Putting this here because it's really about social media, Elon Musk, not so much computing.
I've never liked Twitter, opened an account over 10 years ago and closed it soon afterwards. In this last year I signed up again to follow a handful of very good posters on science/medicine, economics and politics. All passive, almost never posting.
I find Twitter quite nasty. Like FB, you get your own 'bubble' which tends to reinforce what you 'like' (I almost never 'like' for that reason) and/or view. But even high quality posters get quite aggressive replies, hence I rarely read replies.
And then - 2 weeks ago Musk completed his purchase of Twitter for $44bn. All hell has broken loose. About half the staff seem to have been sacked, some without being informed first - they just found their logins had been deleted. Latest is that he has fired the security people and security has gone over to developers, at least the ones who haven't been fired.
Users report that moderation is much reduced, and bot activity has increased. Some have been looking for an alternative - obviously there isn't one when your network is on Twitter, but there is a feeling that Twitter will continue to decline.
A small proportion of users have now opened Mastodon accounts. Mastodon is part of the fediverse, a 'hive' of thousands of servers. It's quite a nerdy thing, or was. I like Mastodon, it's more polite than Twitter, has no adverts, and doesn't employ algorithms to keep its users clicking. You can choose the accounts you want to follow, and that's what you see.
Trouble is, until a couple of weeks ago Mastodon probably had a million users. Now it has over 10 million, and its creaking. Some Mastodon servers have thrown in the towel - even if they don't accept new accounts on their server, the massive increase in load on the 'fediverse' has caused them problems.
Twitter has 300 million users, allegedly. Exactly how many real accounts it has has been a subject of debate between Musk and Dorsey. But it's pretty clear that Mastodon can't take a material proportion of Twitter users.
Now there is concern that Twitter will actually collapse.
www.technologyreview.com/2022/11/08/1062886/heres-how-a-twitter-engineer-says-it-will-break-in-the-coming-weeks/
apnews.com/article/elon-musk-twitter-inc-technology-business-0d3d4618a3f4631dfd253ae8798c5196
The interesting thing to me here is whether a new type of social media can develop. Perhaps it's necessary for the established biggies to collapse Much of what is bad, really bad, about SM is because the users are the product, being sold to the real customers, who are the advertisers. This is the reason for algorithms that create 'rabbit holes' to keep users 'engaged' (addicted).
At the moment Mastodon is supported by donations. Maybe that will become subscription. Either way, it has to be better than being the product. I just hope it can survive long enough.
Something very few thought of - the archive.
www.technologyreview.com/2022/11/11/1063162/twitters-imminent-collapse-could-wipe-out-vast-records-of-recent-human-history/
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Twitter and Elon new
Twitter and Elon new