I was on Twitter for 14 years and five months.
I canceled my account yesterday.
Is there anything to say that hasn't been said these last few months? Should I have waited for the new CEO (or the one that will come after her) to turn things around? Should I have bothered to download my tweets? Am I not going to miss chirping snarky comments when bored?
I don't know.
I don't really care, either.
What I know is that this is not true anymore:
As an innovation professional who understands digital social networks, there is no turning back from Twitter devolving into irrelevance. It's not going to be fast, mind you. It will be a Yahooization at first and then something like AOL, which veterans remember fondly as genuinely horrible in retrospect, but still, something that was constantly in the background of their life for so long.
And I don't even blame Twitter or Elon Musk; many currently are. Musk is just a sign o' the times. A symptom more than a cause. A catalyst, certainly not a disruptor. The whole ad-supported free-for-all social closed garden paradigm has disappeared; the market haven't registered yet.
Also, no, I won't be on Bluesky, Mastodon, or whatever.
It's just more of the same. Recycling what kinda worked in 2008 and trying again with some tweaks is doomed from the outset. (Also, this is kinda worrying for Silicon Valley if their elite entrepreneurs can only shove the same shit around, don't you think?)
But what does it mean for us?
Nothing really.
Just relax. I shut down an obsolete tool, is all. And I'm still very much active, and we are still very much connected together by numerous tools and networks and channels, and media.
After all, you're reading this aren't you? Let's talk. and learn from each other.
As we did for so long.
