Protesting Twitter by posting on Twitter is stupid. Stop feeding the beast!
I look back on life these days and wonder at all the changes that have occurred, for better or worse - mostly worse in the last few years, it seems. When I was a kid, we were going to be a "great society" and had landed on the moon! America, we thought, was the greatest country in the world (and still is, despite efforts to make it great "again").
When I was a teenager in the 70s, I had a front-row seat to the nascent PC evolution - and revolution. We were warriors, we felt, bringing computers to the average American. And with this revolution of information technology, we would liberate the world and start a new age. Yes, we were that naive.
Funny thing happened. Microsoft - a small, obscure software company whose claim to fame was a BASIC compiler that turned out to be vaporware - landed a lucrative contract to create DOS, as the owner of the then-prevalent CP/M system, Gary Kildall, told IBM to take a hike.
So Bill Gates had this opportunity land in his lap (no less after telling IBM to talk to Kildall in the first place!). So he hires a guy to make a reverse-engineered copy of CP/M and called it DOS, or IBM-DOS if it came bundled with an IBM-PC, or MS-DOS if you bought your own copy.
Computer sales took off, and each computer needed an operating system. That lucky IBM contract turned into a gold mine, as Microsoft had the rights, in the contract, to sell to third parties. No one expected the generic PC market to be so huge. Microsoft got rich, IBM no longer makes personal computers.
A lot of people saw this happening and wanted in the deal - rags to riches seemingly overnight. Tech Bros have created this myth of instant riches, which is not so much a myth, but something that is not as common as many would think. In the 1990s, I used to fly out to Silicon Valley every month to get Patent business. Back then Silicon Valley was silicon - hardware. Not so much in manufacturing chips (A "fab" they call it) but in designing a chip and then sending the design overseas to be manufactured.
It was a wild West and some companies did well, others struggled. Like a casino, you could win big or lose it all. Usually the little guy investor lost it all, while the Billionaires made money no matter what. Computers (hardware) became a commodity and software was where all the money was. Silicon Valley became Software Valley. But that was just the start of it.
With all these PCs sold and internet connectivity becoming a common thing by the 2000's (remember all those Mom and Pop ISC's? Heady days!) people wanted something to do with their computes, besides drafting dull memos or visiting government websites. Internet commerce and Social Media was born. And there were a few winners - and a lot of losers. Timing is everything, it seemed.
For example, Sears offered an online service call Prodigy. They also had the worlds largest and best known retail catalog. But rather than combine the two, they discontinued the catalog and concentrated on physical stores as mall anchors. You know how that worked out. But to be fair to Sears, the world wasn't ready for e-commerce just yet. An obscure used book seller would occupy that space and become a Billionaire in the process.
AoL had some social media-like features, with discussion groups. Of course, UseNet newsgroups had been around since the 1980s, but by the 1990s, they were being SPAMmed to death. A guy named "Tom" started something called "MySpace" and was very successful - at first. In echoes of Gary Kildall, he decided MySpace should be some sort of indie band platform and not a social media site.
So instead, a Harvard dropout creates a Social Media monster - almost by accident. A page for sharing pictures of incoming Freshmen turns into a colossus online. And that was just the start - several other Social Media sites have sprung up since them. You know their names.....
In those heady early days, many still believed that the Internet would make our lives better and we proselytized about how the world of the future would solve all the petty problems we have by providing transparent communication and data across the planet. Google, back then, had a company slogan - "Don't Be Evil!" which was a dig at Microsoft's monopoly practices. It was also a dig at the new Silicon Valley private equity investors who were not interested in the greater goo, but rather lining their pockets, often at the expense of the public.
Go big or go home. Move fast and break things. It had less to do with technology than with Business. For a brief time, the Patent Office even recognized "methods of doing business" as Patentable. Then they realized they had opened Pandora's box.
