“Beware that, when fighting monsters, you yourself do not become a monster... for when you gaze long into the abyss. The abyss gazes also into you.” ― Friedrich W. Nietzsche
Elon's proclamation that he is fighting "them" (deep state/democrats/...) has turned around and he is the same now. He is the USAID-ish funding for his cause. The cause could be different but the tools are the same, albeit in different names.
The closest to what Twitter used to be is Bsky. The model isn't perfect and some of its features are still not quite there, but it has replaced my Twitter usage entirely. And they've managed the large user surge pretty well. I've seen some developers I follow who cross post getting more engagement on Bsky than X despite a lower follower count there.
Most of the people you mentioned wouldn't risk their money for something like moral values so they haven't left X. A large number of interesting, less self motivated people have migrated already.
I mentioned some global accounts that are very generic, but I do follow some folks from my country (India) who share valuable content for my field of work.
Such content doesn't seem possible on other platforms. FB is dead here. Insta is only images/videos. Threads is a no-no. I don't know any alternatives as of yet where my network is active.
> Which platform provides the same network effect?
None, obviously - every network is unique. However, that doesn't contradict the premise. If one accepts that continuing to use twitter makes one "part of the problem", a desire to read PG's tweets doesn't seem like a meaningful justification. In my view, the only justification is "I don't care how twitter operates" or "I think twitter's new mission is good".
I mean, I suppose it really depends on what you want out of a social network. Some combo of mastodon and bluesky is fine for me, but then I didn't follow any of those people in the first place.
If you want celeb VCs, then, yeah, you're probably stuck with Twitter. Most people don't, though.
Makes sense. What other platforms do you know where we can get access to the network of entrepreneurs, thought-leaders, governments, and authors? I am considering text-based social apps only.
I've never been quite sure what people mean when they say this.
> governments
An increasing number of governments, government agencies and politicians have presence on Bluesky or Mastodon or both. The EC has its _own mastodon instance_ (though, confusingly, some EC agencies are on other instances, or are just on bluesky).
BTW if I may clarify, by thought leader, I mean people who are leaders or popular figures in a particular industry, whose voices matter and shapes up that domain.
Think of Sam Altman for AI, Marc Andreessen for VC, Andrew Huberman for Mental Health, and figures like Jordan Peterson, Elon Musk, Naval Ravikant, etc.
Unless they interop. And there is no reason why they shouldn't.
(other than grumpy old neckbeards bickering over their Prefered Thing and blocking any progress towards cooperation or interoperability. Which is actually a thing in "The Fediverse" even right now. Yes, really. A few loud voices manage to bully down projects that build bridges between both.)
"Free speech" on a centralized platform always seems fishy. One can't expect it from Elon at least. He always has extreme/polar thoughts on various subjects.
It's rather pushing me away from kindle books because of they will be restricted. I am more likely to get ebooks from other sources and read them in my kindle.
They wish to increase sale of Kindles, but will end up decreasing sale of Kindle ebooks.
Same. The blog says, "Download & Transfer via USB" option will no longer be available, but "You can continue to sideload e-books on your Kindle via USB cable".
What is the difference? How is sideloading different from normal USB Transfer?
You can transfer books you make or download elsewhere to the reader over USB but Amazon is no longer going to let you download the files from them. Amazon books will only transfer directly to your reader over Wi-Fi.
https://gamelab.mit.edu/games/a-slower-speed-of-light/