The depressing stickiness of the service formerly known as Twitter

I assumed that people would abandon Twitter after Elon took over. Many people I followed moved to Mastodon, Bluesky or Threads. I moved, closing my account, but many Twitter users that I knew stayed. Even the ones that hate everything that Elon stands for. Even the ones who hate his bullshit white nationalist politics. Even after… everything.

It’s depressing, but the truth is that for many people, social media is an audience game, and it’s tough to abandon an audience. It’s even tougher to build a new audience. And people did the math, and sadly decided to stay.

I left Twitter and don’t regret it. I’m scaling back my Meta usage significantly. I don’t think these large social media companies are good for society. I’m content with alternative social media platforms, but I have to at least acknowledge that many, many, many people love these services. Even if they know the social media services are harmful to themselves and society, they won’t move to a new service. That’s tough to reconcile.

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Bob Wertz is a type designer, Ph.D. student and researcher living in Columbia, South Carolina. He’s been blogging since 2008.