I really want to find a place to easily share images and updates that are “private”, as in not something I want to be available to anyone on the web.
Didn’t Tumblr used to have a way to restrict a blog to have to request to follow and only make a blog visible to those permitted followers?
The password protected blog option seems messy, as it won’t show up for permitted users they’d still have to manually go check the blog to see if there’s an update.
Even running my own Wordpress doesn’t _quite_ do it.
Maybe I just need to fire up a small mastodon instance on a Raspberry Pi from my home connection 😝
Cast your kind back a couple of decades. The internet is a thing, "social media" hasn't really evolved yet, and those online spend much of their online "socialising" time is spent on forums, IRC, early instant messaging platforms. If we had something to say, or share, we wrote a blog. Broadly we were happy. Flame wars still happened but were contained and easily avoided if you wanted nothing to do with them.
Then everything changed.
Somehow we all got swept up in the endless pull of the "attention economy", feverishly posting and sharing then being drawn in to arguments as each social media platform figured the most effective way to keep you looking at them was to keep you "engaged". Problem is that getting people angry is a really effective way to keep people engaged. So the platforms push more and more of what kept us angry, and make bank mining as much information about each of us as possible.
There is a better way.
We can take a step back. We can return to The Old Ways, but with current technologies it's easier than ever.
These are a few of my thoughts on how we can do this better while keeping in touch:
Start a blog! Tumblr is super easy to use, & has a lot of features you'd expect having been on social networks like commenting, mobile app, nice formatting of posts if you throw in pictures etc.. You can follow others directly on Tumblr or use an RSS feed (more on that shortly). You can also have multiple blogs on Tumblr for personal posts, pets, a hobby if you like and each can have it's own privacy settings.
If you want a little more control (albeit with a little less finesse in making new posts) you can try a WordPress blog. You can pay for hosting and get full control (and some enhanced features), or take a free blog at WordPress.com . Like Tumblr you can follow others on Wordpress if you are also on there or can get people's updates via RSS or email.
Email! Yes email is still a thing, and I guarantee everyone you know who has any online activity has an address. Don't want to write a blog but still want to let friends and family know what you're up to? Write an email newsletter (as often as you like) & send it out to them (just remember to use the BCC field when sending so you don't give everyone's email addresses to each other without their consent). You could even write a personal blog and share the link to a new post via email too.
Group chats. Many of us have WhatsApp, Telegram, maybe iMessage (urgh) of Facebook messenger. These all have group chat features where you can gather groups of friends and or family to chat.
Try a different social media platform. There are open source alternatives like Mastodon that offer the full social media experience without the data harvesting & suspicious algorithms. But to be honest though they're somewhat flakey, involve a learning curve & probably don't have anyone you already know on them. It's difficult to get people to try a whole new social network (which is weird given they tried Facebook once and seemed to stay..) so unless you're interested in the topics of a niche server these probably aren't offering much to most just now.
An old-school forum. You know the drill, create a log on, start posting new topics and get a conversation going. This sort of has the same challenge as alternative social networks. Difficult to get people to come along and engage. I tried it a few months ago, opening a fresh new forum, but it fizzled out pretty fast.
I'm really leaning towards options 1 and 2. I can post without needing to convince others to come along. I can share what I've posted to other existing social networks if I chose, and no one needs an account to follow or see me.
RSS is a great solution to following what friends are posting wether that's on a tumblr blog, a Wordpress one, or another one somewhere else entirely. RSS is a standard (that Twitter and Facebook both dropped, to their shame) that allows you to “subscribe” to any blog or website that offers an RSS feed. You can load that all onto an app and either scroll a timeline feed of posts or read by each website. All under your control, no adverts added, no algorithms pushing an attention-seeking agenda, no Russian (or any other) trolls sewing division. Just the content you want to see.
It doesn’t need to just be friends’ blogs either. Almost every news service, or technology or gaming or cars or any other blog, offers an RSS feed you can add into the mix. You can curate your own controlled collection of what you want to see and avoid all the toxicity.
Netflix Original: Pushing Away Customers While They’re Already Leaving
I saw a couple of news articles about Netflix today. The first was noting that for the first time in a decade Netflix has actually lost subscribers. Many of us are acutely aware of the ongoing rising cost of living, which will be forcing folk to assess their subscriptions. Of course there were plenty who joined during pandemic lockdowns who maybe are using it less now.
The firm hints at a crackdown on password sharing, after losing 200,000 members in the first quarter of 2022.
Netflix has been willing to turn a blind eye toward password sharing when it was growing subscribers, but losing customers can change behavi
Then there was another suggesting that Netflix is looking to embark on a “crackdown” on account password sharing. That’s a stark change in attitude from their past position on this, and is a catastrophically bad time to start to give customers more reasons to leave.
Incredibly Netflix are also now, in the face of personal financial crisis for many of the customers and while they’re actively losing subscribers, jacking up the price by 10%.
Money is tight. So sharing streaming services is a great way to spread the load. I imagine Netflix thinks preventing password sharing will result in all those mooching off others to suddenly become paying customers, where the reality is the paying account holder will likely cancel.
Add to this the knowledge that Amazon Prime are making no attempt to curtail account sharing, and that the terms of service for Disney+ also permit the practice, this just makes Netflix look uncompetitive.
I suspect this is saber rattling though, probably up placate panicking content rights holders. Spotify have made the same noise in the past about ensuing their family plan is only used by people sharing a physical house, which hasn’t come to pass.
The point Netflix may be missing is that their competition is not purely other commercial streaming services but also piracy. Streaming has been becoming fragmented and more expensive. With too many services, viewers may struggle to access to the shows they want or maybe even remember which service it’s on. Streaming is coming difficult to use. That, and financial constraints, will push more back to piracy - which is trivial to do with no consequences.
So this isn’t owned by Facebook, perhaps I should encourage folk over here as a middle ground between Meta’s nonsense & the learning curve of the fediverse 🤔
I can't say I'm surprised but it's still disappointing. Many have been so quick to clamour to get back to "normal" that they haven't stopped to consider if the old normal is worth returning to.
Leicester sees hundreds of confirmed cases in two weeks, while an outbreak in Yorkshire is reported.
