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In My Newsletter I Trust
No matter how often this happens, we don’t learn our lessons — we continue to till other people’s proverbial land and keep using their social spaces. Whether it is Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, or Medium, we get trapped in the big platforms because they dangle the one big carrot in front of our eyes: the reach, the audience, and the influence.
And we keep doing their bidding — they use our social networks, our work, and our attention — and, in the process, help make their networks gigantic and indispensable. We become pawns in their end game. And then they change the rules of the game — after all, if you own the league, you make the rules.
I have known the truth about social platforms. I quit Facebook and Instagram years ago, and candidly I am better for it. I don’t need 5000 friends — 15 good ones will do. And as far as sharing photos — I am happy that I have about a thousand people interested in my photographic work instead of 100,000 followers on Instagram. You, too, can sign-up for my photo newsletter here.
I have not quit Twitter for sentimental reasons. I sent out the first non-Twitter tweet and kinship with Jack. Even as the platform became unusable, I still stayed. I started using Twitter less. If I don’t visit today or tomorrow, my world doesn’t stop. So perhaps that is why I am not as distressed as others who are mourning about the future of the service.
By now, you probably know a megalomaniacal space cowboy has acquired Twitter. You have to pay $8 a month to use the service in any meaningful way, though I won’t bet on it being either meaningful or it working. The new owner is known to change his mind about anything and everything. Given this uncertainty about Twitter, it makes more sense for me to focus on using the newsletter as a central point for all my editorial work and everything else.
Going forward, I will aggregate what I usually share on Twitter, including links to interesting articles in an (almost) daily newsletter. You will likely experience the newsletter at a higher-than-usual frequency, but no promises. I will leave the comments open if you want to share feedback or engage in conversation.
If you aren’t signed up for the newsletter — it is straightforward. Enter your email address in the form below, hit submit, and then allow the email newsletter in your inbox. I hope we can build something together.
PS: If you follow this blog via WordPress, then you don’t have to do anything. It will just show up as every other post.
November 15, 2022. San Francisco
My Essential Twitter Reader
Here are some of my articles about Twitter. My long history with the company gives me a good insight into the company, which has and will continue to remain ungoverned. It is a service by the people, for the people, and one of its people with the most money now owns it. It is somewhat ironic and befitting.