The social media platform battles
To start, I actually use Faecbook, X, Mastodon, BlueSky, Threads, and Nostr. I avoid most of the photo and video centric platforms because I can get really sucked in. I wanted to summarize my feelings on them and when and how I use them. Furthermore, I am not going to get into the technicals of how they all work, but you will see I prefer the more decentralized platforms in the end. You can learn about them on your own.
I hear so many people quit Facebook and urging others to. For me, Facebook is the place most of my real friends and acquaintances are. Not that online friends aren't real, but there is a substantial difference between the two, including history with each other. My friends from high school, cousins, army buddies, and other people I'm met through life are there. And it's the place most non-techies stay, at least for us older folks. And of all places, these relationships are the most important to me. At the same time, I don't spend a whole lot of time there. I usually do weekly check-ins to make sure everyone is ok, say my happy birthdays, and let everyone know I'm ok. Besides those things, Facebook still creeps me out a bit.
X or "The artist formerly known as Twitter"
I think X annoys me more than any other platform. I get a couple follows every day that tend to be beautiful Asian women with English names that all find me incredibly interesting. Almost no one follows me on X besides the before mentioned babes, but there are a lot of people I am interested in on there that I don't find most other places, unless I want to jump on Instagram also. Most of these people are in the health and fitness arena, some scientists and nature folk, and a couple funny people. So I visit X once or twice in a day to see if there is anything interesting on there. A note on X also, of all the commercial platforms, X is what I would consider the most free. I know it is far from perfect, but if you have an opinion on something, of all the commercial platforms, it is the one least likely to censor you, which is commendable.
BlueSky
BlueSky is one of four networks almost every post I make goes on. I use it mainly because I like the idea around it, though it's really not decentralized at the moment, it has the ability to and may someday get there. But now, almost every user is basically on the same instance. Also, for all the complaints X gets for hate, I find Bluesky to be the most hate filled platform on the list. If you disagree, or question the beliefs of the majority of the BlueSky population, boy will they tear into you. I've seen and heard some really vile things said there.
Threads
Threads being a Meta (Facebook) product makes it a little questionable. But they are working on being a part of the Fediverse, which is nice. Threads also has many of the pop-culture and corporate folks that are still on X or Instagram, allowing me to get away from X a little more. At the time of me writing this, it isn't very exciting there, but now and then I see a new music video from a favorite artist or product update from one of my favorite brands. I may visit there a couple of times a week. This is another place where almost all my posts go to.
Mastodon
I like Mastodon. It's not perfect, but a lot of my more nerdy types hang there and a lot of topics I'm interested in get a lot of conversations happening. I think there is still a little hidden hate on there, and no matter how decentralized it is, it's pretty easy to get cancelled on there, with a lot of people holding strong political opinions. But in general, maybe due to how selective I am in who I follow, it's a pleasant place to be. It also gets almost every thing I feel like posting.
Nostr
To me, in my honest opinion, we have a winner. Of all the platforms, this is the one with almost pure autonomy and freedom. As of now, the Nostr user base is small, and filled with people interested and developing Nostr itself and Bitcoin. Other conversations are beginning to gain traction there, though slowly. I feel in a few more years, Nostr will really blossom. Mind the fact that it is a little like the wild west at this time, people are building apps and clients for not only chat and social experience, but for a slew of other uses also. Everything, built on Nostr, that you use is tied to your identity. There is really no getting canceled on it, which is a beautiful thing, and everything I post goes on Nostr.
How I post...
So, as I said, Facebook and X get less of my attention and not everything I feel like posting. Either because it's just a pain to cross-post sometimes, or it just isn't pertinent to that audience anyway. But for Threads, Mastodon, BlueSky, and Nostr I use an app called OpenVibe which lets me write the post once and then send to all four networks. This makes things pretty painless. If I really feel it needs to go to Facebook or X then I have to do those manually.
Following order of importance
If a person has multiple accounts like myself, I will follow in this order of priority, I like to just keep one of their accounts, no need to follow someone multiple times.
- Nostr
- Mastodon
- Threads
- Bluesky
- X
The future
Someday I hope there is just one open place that respects people's opinions and the freedom to express them (I feel this will be Nostr, or something not mentioned above will come to make that happen) will not be hindered. A place of civil conversation and discourse. Maybe that will take a little human evolution also, we all seem to be lacking in civility these days. I'm sure if other free or open decentralized type services come out, I will give them a try. I feel Facebook will always be the place normies to hang out, at least in my age bracket, and I will not abandon that. I'll do my best to convince them to go elsewhere at times, but realistically, I don't think that will happen. As far as X, I'm indifferent to it. If it eventually goes away someday, I don't think I'll mind. Until then, I will make use of it until it's no longer useful to me.
And now, you have consumed my opinion on all these networks. You must have been bored to read till the end. Whichever network you hang out on, let's just get along and not die on altars set by other people that usually in the end have not much to do with us anyway. We can all have opinions and still be friends, family, and loved by each other. As they say, "opinions are like assholes, we all have one".
Cheers!