The new Silicon Valley investors weren't interested in hardware or even software (not a lot a money in that! Requires effort and expertise, too!). Rather, they wanted to create business that did things like taxi services or food delivery or scooter rentals - which were already "things" - and monetize them such that a big percentage of the profits, worldwide, finds it way back to Silicon Valley. The consumer and the delivery driver get squeezed on both ends, while the CEOs of these companies rake in the dough.
Google abolished its "Don't Be Evil" mantra. Most other "tech" companies were no so foolish as to adopt one.
And yes, there are upsides to the Internet, still. You can get a lot of your work done online or do your finances. Online prices can be far less than brick-and-mortar, with a better selection as well. The downside is, the local merchant goes bankrupt in the process. You also have to deal with shady suppliers selling substandard junk (Looking at you, Temo, Wish, etc.). But we are so connected this way, it would be hard, if not impossible, to go back to earlier days and old ways.
So, technology, once thought to be our savior, becomes the enemy. Instead of sharing truth and valid information online, we see myths, superstitions, misinformation, and outright lies being spread. We are manipulated, sometimes by foreign forces, other times by commercial interests. People are divisive these days because they are taught so by the Internet. And we are all influenced this way, whether or not we want to admit it. Sure, you can blame the maga-set for their idiotic beliefs they absorb from Inforwars or Fox News. But many on the Left have similar wacky beliefs that they think are their own, but are absorbed from their own echo-chamber. The whole "pronoun" thing, for example, was the height of Democratic silliness and drove many independent voters to the right. Of course, it was the Internet that made people think that the only issue they were concerned about was Transgender rights. Both sides are painted as extremist by the other.
But I digress.....
In the early days of the PC, there were a plethora of manufacturers and many people assembled their own computers from parts. There were few Billionaires, other than the Microsoft gang, but that was about to change. We are in a similar situation as we had in the late 1800s - with "Trusts" controlling large swaths of the economy and controlling the government as well. If you wanted to buy any sort of things, from food to coal to oil or minerals, you had to do business with the Trusts, and they could set prices as they saw fit.
The "Trusts" of today are information or technology related (if you agree to call a taxi service or delivering pizzas, "technology"). You want to buy something? You go online and check out Amazon - it is kind of hard not to shop there than it is. It is like trying to avoid WalMart - you can, but expect to pay 50-100% more for basic commodities. And the competitor you go to may end up being as "bad" as the one you left. People are calling for a boycott of Target because they cancelled DEI initiatives. Funny thing, but no one let out a peep when Walmart did the same thing back in November. I guess people expected that of Walmart, so it's OK.
People have similar reservations about Facebook, Google, and Twitter. All the big tech companies bowed down to Trump, paid a million bucks for his inauguration, and Facebook forked over $25 million to Trump to settle a clearly specious lawsuit. Say, that's another clever way to avoid campaign finance laws or bribery charges! Just have the politician you want to bribe sue you and then you go "Mea Culpa! I'll settle! Here's a suitcase of cash!" Pretty slick!
But I digress again. And yes, I am feeling a little better on the Parkinson's meds. I just take a little pill when I want to use my brain for something. Works pretty well - so far.
But getting to the topic of this posting (finally) the problem isn't - as I see it - the Billionaires, but the ordinary people (you and me) who fork over tons of money, directly or indirectly, to said same Billionaires. Every time you use Facebook, you put a little money in the pocket of Mark Zuckerberg, who in turn puts some in Trump's pocket. Meanwhile, you are exposed to all sorts of propaganda, both political and commercial. You can't protest Zuckerberg in a Facebook posting.
Similarly, you can't go on Twitter to denounce Musk, as each time you go on Twitter, you put a penny or two (or dimes or dollars) in his pocket. You are creating "content" for him to sell (laden with advertisements) by posting there. Even providing a link to a Twitter post generates money for Musk. Advertiser pay based on the number of clicks as well as "engagement." So when you post something along the lines of, "Check out this outrageous thing Musk said!" and provide a link, and a thousand people click on that link, well, Musk wins.
