So which would you say is the worse of the two, a mega fragmentation or a sole provider of information on the planet?  That's just meant rhetorically.
I do understand where you're coming from.  There are certainly a lot options for online interaction that I don't care to get into.  But I would say the same thing about shopping for cereal.  Why do I have to walk passed 800 boxes of all this fruity-garbage-whatever-the-heck-it-is to get to my Cheerios?! 

Your list of all the options reminded me of a person I used to work with.  It was just a general conversation, but we were talking and he was listing off all these televisions shows that he (regularly) watched.  The list had to be up around a dozen.  I've never been much of a television show watcher once I reached adulthood.  I've watched a few series on DVD, but as far as watching a show on television when it's actually airing, I haven't seen anything in probably more than a decade.  In that conversation with my coworker I was just thinking, 'How do you keep track of all that stuff mentally and manage to do anything else?'.  I think the same about some people today who are part of everyone social media option you could think of.  It's seems it would be so hectic that a person couldn't get any real value out of any one particular thing.

I think once a person has gone online and started any interaction with one of the big three (Google, Apple, Facebook), then yeah, you've certainly already surrendered a certain level of anything that could be considered "online privacy".  As far as relaxing and getting plugged in to other stuff, certain do the first part. 
And try out whatever you want for the second.  If you don't want to get into a certain thing, it's all good.  As mentioned, I'm not on Discord.  I'm not on Facebook either.  I know there's been some interesting conversations happen out there.  No doubt a lot of not so interesting stuff too.  Maybe some day I'll sign up and join a conversation in those parts of the web.  But it's not going to be for fear of missing something that's happening there.

With the posts on the social media board on this forum, I'm just trying to provide members and visitors options if they want to look for slinging content in whatever areas of the Internet they hang around.  There's no intent that folks should go and sign up for everything.  Just that it's there if you do want to check it out.

I think you're right in part about the cereal analogy, but I think it also still fits.   Ultimately people are consumers (literally and figuratively), and people are going to go after the newest and flashiest stuff.  Whether it's a rainbow colored high protein vegan friendly cereal, or the latest and greatest social media app that will find you more friends than you can shake a stick at.


xud9a - call me zud 👍 wrote on Feb 22^nd, 2025 at 6:45am:

I agree, but I think it's because of a shift in the way people gather information.  It's not slinging.org or FB Worldwide Slinging themselves that's the cause.  For the most part people want things quick and short.  After a minute or less they want to be scrolling, clicking, or moving on to the next thing.  Forums are slow.  You might have to go back and read a bunch of posts to catch up on a topic.  Then you reply, and then you wait.  Platforms that are more like instant messengers and chat are much more popular because you get responses/feedback more quickly.  Now I would agree that this forum is pretty slow these days, so a busier forum would get responses to posts more quickly.  But a forum is still more fitting for longer drawn out conversations that happen over a long stretch of time, as opposed to chat-based discussion where content is gone and forgotten as soon as it scrolls out of view being replaced by the newer messages.

This forum will keep chugging along.  People are more than welcome to spend their time in whatever online venues they want.  Slinging.org will always be here as long as there's a few folks posting some stuff.  I've actually been a little quiet myself lately.  Life has just been busy and I was sick for a long stretch.  I am working on a new video though.  I'm at the editing stage which is taking forever.  That should be coming in another week or so as I have time to get it done.

I'm glad you're one of the guys here Zud.  Cheers buddy.

In that final analysis I think yes, forums are more "businesslike" and qualitative.
Facebook and the like all surface and quantative.

Never forget, we should all eat sh1t as 80 trillion flies cannot possibly be wrong !

Be happy

😁👍