Interesting read on why Twitter is dying
Here’s my tiny theory, in a word. Abuse. And further, I’m going to suggest in this short essay that abuse — not making money — is the great problem tech and media have. The problem of abuse is the greatest challenge the web faces today. It is greater than censorship, regulation, or (ugh) monetization. It is a problem of staggering magnitude and epic scale, and worse still, it is expensive: it is a problem that can’t be fixed with the cheap, simple fixes beloved by tech: patching up code, pushing out updates.
If twitter were a bar, would you frequent a place with abusers. I have found my interactions on a public timeline going down. Most of my nuanced conversations take place on twitter DM or FB chat. These are with people of different political / religious persuasions. We avoid chatting on a public TL – seriously who wants unpleasantness and unpleasent people interrupting an interesting conversation?
Worth reading the entire piece on the Medium.
I had a twitter conversation with someone about this (based on this Medium piece) this morning. The internet has always been a place for abusers, earlier anonymice, now tweeters. For those who are disdainful of fb (as being full of bay pictures), atleast it is a more honest, pleasant place to be than twitter. (As an aside, am so happy you are writing regularly here again)
I don’t think i mind the abuse, as much as i am irritated with people whose entire exposure to the world is facts gleaned in 140 characters, or whatsapp forwards – that they want to pass of as facts. And, there is nothing you can do, when they spam you with their ignorance.
I miss the days when people like you would write blogs and there were some interesting discussions in the comments section … I was a huge fan of google reader and was following a few people I found randomly … The world has not been the same since the death of google reader 🙂 … I used to love quora too, but now a days, there you see many many Indians asking stupid questions like – What is the scope of SAP course? I have reduced my time spent on Quora too …..
And ya, the amount of abuse in twitter is a turn off … There are very few normal views and most of them are extreme (either on left or on right) …. Sort of like Modi is the best thing since sliced bread or we have a mass murderer as a PM!
That’s true – it’s almost like people feel a responsibility to be virulent on twitter
sigh — and ill informed
i have had and continue to have great conversations on twitter. but that only happens, if i am very rude and mentally block out (and physically mute) those who want to butt in, without any value add
i have been missing blogging. and I seriously miss google reader. Yes, i agree with the stupidity quotient.