I can't help but shake the feeling that everything I do and say here will be ephemeral. The fact that everything is hosted on an instance, run by either a person or a handful of people means that once the instance is no longer properly maintained, my contributions are either gone or trapped here.
Granted, I know that I can forward things like my followers to a new account on a new instance, but it still feels incredibly messy in terms of a long-term social solution.
I originally started using Facebook as my social network of choice because I knew it'd be around in the long term. I used it as a sort of public diary that helped me not only log my life as it happened, but also keep up with friends along the way. I (mostly) moved to Twitter when I realized how terrible Facebook was becoming, and it was a pretty easy drop-in replacement.
I don't really see Mastodon filling that need any time soon (although I hope to be proven wrong). But it's why I'm considering scaling back my social presence and using a private journal for this sort of thing instead. The reason I haven't already started is because it'd be difficult to let go of the social aspect of all of this. I keep up with a lot of friends this way, sometimes exclusively. So it's going to be a struggle for me to pick a single solution going forward.
@zak I am more hopeful the distributed management of mastodon is a strongness rather than weakness. But I am also in the opinion that for the personal ”content” that is public, a personal website where I have clear control and ownership is good and where I store public content. But sure, some sort of content is of course on others platforms. Maybe you should consider to run your own instance.
@zak So, it seems as at least to considerations on social media; why and what and for whom I publish on social media, and secondly we cannot trust social media will store for me especially when I not pay them (another issue is of course everything they store (and share) that I do not want them to store.
@hehemrin This is true, but I've absolutely been spoiled by the simplicity and ease of use of large, public social networks. Why put in that effort if the solution has been built for me? And if that solution disappears, why put in that effort to make my personal ramblings only somewhat public and interactive when I could just easily keep them private? If anything, I lose the social aspect, but I gain the benefit of privacy and encryption that's entirely under my own control.
I don't know. I'm still sort of struggling with the whole situation. I don't see myself maintaining a personal hosted solution, though, if not only because of the additional effort required.