Live data from Hacker News

Let's Quit X

helloquitx.com

131–140 of 181 posts

Re: Let's Quit X

#131
post #97

I quit Twitter in 2008, around the time I quit Facebook. Here's what I can say with confidence: Bluesky, Mastodon, whatever—they're all going to end up being bad, like Twitter. The problems ultimately come out of the format, not the specific instance of the format.

I disagree. Moderation is like culture. Twitter's moderation has gone to complete junk in the past couple of years. Bluesky and Mastodon don't have that problem (yet, or possibly ever). In your analogy - moderation is part of the format.

Okay, let's check back in ten years.

Re: Let's Quit X

#132
post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This will eventually shift. There is legitimately very little reason to use X unless you're a Musk-stan. Case in point: I started using twitter regularly during the CA fires & blackouts in 2017. I was amazed at how quickly I could get a read on a situation and actual on the ground facts at near real-time speed. For the Palisades fire, I'm struggling to make X nearly as useful as it was. There is a lot of random diatr…

> unless you're a Musk-stan what's a -stan? do you mean like kazakhstan?

Stalker/fan = stan

Re: Let's Quit X

#133
post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This will eventually shift. There is legitimately very little reason to use X unless you're a Musk-stan. Case in point: I started using twitter regularly during the CA fires & blackouts in 2017. I was amazed at how quickly I could get a read on a situation and actual on the ground facts at near real-time speed. For the Palisades fire, I'm struggling to make X nearly as useful as it was. There is a lot of random diatr…

> unless you're a Musk-stan what's a -stan? do you mean like kazakhstan?

STalker / fAN. I think it’s attributable to the Eminem son Stan about a stalker. Likely even predates that.

Re: Let's Quit X

#134

The problem is that you are creating an echo chamber. My experience using let’s quit “insert company name” is that these echo chambers tend to be toxic and terrible. IE.. Gab, Truth Social, etc. It’s very difficult to do unless you can have broad consensus. I tend to use Twitter for an industry wide group and while a few individuals have moved, the Bluesky version just doesn’t have the reach or usefulness of the twit…

> The problem is that you are creating an echo chamber.

How's that? Bluesky, say, has a fair bit of diverse opinion. It's low on the far-right (though there are certainly some; I subscribe to a few blocklists to filter their nonsense out), which has a bit of a personal affinity for Musk, but to an extent, y'know, who needs 'em? Like, it is not the case that there exist two opinions, far-right lunacy and everything else; the non-far-right segment contains multitudes.

Re: Let's Quit X

#135
post #12

I moved over from Twitter to Bluesky with the big wave (I've been using it since mid-2023 however). It's everything I've wanted from the community to the engagement. What's more, I'm not punished for linking to my blog! Everything I could have asked for. My profile in case you want to follow: https://bsky.app/profile/xeiaso.net

I've gradually moved over to Mastodon for most of my posting. The pocket of Fedi I reside within (queer fedi) is quite nice.

Last year, I seriously started using Bluesky. It's okay, but a little too much like "old Twitter" for my tastes. I still use it, but my most interesting posts go on Fedi.

This is all to say, Bluesky has replaced Twitter for me, but I was already phasing it out.

Re: Let's Quit X

#136
post #81

The problem is that you are creating an echo chamber. My experience using let’s quit “insert company name” is that these echo chambers tend to be toxic and terrible. IE.. Gab, Truth Social, etc. It’s very difficult to do unless you can have broad consensus. I tend to use Twitter for an industry wide group and while a few individuals have moved, the Bluesky version just doesn’t have the reach or usefulness of the twit…

This will eventually shift. There is legitimately very little reason to use X unless you're a Musk-stan. Case in point: I started using twitter regularly during the CA fires & blackouts in 2017. I was amazed at how quickly I could get a read on a situation and actual on the ground facts at near real-time speed. For the Palisades fire, I'm struggling to make X nearly as useful as it was. There is a lot of random diatr…

I chuckle at the argument that you're entering an echo chamber when you leave X.

News flash: X is already an echo chamber!

