trenchant.org

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I’ve felt this way for a while, but this year it seems more obvious: just use the web.

Just use the web.

This was mostly ideological but increasingly is just pragmatic.

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The assumption in the past was there was a tradeoff between putting things on your own web site and using centralized social media: you could choose to give up independence, monetization, and autonomy for convenience and reach. See: the internet we deserve

I thought this was a bad deal. But people could make decisions about that tradeoff: for the vast majority of people, convenience and reach far outweigh the costs – so much so that without the convenience, feedback and engagement from a centralized platform most people would not bother. And they didn’t before those.

But also I’m sort of an antisocial weirdo? I don’t expect people to act like me or think it’s rational.

What’s changed in the decade since I wrote that piece is that there’s now a pragmatic imperative to use your own, self-hosted, decentralized tools: Twitter simply doesn’t work, and too many people couldn’t imagine that world. But it’s the one we live in and I’m not sure any of the big platforms will last – Reddit seems next.

Pragmatically: the tradeoff isn’t working – Twitter doesn’t work, public URLs stopped working, the user base has departed. It’s never going to be the same.

It’s sad to visit.

Maybe it was less a rational tradeoff and just a Faustian bargain all along. Seems unlikely jumping to the next centralized thing will change that.

Our core identity and online life isn’t owned by anyone else. The bits in a corporate database aren’t your friends.

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What About The Fediverse? Email? GOPHER? RSS?

Sure, fine, ok, it’s not about the protocol. Use the fediverse if you want. Whatever.

Just own your own stuff. Find a way to care enough to care for your creative output.

Invest the time to create space for your output that is your own.

At some point I may even send something to list.trenchant.orgtrenchant.org list) or try to earnestly use the fediverse: @adam@decommodify.com.