
How to Gradually Exit Twitter - saadalem
https://balajis.com/how-to-gradually-exit-twitter/
======
jasonpbecker
Kind of silly to insist on a newsletter versus a blog and direct folks to a
$30 a month service. You can get a free blog on Tumblr or Wordpress.org. You
can get one for $5 at somewhere like Micro.blog. There's plenty of ways to
setup a personal blog that works well for both long posts and short posts. All
of those have mechanisms to crosspost to social media or turn into a
newsletter, if you want. But the focus on that solution is silly-- the open
web is here, it's great, and blogs are a solid technology. RSS works well and
makes it easy to syndicate all over.

I am personally quite happy using Micro.blog for my blog
[micro.json.blog]([https://micro.json.blog](https://micro.json.blog)). It's
hosted Hugo (which is what I used for my blog before) setup with a micropub
service already and hooked into most of the tech and standards coming through
the Indieweb movement.

Blogs are the answer to twitter. Newsletters are just a potential answer to
monetization for a limited set of folks.

~~~
closeparen
If your audience is hardcore HN readers, this is true. Most normal people have
an email address but not an RSS reader. And without that a blog is a
completely different thing, requiring you to actively check it.

Newsletters can also make things not-completely-public without a user account
system.

~~~
jasonpbecker
That's true that most people don't have an RSS reader. It's also true that:

1\. Most people don't want your newsletter in their inbox. 2\. Most people
still find content on social media. 3\. RSS _as a technology_ can be used to
syndicate to both newsletters and social media.

That's why I think POSSE[^1] is the right, powerful concept.

On "not-completely-public" content-- I don't think that this post, and most of
the "leave Twitter/Facebook" posts are directed at the small number of private
accounts-- private accounts don't have the same discovery problem. The
exception is if you're talking about "not-completely-public" for the purposes
of monetization. To that I say: 1. Twitter doesn't solve that; 2. That's a
completely different problem; 3. A blog, syndicated to social media, is still
probably the best tool to enable new people to discover your content.

Any number of mechanisms, whether Patreon, Locals, Substack, Mailchimp,
Memberful, Github Donations, and on and on may make sense for monetization.
Wordpress and Tumblr also have built in mechanisms for monetization. But
people aren't using Twitter for gated content that folks pay for-- that's just
moving the goal posts.

[^1]: [https://indieweb.org/POSSE](https://indieweb.org/POSSE)

------
acidburnNSA
The addictive value of twitter is that you can ping some quasi-famous person
in your field and they will often engage in conversation. It's pretty magical.
That's not gonna happen on my paid mailing list.

~~~
znpy
Actually, if a quasi-famous person happens to be in a mailing list (I'm
talking abou mailing lists, not newsletters) then it might answer your emails
and participate in a conversation.

~~~
acidburnNSA
The mailing lists I'm on almost always get relegated to a filtered folder
where loads of things irrelevant to me come by (e.g. user support). Maybe I'm
just on the wrong mailing lists, but the ability to subscribe, ignore, and
boost threads is pretty valuable.

~~~
znpy
so... 1. mailing lists are noisy and 2. you don't check them very often.

regarding 1. isn't twitter noisy too?

regarding 2. can you really blame this on the mailing lists?

------
Funes-
To my mind, trying this hard to circumvent a platform's huge and seemingly
irremovable flaws instead of ditching it for good is a very unreasonable
option. I'd say quit Twitter _abruptly_ , not gradually--here's how:

\- Do you want to follow the news? Try selecting reliable news outlets or
aggregators (like HN) guided by your own criteria, so you can check their
websites on a regular basis and stay up to date, if you're interested in that
--I'd personally recommend sticking to local news.

\- Do you want to follow specific people that publish content you find
interesting on the Internet? Follow their personal websites or repositories.

\- Do you want to publish content on the Internet yourself? Host a personal
website. If you don't want to pay, consider using a decentralized option
(Beaker Browser, .onion site, I2P, ZeroNet, etcetera).

That's it. Goodbye social media. RSS, bookmarks, and our good old memory are
our best allies.

~~~
acidburnNSA
What if I want to ping the most famous researcher in my field and get a quick
response? And then get recruited by an observer for asking such an insightful
question?

This actually happens on twitter.

~~~
motohagiography
Arguably this is analogous to asking how will you hit a payout on a slot
machine if you don't play. It sort of makes sense if as someone who plays slot
machines literally has no more productive use for their capital than the
sensation of losing it and the hope from occasionally "winning," just as
someone on twitter has no more productive use of their surplus time. Sure,
it's fun, and you can take it to the bathroom with you so you don't need to
wear a diaper like you might need to at a casino, but it's an impoverishing
and inferior vice.

Twitter and social media platforms that we compare to slot machines should be
defined as a new form or class called Strange Games, wherein the only winning
move is not to play.

