[ImaCake]

For those unwilling to follow a twitter link: the latest post is from 2 days ago. Which is much more recent than his "I'm leaving" annoucement.

EDIT: I guess this begs the question then, how do you break the cycle? Do you just stay trapped in one walled garden despite it getting much worse, or do decentralised platforms offer temporary/permanent respite?

[delusional]

People like Paul are tied to twitter because they are addicted to popularity. I bet you don't have that same problem, so you just leave. Just stop going there one day, and keep doing that every day. You'll notice that, although it felt really important, your life will not change at all.

[madeofpalk]

I left twitter because I was addicted to popularity. I said the absolutely worst shit all in the name of driving engagement. I spoiled secret product announcements for Big Company because I loved the high of getting 1000s of likes on a tweet.

I moved to a different platform, left behind that community, and I feel a whole lot better for it. Barely anyone likes my posts any more, and I barely post. I feel great.

Non-commercial platforms have less pressure to drive engagement to pump DAUs, so I think they will always inherently start from a healthier base. Even if they do have algorthmic timelines, I think they can be done healthier because there's less incentive to send you engagement-bait and can instead just focus on sending you think you'll genuinely be interested in.

[bigpeopleareold]

I started to read a book on a summary of Norse myths. In the introduction, it suggested that since in pre-Christian Scandinavia there was no strong or even existing belief in a timeless afterlife, people, particularly of the Viking stock, would seek their fame as a way to live on after their own death.

I thought this was interesting in that it could be profound in the minds of public individuals, whether conscious or not, particularly if they share a lack of an eternal life.

[stareatgoats]

Tangentially related: the story of Herostratus, whose name it was forbidden to mention since he destroyed the temple of Artemis simply in order to have his name remembered. The ban didn't work out; he is now one of the more famous ancient Greeks, but had his name not been banned he would surely have been forgotten.

Tangentially related to that: the urge to "be someone" is likely shared by all, but the "being" that follows from having your name in the paper (or on Twitter) seems likely a surrogate for one's impression of being remembered and appreciated by people that knows you well, or something that can compensate for a lack thereof.

Point in case: the large proportion of of petty criminals and social outcasts among terrorists and the like.

At least they get to be in the paper (and/or on TV/Twitter/Facebook/Threads/Youtube/Mastodon).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herostratus

[projektfu]

Ironically, after watching "The Emperor's Club", Shutruk-Nahunte is the only Elamite leader I'm aware of, and I had to look up the name of the film to write this comment.

For those who haven't seen it, the main character starts the film making a big point about how Nahunte is largely forgotten despite his efforts to be remembered, because he contributed nothing of value.

[latexr]

> I started to read a book on a summary of Norse myths.

When you mention an interesting book/movie/any piece of media in a post, please include its name. There will always be someone interested in checking it out. I am.

[eis]

But the Vikings did have believes in afterlife. Later records of Valhalla or Folkvangr speak of that very clearly. There is also the fact that items were added to burried bodies which usually is done with the believe that these items would be useful for the deceased person in the afterlife.

[jacquesm]

> in pre-Christian Scandinavia there was no strong or even existing belief in a timeless afterlife

Pre-Christian Scandinavia is a rather long span of time.

[eis]

Well he mentioned Norse mythology and particularily the Vikings. The whole Pre-Christian Scandinavia of course is a way too wide a time span with very spotty historic records the further back we go.

[bigpeopleareold]

I was careful in using the book's words: "not a timeless afterlife" or suggesting at least "not eternal". Because we know what happens in the end :)

[eis]

While it's true that the afterlife was not eternal (Ragnarök) the same goes for the fame or legacy because the whole world is pretty much rebooted in their belief and with that the legacy vanishes.

[chambers]

Neat. What's the name of the book?

[bigpeopleareold]

The Penguin Book of Norse Myths :)

[dsign]

I don't understand that mentality. I'm a nobody-have-nothing and I dread the day somebody would link some of my Internet pseudonyms to my real-life identity. If I had a few billions stashed somewhere and it was of public knowledge, how could I ever know who is earnest and honest when interacting with me?

[coldtea]

Besides, most people announcing they are leaving or pondering it loudly are doing it exactly for popularity ("I hear that 'Twitter is now awful' is the latest trend! Acknowledge me as a cool person that flies the outrage flag of the day").

People who actually care for decentralization and the like over popularity, have long gone.

[ImaCake]

I did post that I was leaving as doing so did genuinely interrupt some nascent friendships I had developed on Twitter. I am sad I lost those, but staying there seemed worse at the time.

[yodsanklai]

> I bet you don't have that same problem, so you just leave.

I believe lots of Twitter users have the same problem. As long as they see a bit of engagement on their tweets/comments, even if they have 10 followers.

[ImaCake]

I get more engagement on Mastodon than I did on Twitter. New twitter accounts are essentially shadow banned by default whereas that is not the case on Mastodon.

