When social networking took off, I insisted that I hated what social networking was but saw a lot of potential. I started discussing what I viewed as the logical evolution of social networking. Almost immediately, the entire industry stagnated.
For the sake of this post, I only want to bring up the most relevant change that I was anticipating. I thought that it was ridiculous that different social networks were isolated from each other. If I wanted to do anything with a friend, family member, business, organization, or group, I had join the same social networks. In many cases, Meta, a company that I can't stand, took the lead.
Imagine if email worked like this. Imagine if you could only email people who are using the same email domain that you are using. It wouldn't be practical. The same could be said for social networking. If we want any real value to come from these websites, we need to be able to communicate between networks.
When I first heard about BlueSky, they appeared to be interested in finally addressing this issue. They even made a similar comparison to email. They appeared to remain well short of what I wanted from a social network, but they at least seemed to be moving in the right direction. I wasn't about to put myself first in line, but I predicted that I would eventually join that social network.
It appears that Bluesky is finally starting to emerge as a serious social network. From what I have seen so far, they might be further from what I wanted than I originally thought. I have heard about people wanting their own Bluesky domain, but I have not heard of existing social networks seeking the connection or anyone wanting to develop new social networks that connect to Bluesky. Instead of connecting different social networks, it appears that Bluesky allows connections between Bluesky networks. That's not what I wanted.
There are other reasons that I am reluctant to join Bluesky. Among them is that there are signs that the network could become a liberal echo chamber. As someone who rejects partisan conformity, I don't want to be a part of an echo chamber.
I have an X account. If I go to the "For you" section, I get a feed full of liberal propagandists who insist their accounts are being throttled. Many of these posts contain images or videos that have supposedly been banned from X. Despite Elon Musk's recent political transformation, X tends to skew towards a liberal perspective.
X used to be worse. A lot of liberals are so used to a one-sided perspective that they insist that X has become nothing but conservative misinformation. Oddly enough, it wasn't Elon Musk that triggered the exodus. It was actually triggered by election results that liberals couldn't handle.
The people who have been leaving X are primarily moving to Bluesky. These are people who have proven that they can't handle life outside of a liberal echo chamber. That's precisely what they are looking for in Bluesky.
I should point out one final reason that I have been reluctant to open a Bluesky account, and this one might be counterintuitive. I have been talking for years about the need to make some big changes in my life. My desire for change is actually holding me back from this particular change.
In short, I don't want to start using a social network if I intend to move away from it. If I pursued the changes I want, there would be big changes to who I am. This would require a transition away from my online presence. I don't want to join Bluesky just to leave and then come back once I better establish who I am going forward.
This could be viewed as an issue with timing. I want to take down the bulk of my online presence. Then, I want to spend time disconnecting from my past life. Once that disconnected phase ends, I would likely establish a new presence for the new me. Adding Bluesky right now does not fit very well with what I want to do.
No comments:
Post a Comment