~~~
acidburnNSA
I disagree only because I've had real contacts with personal giants on twitter
dozens of times and never won anything at a casino. While I do spend more time
on twitter, I believe this effect is more common than your analogy allows.

People into fringe academic topics are likely to see this effect more than
people @ing along and kanye.

------
gherkinnn
Twitter really is just poison.

I visit it once a week and exclusively follow programming related accounts.
Even then I feel misanthropy and disgust seep in to my head.

Something inherent to Twitter makes it such a horrible place. Is it the
character limit? Me always seeing what everyone reposts/likes? The way the
feed is built? No idea. But I hate it.

And the worst part? It gives me very little in return. The occasional sneak
peak at a products’ road map or strategy. Maybe release notes all in one
place.

~~~
mnd999
Fundamentally the tendency towards short posts prevents any nuance or
complexity and reduces everything to black and white. This is a poor model for
the realities of the world.

~~~
ZephyrBlu
People seem to lap it up though. Most Twitter accounts consistently post
snappy 1-2 sentence blunt statements and I'm always surprised at the
responses.

------
snowwrestler
Getting someone to leave a social media platform like Twitter voluntarily is
probably just as good as getting them kicked off. Either way they lose access
to the potential for rapid audience expansion that is enabled by the dynamics
of the platform.

Sure, they can service their core audience on any publishing platform: an
email newsletter, a blog, etc. But it's much much harder to get a rapid
audience expansion in one of those channels. That's why they were on Twitter
in the first place, instead of (or in addition to) emails and blogs. It's not
like email newsletters and blogs are some new untested idea; they both predate
Twitter by almost a decade. Twitter (and other social platforms) has succeeded
because it offers upside that those don't.

People love that big audience pop on social media when it helps them quickly
build their brand or find new customers. They don't love it when it exposes
them to a larger set of critics. Going to less dynamic channels is one way to
lower the volume of criticism, but you lose the potential for positive
dynamics as well.

~~~
auganov
No, the problem is you have to discount that audience by the risk of it
getting destroyed overnight by an unsympathetic Twitter admin/moderator. And
by the high difficulty of cashing it out. And by deboosting algorithms that
will limit your reach.

Accounting for this, I don't think it's a stretch to say that having 1,000
people on a platform you control is much better than 10,000 Twitter
"followers". Maybe even 100,000 depending on how much Twitter likes you.

~~~
chipotle_coyote
> you have to discount that audience by the risk of it getting destroyed
> overnight by an unsympathetic Twitter admin/moderator

While I have a lot of issues with Twitter, statistically speaking, the chances
of this happening seem to be very, very, _very_ small. Twitter is not full of
rogue "moderators" running rampant permanently deleting people's accounts left
and right. You have to be (a) willfully spreading material that clearly
violates Twitter's terms of service (cf. Alex Jones), (b) ignoring repeated
warnings and essentially daring Twitter to enforce their own TOS (cf. Alex
Jones), and in most cases, (c) high profile (cf. Alex Jones). It's easy to
find people who are _temporarily_ banned from Twitter for dubious/spurious
reasons, but it's pretty hard to find people who are punted without warning
for "going against the groupthink, man."

~~~
auganov
Statistically speaking most people don't have a big audience on Twitter
either. As your audience grows so does the chance of somebody at Twitter
having a problem with you. If you're on Twitter because of this potential for
massive growth you have to take it into account.

Had it happen to myself. Absolutely no warning from Twitter. Never had a
temporary ban at all. And wasn't even a remotely big account. Of course you
don't hear about this from people who aren't super high profile - they cannot
make a lot of noise about it. Amongst my friends who are heavy Twitter users
there are absolutely tons of stories like this.

------
Ijumfs
When I left Twitter a couple years ago, I "slammed the door on my way out" by
deleting all my posts. Of course, we all know social media companies keep
deleted posts and metadata but crawlers probably can't see this data (unless
they pay?) and it sends a message as well.

------
jamesvandyne
I've not quit Twitter, but I've reduced my usage of it (and gained control of
my data) by syndicating my posts/statuses from to Twitter and backfeeding any
replies/likes as comments on my blog.

It's all simple enough to get setup using the IndieWeb Wordpress plugin.

------
geofft
I had a blog (still do, though I publish extremely infrequently), but the
value of Twitter to me is the discussions, where I can ask about things and
learn new things from people who reply to them. What's the equivalent for that
in this system?

Now, if you said "get a personal domain and set up ActivityPub," then sure.

The other approach I've liked here is the "planet" model - I read
[https://planet.debian.org/](https://planet.debian.org/) fairly frequently,
and occasionally one blogger publishes something and a couple of people follow
up a day or two later "This is a response to so-and-so's post, here are my
thoughts," which is always fun. But it wouldn't be fun in a newsletter model -
Twitter makes it so that you don't see replies from someone you follow to
someone you don't, because those replies will generally lack context. I
wouldn't want to spam everyone in my newsletter with "These are some questions
I have for some other person whose newsletter you don't read."