[RamenJunkie_]

All this microblogging drama lately has really shown just how addicted manybpeople are to the popularity and attention engine. Its kind of sad. There were a lot of people saying they would leave when Musk took over. I have not been there since then, but several of my friends have gone back, and its a bit disappointing.

[tambourine_man]

It did change for the better

[jacquesm]

You break the cycle by sticking to your principles and when you leave you leave and 'stay left'.

[codetrotter]

It also helps to delete your account when you want to leave.

That’s what I did when I stopped using Facebook years ago. Deleted my account completely. All data gone. Profile gone.

If he had deleted his Twitter account then all followers would be gone and there wouldn’t be so much point in coming back.

In some cases even deleting your account is not enough. For example I recently deleted my Reddit account, but I still come back to check the posts on Reddit now and then.

I tried to run a Lemmy instance but got hit by a wave of bot accounts, so I turned off my Lemmy instance for now. When I have time to get it back up and running then hopefully I can get more real people to come join the instance and the I can stay active on my Lemmy instance instead of continuing to read posts on Reddit.

At least I have stopped posting to Reddit though. So I am not providing their business with free content anymore. But still providing them with my eyeballs for their ads for now.

In the case of Twitter, people who had a lot of followers and were frequently tweeting would probably be better able to leave if they deleted their accounts. And as a bonus thanks to recent changes if you delete your account you can’t even read Twitter anymore, since reading requires that you stay signed in. So in a way Twitter helps people when they want to leave, as long as people do their part and delete their accounts.

[petemir]

A way to further help breaking the cycle could be deleting the account. Probably it would avoid the sunken cost fallacy.

[jacquesm]

I did just that with Twitter. But HN plays it smarter, you can't delete your account. But one of these days...

[ycombinete]

I've had this with other platforms before:

  - Change your account email. 
  - Change HN password with password generator (don't' record it)
  - Log out.

The account and info are still there, but at least you can't get in! Obviously if they later introduce account deletion you've retroactively made a small mistake.

[codetrotter]

Why leave HN though? It’s nice here

[jacquesm]

It is. But it also eats up time, and that's your most finite resource.

[coldtea]

Relaxation and contentment (times when you don't feel the urge to be productive) is actually the most finite resource.

[actionfromafar]

Changed my password to a really long random string.

Still, here I am with a new account…

[DonHopkins]

HN could milk the whales by monetizing deleting your account and individual posts. The higher your karma, the more it costs.

[jacquesm]

Hehe, don't give them any ideas. How are you otherwise? I should come and visit. Or you should come and visit. Or both!

[tough]

If you really wanna, you can ask manually for deletion and they will do their best to comply if you justify why you need to delete it.

[tough]

You can also actually just ask dang for it via email, and if you've good reasons for it they will remove it.

[petemir]

Why should you have a good reason? It's your data, fullstop.

[Hamuko]

My solution was to not make a "I'm leaving for X" post but rather "I do most of my social media posting on X now" post. I do still make a few posts on Twitter but not nearly as many as I did before.

[HlessClaudesman]

I've been off Twatter since November. I'm enjoying Mastodon / methadone right now. Satisfies the random info itch, not enough of my social network to be addictive.

[nordsieck]

> I guess this begs the question then, how do you break the cycle?

Depends on what you want. If you want reach, then you have to go where the eyeballs are.

If you don't want to deal with platform churn, then just build on a platform that you control (website).

For a select few, it's possible to do both at once.

[manuelmoreale]

You do break it by replacing the walled garden with something more sane. I personally left all traditional social media and replaced it with a personal blog and private emails and mails to people and I couldn’t be happier.

[jacquesm]

HN is also a walled garden. A nice one, but still.

[manuelmoreale]

I honestly don’t consider HN social media because the vast majority of the content here is driven by 3rd party content since it’s mostly external links.

I see it more like a forum than a social media platform.

[jacquesm]

Forums are just another branch on the social media tree.

[manuelmoreale]

You're not wrong but we can stretch the definition of social media to the point where it's no longer useful. Still, doesn't change the meaning of my original post. Sharing content on your own site, on your own terms and interacting with others directly via email is by far the best replacement to the current situation. At least it is for me.

[jacquesm]

I think the differentiating factor is a simple one: you interact with people that you would not have known in real life, a global 'two way street'. If it doesn't have that component then it isn't social media.

[inopinatus]

are you kidding

it's a dark forest

[muglug]

Falling out of the tech-cultural zeitgeist is a terrifying prospect for some.

Since I was never in it, it was very easy for me to stop posting to Twitter.

[quickthrower2]

For me it is easy - I am very bad at social media-ing so there is little fun in it to begin with.

[inopinatus]

The fundamental misconception - as the original video lampoons - is that you must necessarily adopt some alternate platform.

[jacquesm]

I get regular questions about where I've landed after leaving twitter and the answer is 'nowhere', and it may well remain that way.