Alot of words to reach conclusions already often arrived at over the past few years, but ok. Many realized Fediverse isn't it and moved on, but also fine for some to still congregate around their respective instances and communities and have their space too. Small/indie web etc etc. It's just not the broad social network some might have been looking for beyond X. That being said no "direct experience using Twitter" raises how OP has any real insights into this at all really. Also avoiding Bluesky or saying ATProto kind of a big hole here, but at least mentioned as maybe possibility and that's not the main subject of the post. Carry on.
ATProto is not the answer either in my opinion. What the all get wrong is a privacy, community based experience first. They have all tried to create a new public commons they dominate.
> On Facebook, I am beholden to the whims of men in suits who have gleefully incinerated the mental and emotional stability of billions of people for the sake of making money.
Sorry what? Facebook/meta has a very diverse employee population, and very influential diversity groups.
People of all kinds (men, women, lgbtiq+, binary and non-binary people) dressed in all kinds of way have contributed to “ gleefully incinerating the mental and emotional stability of billions of people for the sake of making money”
> Facebook/meta has a very diverse employee population
It’s incredibly fair to describe, in 2026, the Meta employee pool as an outwardly diverse set who have consistently traded morals for money in a project that has brought harm to children and democracies worldwide.
I have friends who work at Meta, and none of them are evil. But all of them are complicit in enabling and excusing the sociopathy of folks like Zuckerberg and Mosseri.
I'm coming to realize that the word evil has remarkably different meanings to different people.
Some people consider evil to be the epitome of immorality, while some consider it anyone less than neutral, or anything that is complicated with a aspect that is less than neutral.
Part of this is black and white compression and modern drift towards superlatives.
However, I wonder if translation also plays a factor. For example German translates evil to böse, and you might also use that to describe a naughty child.
> the word evil has remarkably different meanings to different people. Some people consider evil to be the epitome of immorality, while some consider it anyone less than neutral, or anything that is complicated with a aspect that is less than neutral
I'm using it casually. They're still my friends, and I think they're trying to be good people. They know they're furthering an evil enterprise, but it's not clearly more evil than other job options, and they need to survive and try to do good where they can. (They're all looking for an exit.)
I think your final statement outright negates the prior one. You cannot devote your working life to making teenage girls depressed and teenage boys angry and not be evil.
You just think they wear nice masks when they’re at home.
I did not say they “made it their life’s mission” - you made that up. I said they devoted their life to it - given the numbers I hear about working hours at Meta, they literally do just that.
> Since Reddit itself is entirely text-based, it remains accessible and efficient, and appending site:reddit.com is still the best way to make Google search queries return anything approaching useful.
This is nonsense, trivially proven by looking up literally anything you actually understand. Everything is tired, stupid memes, outright incorrect information, or 16 year olds pretending to authoritatively give recommendations on things they don’t know anything about.
The only people who still think Reddit has particularly useful information or the people still most susceptible to not understanding misinformation in the first place.
And that’s to say nothing about the clear prevalence of bots and AI on any sub with more than 20 people.
Alot of words to reach conclusions already often arrived at over the past few years, but ok. Many realized Fediverse isn't it and moved on, but also fine for some to still congregate around their respective instances and communities and have their space too. Small/indie web etc etc. It's just not the broad social network some might have been looking for beyond X. That being said no "direct experience using Twitter" raises how OP has any real insights into this at all really. Also avoiding Bluesky or saying ATProto kind of a big hole here, but at least mentioned as maybe possibility and that's not the main subject of the post. Carry on.
ATProto is not the answer either in my opinion. What the all get wrong is a privacy, community based experience first. They have all tried to create a new public commons they dominate.
> On Facebook, I am beholden to the whims of men in suits who have gleefully incinerated the mental and emotional stability of billions of people for the sake of making money.
Sorry what? Facebook/meta has a very diverse employee population, and very influential diversity groups.
People of all kinds (men, women, lgbtiq+, binary and non-binary people) dressed in all kinds of way have contributed to “ gleefully incinerating the mental and emotional stability of billions of people for the sake of making money”
> Facebook/meta has a very diverse employee population
It’s incredibly fair to describe, in 2026, the Meta employee pool as an outwardly diverse set who have consistently traded morals for money in a project that has brought harm to children and democracies worldwide.
I have friends who work at Meta, and none of them are evil. But all of them are complicit in enabling and excusing the sociopathy of folks like Zuckerberg and Mosseri.
I'm coming to realize that the word evil has remarkably different meanings to different people. Some people consider evil to be the epitome of immorality, while some consider it anyone less than neutral, or anything that is complicated with a aspect that is less than neutral.
Part of this is black and white compression and modern drift towards superlatives.
However, I wonder if translation also plays a factor. For example German translates evil to böse, and you might also use that to describe a naughty child.
> the word evil has remarkably different meanings to different people. Some people consider evil to be the epitome of immorality, while some consider it anyone less than neutral, or anything that is complicated with a aspect that is less than neutral
I'm using it casually. They're still my friends, and I think they're trying to be good people. They know they're furthering an evil enterprise, but it's not clearly more evil than other job options, and they need to survive and try to do good where they can. (They're all looking for an exit.)
I think your final statement outright negates the prior one. You cannot devote your working life to making teenage girls depressed and teenage boys angry and not be evil.
You just think they wear nice masks when they’re at home.
Do you think they actually view that as their life's mission?
If someone can live two lives or wear to masks, then which one is real? Maybe it is at work when they are wearing the mask?
I did not say they “made it their life’s mission” - you made that up. I said they devoted their life to it - given the numbers I hear about working hours at Meta, they literally do just that.
> Since Reddit itself is entirely text-based, it remains accessible and efficient, and appending site:reddit.com is still the best way to make Google search queries return anything approaching useful.
This is nonsense, trivially proven by looking up literally anything you actually understand. Everything is tired, stupid memes, outright incorrect information, or 16 year olds pretending to authoritatively give recommendations on things they don’t know anything about.
The only people who still think Reddit has particularly useful information or the people still most susceptible to not understanding misinformation in the first place.
And that’s to say nothing about the clear prevalence of bots and AI on any sub with more than 20 people.