Maybe the "oh no don't leave for an echo chamber!" assertion is a case of people remembering the pre-X version of twitter, and comparing competitors to that - rather than what X is today. Or maybe it's a case of "boiling a frog," where people on X are actually unaware of what it has become.

Or maybe... it's actually just a bad faith argument by people who like the current X echo chamber.

Re: Let's Quit X

#137

The problem is that you are creating an echo chamber. My experience using let’s quit “insert company name” is that these echo chambers tend to be toxic and terrible. IE.. Gab, Truth Social, etc. It’s very difficult to do unless you can have broad consensus. I tend to use Twitter for an industry wide group and while a few individuals have moved, the Bluesky version just doesn’t have the reach or usefulness of the twit…

Twitter is already, and increasingly so, an echo chamber of the type of people who want to stay on Twitter.

From that vantage point it is the conscious decision to stay on the network during an exodus that creates an echo chamber. Something similar happened with facebook. The people who are still on facebook in 2025 are having a pretty different conversation than occurs in some other places.

Re: Let's Quit X

#138
post #27
post #3

Anecdotal, but so many people in my circles have jumped ship to Bluesky that the transition is pretty seamless at this point. It feels more like Twitter than what became of Twitter does.

Curious: what happens when Bluesky has all the same people/posts as Twitter? Will it be any better? Or will it just be the same thing on a new website?

It's worth mentioning that X's problems with toxicity are greatly enhanced by its current leadership, so even if everybody switched to bsky tomorrow it would be different. There are far better tools for users to manage their own experience on bsky than X allows.

But, assume that bsky does turn to shit too... if nothing else the (successful?) migration from X shows that people are capable of moving - should bsky face its own calamity the friction to move again will be lower.

There's reason to hope that it won't end in total disaster though. It should (at some point) be possible to federate with bsky in a meaningful way, and perhaps a migration can be even easier than this one (i.e. you can switch to another instance that is run differently).

Re: Let's Quit X

#139
post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This will eventually shift. There is legitimately very little reason to use X unless you're a Musk-stan. Case in point: I started using twitter regularly during the CA fires & blackouts in 2017. I was amazed at how quickly I could get a read on a situation and actual on the ground facts at near real-time speed. For the Palisades fire, I'm struggling to make X nearly as useful as it was. There is a lot of random diatr…

I chuckle at the argument that you're entering an echo chamber when you leave X. News flash: X is already an echo chamber! Maybe the "oh no don't leave for an echo chamber!" assertion is a case of people remembering the pre-X version of twitter, and comparing competitors to that - rather than what X is today. Or maybe it's a case of "boiling a frog," where people on X are actually unaware of what it has become. Or ma…

> Or maybe... it's actually just a bad faith argument by people who like the current X echo chamber.

I won't pretend to speak to the motivations of any HN users, but I've seen some of these conversations play out where someone invokes the concept of an echo chamber only when it means LGBTQIA+ people can just exist without being harassed. That's an undesirable outcome to those folks.

I would like to think HN is better than that, but more frequently in the past few months, I've been disappointed by commentators on this website, so I wouldn't put any money on that bet.

Echo chambers can be dangerous, but misinformation and unchecked bigotry are more dangerous. Whereas the consequences of an echo chamber are abstract, I can measure the consequences of the latter in deaths.

So my go-to question is simply, "What are your priorities?"

Re: Let's Quit X

#140
post #91

The problem is that you are creating an echo chamber. My experience using let’s quit “insert company name” is that these echo chambers tend to be toxic and terrible. IE.. Gab, Truth Social, etc. It’s very difficult to do unless you can have broad consensus. I tend to use Twitter for an industry wide group and while a few individuals have moved, the Bluesky version just doesn’t have the reach or usefulness of the twit…

X is already a far right echo chamber, if you create a new account and navigate to the "for you" page, all you see is Elon Musk, Alex Jones, Andrew Tate and other far right "role models". It's unfortunate that X still retains a greater reach than its alternatives, but that can change in the medium term.

"for you" means you want the algorithm to decide for you. Use "Following" instead.
Post reply on HN