To Be or Not To Be (On Threads)

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There are a lot of good arguments as to why you shouldn’t be on Threads, or any Meta-owned social media, for that matter. Zuck is storing your info, selling it to advertisers, and using it to tailor ads to you to be ever-more invasive in your digital life. And, you know, who knows what else. If you’re nearing the age of 40, like me, you’ve probably already had a Facebook account, and can probably also remember when it first opened its doors to the masses (oh god, am I old?) But, should you be there? Is it too late?

Everyone knows I love Mastodon, despite the issues I’ve had with a handful of instances who have treated my presence … not so well. The open internet, tied to protocols and Linux, is the future. And there’s no way around that. So much so, Meta recognizes this, and is still actively working on its full integration of ActivityPub (even though many see it as a ploy to vacuum up the data of fediverse users).

Despite that, many instances are blocking Threads.net. My instance wasn’t, and then was, and now isn’t, again. Why?

I’m someone who sort of, subjects my online presence to testing new things, and then writing about it, on sort of a frequent basis. If you’re reading this, and you’ve been reading my blog for a while now, you probably remember when I jumped into Nostr for a while … and then later discovered that, despite a few cool people, it’s mostly just Bitcoin addicts, and extremists who want to say slurs, unhindered. And you also probably already know, I’ve tried Bluesky multiple times, to the tune of being harassed by jerks on multiple occasions, for seemingly no reason.

And I remain an instance admin on ActivityPub, despite its personal cost to my wallet, because I feel this is the best answer to my online presence … or is it?

I recently shared a post on Threads that currently has half a million views and 1,600 likes. That’s … a lot.

I’ve also been sharing my work, and then things I do, on Mastodon, for months, uh … years, actually. And, for a while, I could say that most of the support I ever see for any of my work, be it music, coding, or writing, has been from Mastodon.

But, I can’t deny, that lately, in the past couple of months, it’s starting to look like that may no longer end up being the case. Albeit, I haven’t really shared much of my work on Threads, but if a post in support of Luigi Mangione can get half a million impressions, then surely I could find a way to put my next album, or book, in front of just as many eyes.

Which brings me to an impasse.

I’m very stringent about committing to Linux, committing to open source, and privacy, and taking back the internet. But, at exactly the same time, I want to make a future for myself that involves the extracurricular work that I do at home becoming my main source of income. And if I’m seeing months of next to no reaction to those things on the platform that I actually want to commit to, what am I supposed to think?

Do I just really suck at being interesting? Are the things I do just not interesting to the average Joe, or average Mastodon user?

Of course, I’m not just on Mastodon to share my work. I’m there to talk. connect, build, make friends. But it’s also very important that what I do is seen by people, you know? And this isn’t to say that there’s no one on Mastodon. There are plenty of people there. Somewhere around 15-20 million people.

And then also at the same time, that post with half the population of a town viewing it, this hasn’t really resulted in any … results? For my presence there? I don’t have half a million follows. I’m not noticing a huge uptick in traffic to my website.

Just now someone on Mastodon tells me, that Meta clout is more akin to gambling, than anything. And you know, that’s probably completely correct.

I don’t know. Maybe it’s something that I’m overthinking. Maybe I should walk away from Meta. But, as much as I’m capable of doing my offline job now, I may not always be capable, and eventually I’m going to need something else. And I really need that something else to be the things I’ve already been doing, for years.