Nearly two weeks since Twitter decided to ban all my corporate accounts with zero explanation. If this were 2015, I'd have no options. Just take it on the chin.

But as it happens, I do have options.

Centralized social networks like Twitter are going the way of the Dodo bird. Even Twitter knows this. It's why they're sponsoring @bluesky.

Problem is, bluesky is already behind the curve. The W3C already standardized ActivityPub. The Fediverse has 4 million users.

You know what Twitter was like 10 years ago when people had civil discussions? That's Mastodon right now. Less people, sure. The network effect isn't as large -- but the relationships are more tangible.

Mastodon also does a better job of moderation.

Twitter is opaque. If they ban you, they don't say exactly why. If there's a mistake, they ignore and don't heed emails.

On Mastodon, instance administrators do the moderation and they're more active.

If I were to release a new social network tomorrow, would I build a new suite of APIs? Or would I just implement open source protocols?

I know what's easier and more scalable.

At this point, building a social network with entirely proprietary APIs is like building a website without HTML, CSS, and XML. Theoretically, it can be done. But why?

Sure, social networks like Facebook will continue to build proprietary APIs because they've spent 16 years developing them. That's a sunk cost. But all sunk costs eventually become fallacious.

If I were to compare Twitter to the Fediverse right now, it's like comparing Windows NT to Linux back in 1995. Sure, Twitter is big, but it can't stop the power of open source and grassroots development efforts.

And comparing social networks to operating systems is apt. At the end of the day, a social network is an operating system. This isn't an analogy. Social networks are literal operating systems.