Having the most users is great until you realize that’s how Twitter became… Well. Twitter. Before Musk it was still a shit show, with a whole lot of alt right BS going on. It’s gotten worse since he bought it but this is the late stage for platforms like this.
As in, part of the enshittification process that brought a lot of us to places like mastodon and Lemmy had to do with social media relying on being wide spread and giving a lot of people (who probably shouldn’t have a platform that reaches the masses) a platform that then proliferates things like conspiracy theories and hate. Additionally though, they survive off ad revenue and have investors which generally makes them sooner or later hostile towards the users so that the investors can benefit from a profitable platform.
Yes, they have the most users and the most cultural significance.
Having the most users is great until you realize that’s how Twitter became… Well. Twitter. Before Musk it was still a shit show, with a whole lot of alt right BS going on. It’s gotten worse since he bought it but this is the late stage for platforms like this.
What
As in, part of the enshittification process that brought a lot of us to places like mastodon and Lemmy had to do with social media relying on being wide spread and giving a lot of people (who probably shouldn’t have a platform that reaches the masses) a platform that then proliferates things like conspiracy theories and hate. Additionally though, they survive off ad revenue and have investors which generally makes them sooner or later hostile towards the users so that the investors can benefit from a profitable platform.