I'm leaving Twitter

Kind of a rant against greedy technocrats, but also where you can find me instead, and a few Bluesky codes in case you want to follow me there.

Just look how proud our golden boy seems. — Generated with SDXL via Lovelaice.

Twitter is dead. There is no point in denying it. Whether you love or hate —or just meh— the new thing Elon has built from the ashes of the former thing, you gotta admit it is no longer Twitter.

It saddens me because I really enjoyed the old Twitter. It wasn’t without problems, but at least it was a place where you could, at the same time, see what the cool people were up to and find a small community of like-minded folks who cared about your stuff. And, from time to time, you would find a really, really good thread that would make you think twice.

But the best part was the friends I made, people I’ve never seen in real life but somehow feel I can count on. Fortunately, most of them came over to Substack and joined

The Tech Writers Stack

.

And here’s the thing, folks, this can happen anytime, on any platform. The Internet was supposed to be this collective space where we all could find a place to call home. And for a while, it was. But centralized social media is the antithesis of that original dream. In these platforms, you don’t own your connections or your content. You can be cast away or, worse, shadowbanned at any point.

And no, this is not me trying to sell you on the promise of decentralized web protocols or any of that. I’m so over web3 also. I have nothing to sell you —at least, not in this post.

This is just me saying a bittersweet goodbye to an era that, like all good things, came to an end. And this is also me saying fuck you, Elon Musk, and all your egocentric, megalomaniac rich technocrat friends. You’re all full of shit, and I wish you all the worst kinds of erectile dysfunction.

There it is. No, it doesn’t feel any better.

So, no point in crying over spilled milk. Twitter is gone. It’s time to pick up the pieces and build something better somewhere else.

For me, that place is primarily Substack, at least for now. This place is proving to be a nice refuge for reasonable people who still have a soul. I’ve got a bunch of my old Twitter friends here (you know who you are) and a few new ones.

I’m also over at Bluesky, which still looks like it might become something better, or not. At least is a cool experiment. If anyone wants to join, here’s my last batch of invitations. Try them and use the first one that works, or email me, and I’ll send you a new one if I can.

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bsky-social-twvut-5yt4o

bsky-social-63zlo-ug2gv

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I’m also on Telegram, running a channel where I cross-post everything I write here, and sometimes we have some cool discussions.

And that’s it. Feel free to email me or comment if you want to connect anywhere else.

Oh, and before I leave, because Substack won’t leave alone if I don’t say this, please remember to subscribe and share this blog with your loved ones. It’s the best way to support my writing.

Time to go back to writing.