@oatmeal 😂 I'm laughing but inside I'm crying

@oatmeal brilliant!

@oatmeal @dylansale im so sorry

@oatmeal
I have been trying to find this excellent cartoon for multiple eternities, thanks for posting it!

(yes, I should have remembered it was one of yours, but…)

@oatmeal I strongly oppose the management choices EM has been making at the bird site, in style and substance, but this art illustrates the idea behind his catchy "freedom of speech but not reach".

@oatmeal I was annoyed that my bf would never see my posts in their news feeds so I would have to tag them. That was crazy.

@oatmeal Note to business owners - when your "website" is on Facebook, I for one will never see it.

@oatmeal thank sweet Jesus you're on Mastodon. Maybe I'll stay a bit longer.

#hope

@oatmeal thanks for being here

@oatmeal yay you are here, I can now unfollow you on the F site

@oatmeal Ding! Ding! Ding!

@oatmeal no wait let's all move to Hive 🤪

@oatmeal That can 100% be applied to Twitter too, views are terrible on it

@oatmeal have you considered adding alt text for those who can't or won't see your images? I don't see descriptions for the first two, hilarious and on point, comics you posted. Welcome to Mastodon and keep up the great work!

@oatmeal Good thing about the Masto is that by design it can’t (and won’t) become a walled garden. Our concept of being social at social media has long been grossly distorted and manipulated by big corporations algorithm’ing and monetizing our interactions to make a quick buck… and there’s so much we must unlearn in order to re-learn, if you catch my drift 😉

@oatmeal also read: their Instagram platform. And when you want a website there's paid-for Squarespace, Wix et al..... just, URGH!

@oatmeal so glad to see you here :)

@oatmeal back to square 1

@oatmeal hey!!

@oatmeal lmao open. Thee. Doooors. “I’m sorry. Use our stories feature instead”

@oatmeal Pretty relevant

@oatmeal as a content creator YES.

@oatmeal

Ain't that the truth.

@oatmeal people used to find you... by search engines, forums, links (remember rings?)...

https://www.mic.com/impact/how-geocities-webrings-made-the-90s-internet-a-cozier-place-19638198

@oatmeal We are always looking for you though!

@oatmeal true dat.

@oatmeal And yes, it's very true

@oatmeal So true!

@oatmeal agreed. I subscribed to your list, btw, and I never subscribe to lists.

@oatmeal and it was predicted then

@oatmeal

Have a boost.
For free.

@oatmeal Spot on!

@oatmeal

WELCOME! So glad you are here!!

@oatmeal
@bart

@oatmeal
The history of blogging

@oatmeal I am very happy that I don't have to endure the bullshit of every idiot in the world. I like my Fediverse bubble 🤗.

@oatmeal Since you are such a large account, please strongly consider adding graphic descriptions to your comics in the future.
There are quite a few visually impaired people actively using this network.
Thank you!

@oatmeal OMG this is so true :agoogleclap:

@oatmeal
I really missed some of your stuff and I'm checking my Feed pretty often. Will try to fix this.

@oatmeal I tried to order local custom pastries for Xmas. They are only on FB. I've never been on FB

In the photo albums I found a PDF that had a phone number (hidden by a "log in to FB" button, unfortunately) and an email address

They did take my order by email, but it took 3 days to place the order

When I got there, they couldn't find my order for some filing reason related to the above

Please, FTLOG, just make a regular website with a regular phone #. It's like $10/mo.

@oatmeal I use your (this) comic enytime to promote the fediverse and other uncomercial decentralized internet services in my workshops, of course with a hint (link) to your website.

@oatmeal So true. May I reblog this on my personal blog of course with credits to you and backlink? 😃 want to post a short one about why I keep a blog in 2023.

In the same vein, everyone seems to be heading for the big instances. Admins of some big instances imposing their diktat on small instances isn’t very far off.

@oatmeal I think you nailed it. Its the latest version of bait and switch

@oatmeal It would be friendly to add alt text, so that everyone could engage with it.

@oatmeal So true! 😰

@oatmeal yup, I released a new episode of my podcast this Saturday, and that's pretty much my experience.

It used to be simple to create a FB post on my show's FB page and share it on all the relevant FB groups I'm part of.

This Saturday, I just couldn't work out how to do it again.

Add to that the fact that I don't use FB for anything anymore but try to post about my show.

It doesn't feel like friends from my community use it anymore either. 🤷

@oatmeal

It's time to return to Matt's Website.

@oatmeal I’m not sure when you first wrote this comic, but it feels like years ago that I saw it and I’ve been trying to track it down ever since - it so perfectly captures the marketing approach of social media sites, and it’s horrid. (The social media, not you of course!)

@oatmeal You forgot webrings.

"If you like my stuff, you can go left or right to my friends' stores also which also have cool stuff."

@oatmeal So glad to see you attempt at de-enshittification*

*see @doctorow - https://pluralistic.net/2023/01/21/potemkin-ai/

@oatmeal we might be in need of a Twitter version of this now :P

@oatmeal REBUILD ANEW! I say fuck web 2.0 and let's all make HTML 4 websites withs 8 bit colour tiled gif backgrounds and web rings and guest books and shit.

You remember the joy?

I remember the joy.

@oatmeal i miss LiveJournal.

@oatmeal I miss websites.

@oatmeal yes... I miss the old Internet...

@oatmeal indeed, reaching each other is what is all about! Best we don't let large companies get in our way 😉

@oatmeal Nobody could predict that giving the control of your communications and content to a third party coud go wrong, right ?

@oatmeal

I miss the "every site has RSS for easy follow" era!

@oatmeal
Enshitification in 4 panels.

@oatmeal it's why mailing lists are still so valuable to anyone building an audience

@oatmeal So true -- that's why it's best to post on a variety of social media. The tech titans are all schmucks.

@oatmeal Yes, this is still being boosted, months later. Which says a lot.

@oatmeal I had subscribed to your emails for that reason!

@oatmeal @AeonMach That’s the main reason I left Facebook a few years back. My website had 50,000 followers, but I was lucky if a post reached a few hundred of them. Facebook made it so there was no point being there.

@oatmeal wooo the best draw of the week, simple and amazing ! pure and essentially the current state of internet.

I think the best way to handle blogs and followers is to have your blog support RSS and ActivityPub so people on the Fediverse can easily follow it. And non-fedi followers can comment by making an account on your blog that's secretly also a fediverse account.

The only downside is that now you're not just hosting a blog but also a fediverse server.

It would surprise me if the system for this didn't already exist.

@oatmeal a "old" one but now more actuel 👍

@oatmeal Good visual description of @pluralistic 's enshittification theory.