 While everyone's being nostalgic about what Twitter means to them, I may as well add my two cents. I didn't give birth to Twitter – that was Jack and Florian. But I was its midwife and adoptive mother; for two months in early 2007, I was the code's sole guardian and caretaker. I was also the first person to hate Twitter; back when it was SMS-only, I did the math and realized that my immigrant prepaid phone plan would charge me $2000/year to send and receive even a 2006-era number of tweets. 🧵 55 comments
Twitter – the concept, not the collection of servers and contracts and code – is something so much bigger than a job. It's the most visceral representation of human communication and ideas that we've ever created. And how do you let *that* go? (no seriously, if you've got ideas!) That's another aspect to this that is so poignant for me, personally. I tried to make Twitter better. I tried to make Twitter the fediverse, back in 2008, and after I failed, I left and tried to make the fediverse a thing without Twitter. That was not an easy task. For a long time, I truly felt it was my fault, personally, that we failed. The enormity of Twitter became oppressive, because it was so obviously the wrong thing, corrupted from its potential by capital and a lack of imagination. Seeing Mastodon and the fediverse succeed today is deeply gratifying and hopeful for me. It's imperfect and early, but watching thousands of people birth communities that they can nurture and shape and watch grow and evolve, after so many years hoping and dreaming of this ... Well, it's not a feeling I can easily express. It feels like Spring. And the Winter, on Twitter – there's a feeling of loss, but also clarity. The trees laid bare, the bright snow on the ground. It's space for less, before something new. A former job was at another Great Empire of Culture, from a previous century. I realized there that technology has more in common with the past than we admit. It, too, is a fashion industry. Styles and fame come and go, inevitably. The constant is us: the communities we nurture, the culture we create. The space we cherish is just a vessel for those. It hasn't always been an easy ride, but I'm delighted that this place has been one of those cherished spaces, and proud of the role I played. ❤️🪺 @blaine I call your era "The o_O era." Thank you for your work — it defined my 20s, and helped me find my own kind in a new, unfamiliar, and otherwised cloistered city (Pittsburgh). Glad to see that the spirit of this early era lives on here, at Masto.  @blaine so many feels from this thread just as someone who was a _user_ for 15 years. Thank you for writing it 🙏 @blaine this is such a beautiful testament to what could have been — and what will be. I want to think society has learned a lesson from the corruption of capital and the harms of ad-driven design. Even if only a few of us learned, I’ll cherish that found community.  @blaine Will it help you get emotional distance from Twitter if I blame you for wrecking IRC? If not just ignore me. 😂 Either way thanks for fixing it!  @blaine I’m an amateur, so forgive me, pls. But since you’re asking: your expertise and your vision are not gone. What’s gone is the TT era. It’s time to move on. In other words: your creativity is not dependent on the existence of TT. Allow yourself to descend deeper, on that visceral ladder.  @blaine this has been the most difficult thing for me. I’ve been on TW for 13+ yrs, nurturing a diverse community of exceedingly intelligent, funny, kind ppl, from whom I learned much. “Replacing” that is impossible. @blaine my sneakers used to hurt my feet but then i saw this infographic that said if you have a "high instep" you should lace them this special way. i tried it and my feet didn't hurt any more. if the internet had never been invented i would probably have sort feet still. my vision is that one day everyone will have feet that don't hurt.
@blaine Thanks for caring about Twitter - and the fediverse, and for contributing to all of *this* stuff. Twitter's been a big part of my life - I've met a whole bunch of awesome people there. Thank you for helping make that happen. @blaine Twitter is how I got interested in tech more deeply. It’s how I got my internship on a U.S. Senate Campaign. And it’s how I was able to run for Wisconsin State Assembly as a 20 year old. I’m not sure how I’m feeling about it’s seemingly inevitable death, but I’m so thankful for all the opportunities it opened up for me. @blaine it's because of the SMS tweets that I developed a PHP script to post to Irish phone company websites that offered free online SMS texts. I used those to post to Twitter back in the day from my phone! @blaine ,Pin This & More Look Here Too On Most #Fediverse #Mastodon Profiles Too, & Stops It Dropping In Many #Toots Posting Sections Of All Accounts To Too :) 😀 Thanks For Kind Follow To Too :) Welcome To Too :) @blaine ,Create An Pinned 📌📍 #Inductions / #Induction / #Introductions / #Introduction Too, Which Helps Others Find You/Us & Often We All Try Put In Pinned So They Don't Get Drowned Out By Yours/Ours MAIN Mastodon Posting Areas Too :) 😀 JOIN Happy #FF / Happy #FollowFriday ,Every #Fridays Obviously Too :) 😀   @blaine thank you for your part, and hard work. I had a great time there, even two months ago. It was great, could have been better, but worth the time there.   @asjmcguire @blaine ah that makes sense. I've lost touch with sms. I use Signal most of the time for friends and family. @blaine I really never understood the reason why US mobile operators charged for received SMS instead of sent SMS like in Europe. @nosuchuser I got a really cynical answer from a telco exec once (because even charging to send is a horrible theft): "That billing infrastructure was *expensive*" 😡 @blaine yeah, back in the time it cost zero to send/receive as it was almost out of band and reused the signaling infra. at some point, that became obsolete and now SMS is being delivered over IP - as everything else, to be honest . And telco HW companies keep milking the cow selling and licensing SMS<>IP gateways to maintain legacy. What a wonderful thread. I like the imagery that here on Mastodon it feels like Spring, green hopeful shoots. Whereas on Twitter it feels like winter.  @blaine Oh yes! I forgot that the first iteration was SMS only. Thanks for your contribution to making Twitter real back then. Following you now to hear where you think the Fediverse is headed. |
Gregory's Server
But, eventually, I came to love it, and it's lived rent-free in my head ever since. In so many ways, it defines me as much as I want it not to. It's a relationship that's unreciprocated – the job will never love you back. A friend used to say that I didn't owe it anything, but ...