My social media journey in order (don't think I'm missing any but probably am)
- BBS
- IRC
- UseNET
- phpBBs
- Flickr
- Digg
- YouTube
- Rumble
What we see is an increasing centralization and commercialisation from Flickr (bought out by Yahoo) where the users gave up not just content but wouldnuktimately be tracked by Facebook and Google everywhere they went, everything they did, all in the aim of crafting the general public's mindset (oh, it's just advertising? Advertising is propaganda!)
I killed, or the services died, almost all of the above. Still use Reddit for specific searches. Still check Xitter because of its reach and "news" content (ie, holy crap ₿ just dumped, why? Who did something? Xitter usually has a consensus answer before any other sources... For now). Still use YouTube but have Rumble for those who got silenced.
What's not on the list is this protocol here: NOSTR. I am completely loving it. It's taking me back to those BBS/IRC/UseNET days. No spam (yet), no ads, no cookies, user supported (SUPPORT! v4v!), high signal, and that everyday it seems some great one is developing an implementation to replace all those enterprises above.
This is the true PBS, brought to you by users like you.