I’m currently using a four-hour flight back to Toronto to get my Notion setup sorted out, and to do a bunch of thinking and writing about how I want to structure things going forward and to generally simplify and streamline my online world.

In short, it’ll be less Twitter, more micro.blog. Less running blog, more micro.blog. It’ll also be more private journalling (in Notion) and more note-taking and capturing of thoughts, ideas and plans privately, but online.

I’ve disconnected my Twitter from micro.blog and taken it private (and kicked a bunch of followers I didn’t either know or interact with). I’ll continue to use it as an information source but not as a place to post or share. Quite honestly, I don’t see a long-term future for the service if the plan is to start charging companies and journalists/news outlets to use it.

Mastodon was a short-lived experiment that ended after about a week. The experience there is just a mess. Federation is not the solution. As I did in the past, I found Mastodon to be a whole bunch of people that I didn’t really want to interact with and who have different ideas and perspectives from mine. To each their own…no judgement…it’s just not a place for me.

I’ve also decided to fold my running blog for a few reasons. Mostly I’m done training for a race for a bit and I don’t have much to share. Those who want to follow me as a runner can do so via Strava instead. I’ll archive off those posts and put the content into Notion for posterity-sake.

Instagram will remain as I enjoy posting the odd photo there and also seeing the photos of my friends as they post theirs. I don’t follow brands or anything like that since in my mind Instagram is for personal photos not for advertising.

That leaves this micro.blog which is really just a stand-in for a more formal personal blog. It’s a stress-free place to post short things or long things and to have a bit of a website too. If nobody reads it, that’s fine. If they do, that’s also fine.

Community is what people look for online, and in real life. The big problem with Twitter is that there’s not an effective way for communities to section off and interact. It’s a loud stadium full of people of all interests, all trying (and failing) to effectively communicate. Broadcasters (literal and figurative) do well on Twitter because they are only interested in one-way communication. Think news networks or celebrities looking to easily push out information to the masses. Once the information is pushed, the broadcaster doesn’t care about the discussion. Show me a news Twitter account that interacts. They don’t exist.

Mastodon attempts to solve for this shortcoming in Twitter by putting users into smaller interest-based communities, while maintaining the ability to participate outside of your chosen community through federation. That federation can feel like cross-talk sometimes, while at other times it can be more like an invasion depending on the sizes of the communities involved.

Is there a solution to this? I’m not sure. Discord might be one, but it favours community discussion over broadcast and I think a lot of people are actually seeking out that broadcast type system (either as a broadcaster, or reciever).

The web has become too difficult for the average person. The whole idea of self-hosting or easy publishing of your site or content is largely gone. WordPress is way too complicated to install and use. Proprietary site builders lock your content away into their systems. The cost of having your own presence is getting out of control and driving the average hobbiest away.

I’ve switched over to micro.blog (using my own domain) as a way to take back some control. It’s $5/month, including custom domain mapping. The content is stored in an easy-to-export format. The templates are simple and easy.

We need less of web3 and more of a return to the web that we had in the late 90’s.