Not going to say I was an early adopter but as social media came along, I gave pretty much every platform a go at some point or another. Possibly naively, this was like the the wild west days of the web all over again in that there was a lot of interesting ideas and this massive groundswell of people wanting to share with their friends or the world more than ever before.

The early days of Facebook, posting about your breakfast and having friends reply was fun. Instagram vs Hipstamatic all about adding fun filters to your photos because a cool thing to share images through. Obviously things change. The platforms have their battles with competitors and what once felt new and innovative because the norm and then we end up with very little really differentiating between platforms.

Alongside this, the acquisitions and changes in the companies that made these products changed things. Over those years, it’s not just tempered by use of certain platforms but the whole will to share. What once felt fun and about human relationships just doesn’t. The algorithms that change aren’t for our benefit. Even before AI crap, the structures became increasingly focused on what got the most engagement or influence…so not the good wholesome stuff.

I’m not naive enough to think that ‘the good times’ would last forever but it saddens me that we’re the poorer for it and that as an individual I don’t feel comfortable sharing as much or in as much depth as I once did (perhaps that’s no bad thing). Neither is this purely ‘all corporations evil’. I mean, they might be but it’s more about that original spirit of the web about open standards, spaces for everyone to be whoever they wanted to be and make new connections with likeminded people in a global setting.

Maybe it’s just the thoughts of a old man shaking his fists at the sky!