Quitting Twitter

> YouTube is the same way

I had seen that claim before but I never noticed it. I subscribe to about 250 YouTube channels. They seem to appear in my subscriptions, in chronological order, as they're released. Are you referring to the homepage rather than subscriptions?

> I still want to read what people like Patrick McKenzie, Zach Weinersmith, John Carmack and others have to say.

I quit twitter years ago for some of the same reasons mentioned in this blog post, and I 100% agree with this quote. I would love a way to get at the good content from twitter without all the constant rage.

Does anyone know a good tool or way to get a much more curated Twitter experience?

I've been on Twitter for several years now, but not posted much. I used to find it interesting because there was a lot of good technical articles and information being shared by the people I chose to follow. Then over time that mostly stopped, but it was still good because I followed people who posted the kind of dumb jokes I like.

And then I felt increasingly disconnected from everyone because of being stuck at home in a pandemic. And I started tweeting a little more, and getting pretty much nothing back. And then I had a bad interaction (nothing abusive, just confrontational), and I uninstalled the app from my phone.

I basically agree with everything in TFA. There is fun, interesting and sometimes even insightful stuff on Twitter. But people become warped. It's incredibly difficult to actually have a two-way communication on Twitter; people will misinterpret and assume the worst about everything you write.

And I was not immune to this effect either - I realised when I went back over the back-and-forth that had felt so emotionally charged at the time, that I had also been assuming the worst and replying without the open mind that might have led to a better interaction.

I much rather prefer discussion on HN for the simple fact that it's anonymized. That makes it much easier for users to up/down vote comments and it just works better. It shows you what people really think. It also makes everything more equal because it doesn't matter who you are or how many followers you have.

I agree with most of what the author wrote. I also don’t like how I can follow something who has good thoughts on Python but get their thoughts on politics. Then Twitter turned “like” into “maybe retweet” (you see what people you follow liked) so even if they don’t tweet about politics I see the political tweets they liked. I like the focus of subreddits in comparison.

I still use Twitter mostly as a write-only thing if I want to drop off a blog post, another place to reach me, and occasionally check my timeline. Lists are also a recommended feature.

With that said, I think Twitter has a bright future. Why? Because it’s always been a good way for celebrities to reach people. And in a world of Instagram, YouTube, Twitch, Tiktok etc there are more mini-celebrities than ever and they all use Twitter for any quick thought blurbs. So they’ve really benefited by the expansion of what constitutes a celebrity.

My mom also uses Twitter, never tweets, but just follows news outlets. And it’s the only social media she has as a privacy-oriented person which is interesting.

Like most social media apps, if you don’t use it compulsively and control how you use it, there’s usually at least some value in having a presence.