[This post and its associated comments were originally published on Cohost.]
As the year ends, I thought about why I like this site and why I’m posting so much on it. Please indulge me while I ramble a bit.
First, Cohost is a good match with my writing style. I’m not the sort of person who can think fast and post snappy one-liners in response to the latest thing. That’s in large part what Twitter rewards, and I don’t see the various Twitter substitutes (Mastodon, Post, Hive, etc.) being any different. I once spent almost a year writing a single blog post because I felt I didn’t know enough about the topic to not embarrass myself. (Here it is, in case you’re curious; math, programming, and design fans might like it.)
Second, I like to have an audience, but I don’t need a big audience. Writing at my “official” site allowed to me to write at length, but I felt like I was shouting into the void—especially since I didn’t provide a way for people to add comments. To remedy that, I tried out Substack for a while. The problem there was that I didn’t feel like joining in the obsession with growing and (especially) monetizing your subscriber list that was promoted by the site’s owners. Here on Cohost I have about 3 dozen followers, which is enough for me to get an occasional like—or even a comment or two—to motivate me to continue writing.
(I also make a point of following everyone who follows me. That to me makes this place feel more like a community—or even someplace that might one day spawn a “scenius,” to use Brian Eno’s term. If you follow me and I don’t show up in your own followers list, and you are OK with me following you, please tell me in a comment—or even just like this post, so I’ll know to check—and I’ll remedy that oversight.)
Third, I like the Cohost interface, which is simple and straightforward, and the use of Markdown, which I also use for my official blog. I tried Tumblr for a while, and maybe it was just my age showing, but I could never get how Tumblr was supposed to work.
Finally, I like supporting (relatively) small-scale endeavors run by folks who believe in what they’re doing and are not looking to ride exponential growth curves to fame and fortune. One of the great things about the present day is that the combination of low-cost computing and free and open source software makes it possible for sites to be created with a minimal investment.
But, they still need some financial support in order to continue running, and the existence of (nearly) global payment networks makes it possible for us to provide that support. So, if you can afford it and haven’t done so yet, please go to your Settings page and sign up for Cohost Plus!
That’s all for this year. Tomorrow I’ll celebrate the new year with a mega-post (split into 5 posts for readability) on one of my favorite films. In the meantime, Happy New Year to you all!
Noel B (@NoelBWrites) - 2022-12-31 13:55
I feel the exact same way about the audience bit
I want people to see what I write so they can comment on it! If I write about something it’s because it matters to me, and if it matters to me, I want to talk about it with people.
But I am not interested in “growing” an audience to the point that other platforms seem to encourage in order to “monetize” it. At a certain size, your audience is no longer people and it’s just an abstract number, if that makes sense. And with a large enough audience, comments and stuff stop being for you and start being for other people in the audience.
It’s like if there’s nobody to read your stuff you’re talking to an empty room. But if there’s too many people reading your stuff, you’re screaming from a pulpit and then hiding backstage. Either way feels lonely.
Frank Hecker (@hecker) - 2022-12-31 14:41
Your point about “comments and stuff stop being for you” is well-taken, and is definitely something I don’t like about Twitter: people replying to tweets (especially to tweets by people with a high follower count) as a way to show off how clever they are to other people following the original tweeter, hoping they can gain followers themselves.
exodrifter (@exodrifter) - 2024-12-31 14:16
I have pretty similar feelings to you and agree with almost everything you said about cohost. I never really got how Tumblr works despite being in its age demo and Twitter is much too short for my liking and I’ve resigned to use Twitter mostly as a way to push the equivalent of an RSS feed to whoever uses it. I really like how cohost somehow manages to land in the middle of high-effort and low-effort posting.
As for audience size, that’s something I’m struggling with in a different way. I want to grow, but my idea of growth is typically different from the platform’s idea of growth. For example: On Twitch they want you to gain more followers and subscribers, but I mostly just want more active chatters and fans so I can have an easier time sharing and marketing my completed games. Of course, making more money is great and that’s one of my goals too, but I think for me it is more important to have a healthy and active community even if it’s a smaller size.
It certainly doesn’t help that platforms use their own ideas of growth and what something “good” is in their recommendation engines to decide who gets seen more, and I’m very happy that cohost doesn’t really have anything like that.
Frank Hecker (@hecker) - 2022-12-31 00:09
“it is more important to have a healthy and active community even if it’s a smaller size.” Yes, exactly. Thanks for the comment!