Seven years later
I just realised that I returned to this blog after seven years. It's a long time of course, but it was heartening to note that at least some of my hopes about the social web have become reality. Micropayments for microfiction for example. However, I also noticed that my fears have not come true – because I had no fears. I was pretty optimistic about the web back then.
Today, the promsie of the social web seems like a somewhat cruel joke. What was considered to be a great uniter, or at least a good connector, has become a divisive influence. Democracy itself cannot be taken for granted any longer because massive corporations wield unimaginable amounts of power over our minds and the emerging behavioural patterns.
I am also becoming aware of the fact that my own modes of thinking about the web, the world, and about life in general have changed a fair bit. I no longer think of fame as a goal in and of itself. My faith in my capacity to do the work I want to do has also suffered (although it is better right now than it has been for a few months now). I have also started to consciously step back from online life. I am no longer using Twitter, Facebook, and an assortment of social tools and platforms that I used to be regular on. Most recently, I gave up on Instagram. YouTube is still something I am doing for now, but I completely expect to be done with it at some point as well. These are roads, not destinations. My destination lies elsewhere.
People are still leaving Twitter and going over to other microblogging platforms and tools. I personally think that even though this is a good short term solution to the problems created by Twitter's toxicity, it will not bring about the real end to this problem. We need to go from “Twitter is bad” to “anything like Twitter will come with the same problems”. I am not convinced that moderation will bring about the utopia we are looking for. Our present problems are a result of capital exerting massive influence on society. As long as that continues, a different platform, subject to the same “market pressures” is not going to change things. The solution to bad guy with money is not going to be good guy with money.