<
Yeah, I know that feel. Most of the facetime events where I used to find like-minded people are no longer useful for that purpose because of how much the culture has changed. Online, user agreements have gotten so pervasively abusive that I've largely given up even looking at new venues. And I'm so tired of other people's bullshit that in a lot of ways, I'm pretty much boycotting society. There's just no payoff to most interactions anymore. Most of my friends are online because at least there, I can cast a wider net than just who happens to share proximate geography. It's not perfect, but it's a lot better than facetime only. I was 16 before I had actual friends my age, rather than just a few friendly acquaintances. The overlap is that small for me.
>> I only ever existed to them when they saw my idiot posts float across their timeline. Now that I'm not on the platform of choice, it's as if I've evaporated into the aether. Even if I have alternative methods of communication established, I'm basically meaningless and left behind.<<
You still have meaning and purpose, within your own life, even if you have fewer opportunities to interact with other people. But for extroverts and other people who see themselves primarily as reflected by others, those aspects may have little or no satisfaction.
As more of society shifts online, and as platforms becomes less stable over time, the problems caused by platform collapse breaking up friendgroups will get a lot more serious. People don't do well with having homes and relationships ripped away, and after a few rounds of that, they tend to quit trying to form new ones because the energy investment just doesn't pay off anymore. And nobody is really accounting for this in the process of chasing quick cash.
Conversely, I'm an introvert and social teflon, so other people are much less motivating or fulfilling to me in most ways. *ponder* I am literally more flattered by wildlife finding my yard pleasing, especially something far-out like bald eagles doing a courting dance above it this spring.
>> A reminder that all I have is me, and I'll never have anyone else.<<
It's good to like yourself, develop skills, and have confidence in who you are.
No one is an island, though -- neither humans nor civilization are really designed for anyone to stand alone. This frustrates me. The most you can do is try to form some connections and hope they don't all break at the same time. But if the overlap between you and other people is small, as it is for me, this can prove difficult or impossible. There just aren't that many compatible people who could become mutual friends for me.
On the bright side, I've found a lot of like-minded people among the Cohost refugees, so that's a win for me personally. But it makes me vicariously sad that the platform is going away, and that I only heard about it after it was closing.
One takeaway from this is that some Cohost refugees are blogging about what they loved most about the platform, what sucked; what they want to carry with them to other platforms; and what they would like to see in future iterations of social media to improve on previous efforts. Those are all good outcomes of Cohost, even if it wasn't perfect and is going away now. We learn from experience.
I support the Fujoshi Guide which empowers people to learn code so they can build their own platforms. I can't code, but if I help other people learn how, then maybe they'll build platforms I'll like. Some Cohost refugees are talking about how they want to learn code, or even are already studying it, in hopes of building better platforms in the future. So maybe something good will come out of that too.
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branchandroot
Thoughts
Date: 2024-10-21 09:48 pm (UTC)That's sad. I'm doing what I can to help chosters settle om Dreamwidth, but you're right that each platform is unique and cannot truly be replaced.
>>I've never seen such a literal overnight migration.<<
I have, when Russia bought LiveJournal. Almost everyone left. I had too much material on that site to just leave, but my audience there plummeted. Fortunately a majority of them came to Dreamwidth.
>>On the other hand: I am pulling my hair out screaming as so many people I know and care about, who valued what CoHost offered, are scurrying to BlueSky. The platform is toxic, and has all the issues that Twitter had before the buyout. It's a moderation hellscape, where literal Nazis are allowed to run roughshod over the timeline and users are just told to ignore them.<<
My sympathies.
That's typical of society today, which is raddled with problems that people are told to ignore. Or they ignore things because paying attention hurts too much and they have no way of fixing anything.
>>The platform has a literal slider for how much racism and hate you want to see!! Why not ban those accounts?? Why let them thrive??<<
Probably money. Outrage sells, and most people care more about money than mental health, safety, or society.
>>I can't bring myself to use the platform. It makes me sad to see so many rush to it and praise it as a wonderful solution, for the reasons I describe above. But what hurts more is that by not participating, I functionally cease to exist to so many people.<<
Yeah, I know that feel. Most of the facetime events where I used to find like-minded people are no longer useful for that purpose because of how much the culture has changed. Online, user agreements have gotten so pervasively abusive that I've largely given up even looking at new venues. And I'm so tired of other people's bullshit that in a lot of ways, I'm pretty much boycotting society. There's just no payoff to most interactions anymore. Most of my friends are online because at least there, I can cast a wider net than just who happens to share proximate geography. It's not perfect, but it's a lot better than facetime only. I was 16 before I had actual friends my age, rather than just a few friendly acquaintances. The overlap is that small for me.
>> I only ever existed to them when they saw my idiot posts float across their timeline. Now that I'm not on the platform of choice, it's as if I've evaporated into the aether. Even if I have alternative methods of communication established, I'm basically meaningless and left behind.<<
You still have meaning and purpose, within your own life, even if you have fewer opportunities to interact with other people. But for extroverts and other people who see themselves primarily as reflected by others, those aspects may have little or no satisfaction.
As more of society shifts online, and as platforms becomes less stable over time, the problems caused by platform collapse breaking up friendgroups will get a lot more serious. People don't do well with having homes and relationships ripped away, and after a few rounds of that, they tend to quit trying to form new ones because the energy investment just doesn't pay off anymore. And nobody is really accounting for this in the process of chasing quick cash.
Conversely, I'm an introvert and social teflon, so other people are much less motivating or fulfilling to me in most ways. *ponder* I am literally more flattered by wildlife finding my yard pleasing, especially something far-out like bald eagles doing a courting dance above it this spring.
>> A reminder that all I have is me, and I'll never have anyone else.<<
It's good to like yourself, develop skills, and have confidence in who you are.
No one is an island, though -- neither humans nor civilization are really designed for anyone to stand alone. This frustrates me. The most you can do is try to form some connections and hope they don't all break at the same time. But if the overlap between you and other people is small, as it is for me, this can prove difficult or impossible. There just aren't that many compatible people who could become mutual friends for me.
On the bright side, I've found a lot of like-minded people among the Cohost refugees, so that's a win for me personally. But it makes me vicariously sad that the platform is going away, and that I only heard about it after it was closing.
One takeaway from this is that some Cohost refugees are blogging about what they loved most about the platform, what sucked; what they want to carry with them to other platforms; and what they would like to see in future iterations of social media to improve on previous efforts. Those are all good outcomes of Cohost, even if it wasn't perfect and is going away now. We learn from experience.
I support the Fujoshi Guide which empowers people to learn code so they can build their own platforms. I can't code, but if I help other people learn how, then maybe they'll build platforms I'll like. Some Cohost refugees are talking about how they want to learn code, or even are already studying it, in hopes of building better platforms in the future. So maybe something good will come out of that too.