And yes, I appreciate the irony of saying this on Blogger which was bought by Google in 2003 when they still believed, "Don't be Evil!" And yes, Google is a case-in-point, as they have gone from being a search engine to being the only search engine (in practice) and along the way have gotten their hands into a lot of other businesses, from smart phone O/S to video hosting, etc. It is kind of hard not to use a Google product and that is sort of the point of my posting. We are stuck with these services, which, although not as necessary to our survival as food and shelter, nevertheless form a part of our daily lives.
And while Google abandoned "Don't Be Evil" long ago, until recently, they were fairly benign. But then someone decided they needed more money. Unskippable ads started appearing on YouTube - and then more and more of them. Google searches turned into advertisements for products, with the "real" search results way down the page. And now, in recent months, we have Google AI providing all the (wrong) answers to your search inquiries.
They made it so easy to get into their "space" but then did a rug-pull as did all the other "tech" companies. Like a drug dealer, they offer the first sample for free to get you hooked. And one you are hooked, they set the hook. I must note, however, that the anology is flawed - I never met a real-life drug dealer who gave away free samples. That was only on television with those stupid "Just Say No!" ads, not real life.
I am not sure what the ultimate answer is, of course. I was never on Twitter and when I click on something that links to Twitter, I quickly exit out. There is nothing so important in this world that needs to be hosted on Twitter only. I mean, for Chrissakes, you can cut and paste the text of a tweet or even do a screen shot if you wanted to. Linking is just lazy.
As for Amazon, that is a lot harder. eBay used to be America's garage sale, before it became all about power-sellers. And much of what is on eBay is stuff that is sold through Amazon and then arbitraged onto eBay. Then there are the Wish/Temu type products that find their way onto eBay on occasion (and Amazon for that matter). For a lot of stuff, I find going to the manufacturer's (or distributor's) website to be cheaper than both eBay and Amazon, with the service just as good if not better.
Boycotting Facebook is a lot easier, other than having to deal with Facebook idiots. I was on Facebook early on, but only for a few months. Something seemed "off" about it and it was very addictive. Better off to blog, instead! Mark was never on it, period. The problem is, a lot of other people think that "everyone has a Facebook page!" and thus limits their online presence to Facebook. This is problematic with businesses.
And I understand why they do it. You want to update your website, it takes time to craft the HTML coding, even with editing tools such as those used here on Blogger. But Facebook? Much easier. You want to update your restaurant's schedule of events, you can do it with a few clicks. Your customers get the information, along with a lot of right-wing and Nazi propaganda.
We visited a campground the other day and our friend Juan was pissed that the theme that night at the bar was "funny hats." Juan has a ton of funny hats but didn't bring any as he was unaware of the event as it was only posted on Facebook. He's on Facebook, too! But he didn't think to check. Similarly, the next night was "Cowboy night" and here I am with my Stetsons sitting in a box on the shelf in my closet back home. If I had only known!
It gets worse. If you cross the border, you may be asked by an ICE agent for your social media account information (and even access to your cell phone!). "What's your Facebook page?" they ask, and "I'm not on Facebook" isn't an acceptable answer. Everyone is on Facebook, right?
Like with the Trusts, the Tech Bros have managed to get us dependent on them completely. Going cold turkey is difficult, if not impossible to do. But protesting Facebook with a Facebook posting, or protesting Musk on Twitter seems kind of dumb. The only answer is to not feed the beast. Don't create content for sites you don't like. Don't let them make money from your clicks. It is hard to do, as alternatives are either obscure or hard to come by. Some people are claiming "BlueSky" will eclipse Twitter as users flee the latter. Perhaps, but since Twitter still has a critical mass of people (even after Musk killed off the bots /s), a message on BlueSky isn't going to resonate as well.
But why is it so important to send out messages on Twitter or post your updates on Facebook? Beats me - probably the same reason I feel compelled to blog.
