💾 Archived View for jsreed5.org › log › 2021 › 202107 › 20210716-smartphones-and-microblogging-servi… captured on 2023-12-28 at 15:53:09. Gemini links have been rewritten to link to archived content
⬅️ Previous capture (2021-12-04)
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As of June 27, I've been using my Samsung Galaxy Note 8 for three and a half years. My previous mobile phone was a Galaxy Note 3, which I used for exactly three and a half years from 2014-06-28 to 2017-12-27. Before that, I had never used the same mobile phone for more than two years.
I find the occasion interesting for a few reasons. I didn't expect to be using my Note 8 for this long; by the end of 2019 I was already considering replacement options. Not only did I continue to use the phone for a year and a half after that, but I've now used this phone longer than any other phone I've owned. It also means that I've been using phones by the same company for over seven years--before the Note 8, I had never bought two phones from the same company.
F(x)tec recently announced that the shipping date of the Pro1 X has been pushed back to October-November. Because they'll be fulfilling existing Pro1 orders before shipping to the Indiegogo backers, it's entirely possible that I won't get my new phone before 2022. If that's the case, I'll continue to use my Note 8 for over four years, a record the Pro1 X might be hard-pressed to beat.
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I closed my Twitter account yesterday, the same account I've had on the site for over twelve years. I also opened an account on Gab a few years ago, which has since been closed.
The two sites are remarkably similar in how they're used and the level of political fervor of its most prominent users. The only major differences between them are that they sit on opposite sides of the political spectrum and that Twitter has a larger amount of non-political content than Gab.
Another point of intersection is my biggest reason for closing each account: a lack of privacy on both services. I do believe that Twitter is worse than Gab in this respect, but Gab takes no extra steps to ensure the privacy of its users, in the way that GNU Social or dandelion* do. I'm simply not interested in spreading my digital presence over more of the Internet than I have to.
I don't see myself returning to either site anytime soon. If I want to join a microblog-based community again, I might spin up my own Mastodon instance.
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[Last updated: 2021-10-28]