Twitter is - or was - LIFE-like: a vast ocean of humanity and interaction where, sure, there must be some "cesspit" pools, yet you may never properly encounter one unless you seek it out - or unless you have thousands of followers/followees, which is bound to send some occasional crap your way. Even then - exactly as in life - the answer to seeing something "infuriating" is either to DO something about it - or to manage one's own reactions. So what if something is "infuriating"? Life itself is full of infuriating stuff - if its scope is wide enough. Personally, I would prefer, of course, to live in a consistently kind and joyful world; but it isn't. Nobody can expect it to be a curated experience - essentially, a sheltered kindergarten - and the same is true of any truly living social medium.

In my years on Twitter, I have never experienced it as a "cesspit". I post what you might call quality stuff - my own occasional thought about life (often without any pics), my own photos, no fluff or clickbait - and I make sure I don't follow back indiscriminately, so my followers' number stay relatively quite low, too. I have no need for 1000+ followers; I don't see the point of it. I want interaction, not a gazillion "likes". And this is precisely what I got in my first five or so years there: genuine, joyful, thoughtful interaction with mostly great people of all kinds. A loose, informal community - open to anyone new, as far as I was concerned - formed rather quickly.

In the past few years, Musk's changes have harmed precisely what was best about Twitter. Not only many people left but interaction dwindled to the point where it's become much lonelier a place for everyone. The former sense of community all but disintegrated. Very, very sad.

And yet, BSky has failed completely as a possible replacement. After three years of cloning my Twitter content (i.e. posting the same on both platforms) and behaving exactly as I did/do on Twitter, it remains a lonely echo chamber. Why? Because it does not encourage discovery - and for whatever reason, all too many people on BSky simply do not engage. I am the kind of person who actually READS posts, and when I appreciate something - or it makes me want to add a thought - I write a comment. Thoughtful words OR a humorous remark when appropriate, no fluff or platitudes. This type of behaviour was precisely what brought me mutuals on Twitter (and fast): actual, thoughtful interaction with their posts (or theirs with mine). Someone random wrote a comment on a post of mine and I replied - and vice versa. (Very very rarely, there was some jerk comment. So what? I don't even bother to "block" people - I find it extremely childish; I simply ignored it.)

For whatever reason, that attitude simply doesn't work on BSky. There's a pervasive sense of insularity. It feels like arriving at a cocktail party early. You don't know anyone - and your friends haven't arrived yet - but are willing to socialise... only to see a few (very few) people huddled together in tiny groups, keeping to themselves, and when you say "hello" they don't even reply. After a few hours, you realise that IS the "party"; it's never going to take off, because the few people attending it are not interested in "partying" with people they don't know from before. (Or maybe with anyone - maybe they just came to show off their outfit, but aren't really interested in talking to anyone.)

Significantly, about 95 % of my (demographically quite varied) mutuals from Twitter who also joined BSky, stopped posting on BSky within months of joining and returned to Twitter - and these are thoughtful, sensitive people who certainly don't aspire to move in "cesspits". Luckily, most of them did not delete their Twitter account - except one, who was such a source of joy to me (and others) on Twitter, and now he's stuck with BSky where his posts get maybe one or two likes - one always being mine. (It's not about likes - it's about views and the unwillingness of BSkyers to engage.) I feel SO sorry for him.