I feel bad for them too, but that’s why people who have been around since the early internet were against this “running your business on another businesses property” model. Sure, it made it easier to get eyes on your products, but you’re always at the mercy of changing business models from the owner or the business failing.
Like, if Twitter just went bankrupt today and everything was sold off and servers shut down, I would feel bad for them, but they literally made the choice to bank their entire careers on the private property of someone else.
When it comes to a business with a physical presence this can be a lot harder, because you’re almost always stuck leasing a spot, and are rarely lucky enough to own the property you’re running your business on. This fact is a huge reason why most small businesses fail in the first five years, because the costs of running your business on someone else’s property are insanely high and leave for thin margins on profit.
Sure a website isn’t free, but it’s a lot less costly than a physical business space. It’s more costly than a Twitter profile, but the stability of knowing you can count on your site is a lot different. Just make sure you’re self-hosting or signing up with a hosting provider who won’t disappear overnight, because going with a hosting provider runs some of the same risks, although fewer since “hosting” is their business, whereas Twitter isn’t directly in the business of promoting creators. Hosting providers have a little more incentive to not change things to fuck over their customers, just barely though.
Ehh… I definitely see the possible pitfals of relying too much in any single private platform, but trying to blame them for putting their work there is not reasonable. It’s good have your own website as a backup, but you can’t get good discoverability with just that. To promote that as an alternative to a Twitter or Instagram page is not good marketing advice, no matter how idealistic one might be about self-hosting.
To run a business, the owner needs to get it where people are. Unfortunately most people on the internet are on privately-owned social media.
The Fediverse allows for a much needed middle-ground between self-hosted content and public engagement, but even then it still needs much wider adoption to be as viable as a platform for creators as corporate social media is now.
Good points, I didn’t mean to insinuate that you couldn’t have a website and a Twitter profile. In fact, I think having your own site as a backup and expanding into social media spaces is good business sense, like you’re saying.
I just think it’s sadly unfortunate for a lot of folks who don’t have a fallback plan and they hung everything on social media. Maybe they really didn’t have the resources or knowledge to put together their own website, not everyone does. It’s just… more accessible than flat out having to have a physical space.
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I feel bad for them too, but that’s why people who have been around since the early internet were against this “running your business on another businesses property” model. Sure, it made it easier to get eyes on your products, but you’re always at the mercy of changing business models from the owner or the business failing.
Like, if Twitter just went bankrupt today and everything was sold off and servers shut down, I would feel bad for them, but they literally made the choice to bank their entire careers on the private property of someone else.
When it comes to a business with a physical presence this can be a lot harder, because you’re almost always stuck leasing a spot, and are rarely lucky enough to own the property you’re running your business on. This fact is a huge reason why most small businesses fail in the first five years, because the costs of running your business on someone else’s property are insanely high and leave for thin margins on profit.
Sure a website isn’t free, but it’s a lot less costly than a physical business space. It’s more costly than a Twitter profile, but the stability of knowing you can count on your site is a lot different. Just make sure you’re self-hosting or signing up with a hosting provider who won’t disappear overnight, because going with a hosting provider runs some of the same risks, although fewer since “hosting” is their business, whereas Twitter isn’t directly in the business of promoting creators. Hosting providers have a little more incentive to not change things to fuck over their customers, just barely though.
Tenants have more legal rights as well compared to those that simply agreed to whatever terms an online service made up.
Excellent point, it’s just way way more costly, sadly, and limits your reach to locals.
Ehh… I definitely see the possible pitfals of relying too much in any single private platform, but trying to blame them for putting their work there is not reasonable. It’s good have your own website as a backup, but you can’t get good discoverability with just that. To promote that as an alternative to a Twitter or Instagram page is not good marketing advice, no matter how idealistic one might be about self-hosting.
To run a business, the owner needs to get it where people are. Unfortunately most people on the internet are on privately-owned social media.
The Fediverse allows for a much needed middle-ground between self-hosted content and public engagement, but even then it still needs much wider adoption to be as viable as a platform for creators as corporate social media is now.
Network effects are always what drive online services.
Good points, I didn’t mean to insinuate that you couldn’t have a website and a Twitter profile. In fact, I think having your own site as a backup and expanding into social media spaces is good business sense, like you’re saying.
I just think it’s sadly unfortunate for a lot of folks who don’t have a fallback plan and they hung everything on social media. Maybe they really didn’t have the resources or knowledge to put together their own website, not everyone does. It’s just… more accessible than flat out having to have a physical space.