Re:Twitterrific Has Been Discontinued
by mindslight on Friday January 20, 2023 @12:34AM
(#34449622)
> It’s ran for over a decade, not a bad run.
How many zero sum whinging headlines have we had to endure in that time? Twitter bans Joe Blow. Twitter bans third party app. Twitter has too many bots. Twitter doesn't have enough bots. Twitter censors subject blah blah. Twitter drowned a puppy (allegedly). Twitter finally bothered to release feature X. Twitter demands phone numbers for better surveillance. Twitter makes new release that totally fucks over the way you use it. Twitter stops software from working on older devices. Twitter doesn't support this desirable usage pattern. And so on ad infinitum.
The breath of fresh air, which is actually just how things were before the web 2.0 catastrophe, is that libre software and libre services escape that centralized crab bucket. If you want a feature go ahead and build it, or donate to those who did/will. Or just wait, because rather than being a tug of war over what one client does, many different ones can bloom.
If you want the features a centralized service can bring, use a large server that implements them, which will shake out over time. And if it turns out they just develop the same monetization pathologies that Twitter had, you can easily move on without changing everything. The less costs to switching there are, the easier it is to go your own way. That's the benefit of an open protocol.
How many zero sum whinging headlines have we had to endure in that time? Twitter bans Joe Blow. Twitter bans third party app. Twitter has too many bots. Twitter doesn't have enough bots. Twitter censors subject blah blah. Twitter drowned a puppy (allegedly). Twitter finally bothered to release feature X. Twitter demands phone numbers for better surveillance. Twitter makes new release that totally fucks over the way you use it. Twitter stops software from working on older devices. Twitter doesn't support this desirable usage pattern. And so on ad infinitum.
The breath of fresh air, which is actually just how things were before the web 2.0 catastrophe, is that libre software and libre services escape that centralized crab bucket. If you want a feature go ahead and build it, or donate to those who did/will. Or just wait, because rather than being a tug of war over what one client does, many different ones can bloom.
If you want the features a centralized service can bring, use a large server that implements them, which will shake out over time. And if it turns out they just develop the same monetization pathologies that Twitter had, you can easily move on without changing everything. The less costs to switching there are, the easier it is to go your own way. That's the benefit of an open protocol.