~~~
riffic
Just a quick plug for two ActivityPub projects that are wholly compelling and
are not Mastodon:

* WordPress ActivityPub plugin by Matthias Pfefferle: [https://wordpress.org/plugins/activitypub/](https://wordpress.org/plugins/activitypub/)

* WriteFreely - An open source platform for building a writing space on the web: [https://writefreely.org/](https://writefreely.org/)

------
gkoberger
I understand the negative opinions about Twitter that have been mentioned, but
this isn't advice for _most_ people. This is advice for people who already
have an audience built, and are looking to own their audience.

The benefit (and downfall) of Twitter is that (blue checkmark aside), everyone
is equal. Your account can both send and receive, and it puts everyone on the
same 280-character level playing field. Balaji doesn't like this.

Balaji might want to pick up his ball and leave, and that's fine (odd he
blames the hacks and not his recent Twitter spat, but whatever). But Twitter
has managed to give a voice to so many people and ideas that otherwise never
would have been heard. This doesn't solve that problem; it just makes it so
Balaji can write what he wants without having to hear people disagree with
him.

If you're reading this and are against Twitter, that's fair! But it's likely
that you and Balaji are looking to exit Twitter for very different reasons.

------
phoe-krk
Switching to the Fediverse is also an option, especially since the variety of
instances there means that one can curate their experience in a much greater
way than one would on Twitter.

~~~
zimpenfish
> Switching to the Fediverse is also an option

Really only if the people you want to interact with on Twitter are either
already on the Fediverse or can be persuaded to move across. In my experience,
they're not and they won't be. Which is why I still have an active Twitter
account.

------
blueyes
How does this post address network effects in the age of aggregation? Who has
sufficient incentive to tie all those disparate blogs and newsletters
together? Balaji likes to talk about exit plans. See this speech at YC startup
school:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cOubCHLXT6A](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cOubCHLXT6A)

In general, they strike me as deeply unrealistic.

------
songshuu
A worthwhile question to ask is why is this being written now?

Twitter has had hacks before, so I don't buy the 'hacks are the last straw'
line.

~~~
remolacha
I don’t think this is because of the hack. Balaji seems more worried about
censorship and “cancel culture.”

Ex: [https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/n7w3zw/silicon-valley-
eli...](https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/n7w3zw/silicon-valley-elite-
discuss-journalists-having-too-much-power-in-private-app)

~~~
SyneRyder
Quoting Vice in that article, defending journalists:

 _" many journalistic outlets are increasingly moving away from an ad-based
revenue model driven by traffic, and instead ... optioning their articles to
movie studios ..."_

Emphasis mine, but I can't believe Vice admits their business model is
creating stories they can turn into Hollywood films. That doesn't align with
reporting the truth. "Never let the facts get in the way of a good story".

But that does explain a lot. Bloomberg's "The Big Hack: How China Used a Tiny
Chip to Infiltrate U.S. Companies" was totally unsubstantiated garbage, but it
does sound like a plotline from a Hollywood movie.

~~~
secondcoming
The only part of Vice that's worth giving the benefit of the doubt when it
comes to The Truth is their Motherboard section. The rest has been tripe for a
few years. There was a glimmer of hope with Simon Ostrovsky's reporting from
Ukraine, but he seems to have moved on.

------
frogpelt
Gradual exits are for the birds (that tweet).

You can still read twitter without an account. Just delete your account(s)
cold turkey.

------
scottmsul
The technology should exist by now for a decentralized twitter right?
Resorting to email newsletters seems very clunky. Couldn't there be something
that uses a bittorrent-like protocol, where the followers support the network
for whomever they're following?

~~~
riffic
The W3C published ActivityPub as a recommendation (this is essentially a web
standard) on January 23, 2018.

------
unicornporn
[https://joinmastodon.org/](https://joinmastodon.org/) ?

------
techslave
how to abruptly exit twitter: quit

