I applaud anybody who manages to leave legacy social media behind and embrace NOSTR only.
I, however won’t be doing that. I have many IRL friends who post on these platforms and I often communicate through these platforms with them. I do also post, not excessively, and primarily on Facebook, where most of my IRL friends hangout. But I also have a couple of IRL friends on Instagram and Xitter. I watch their lives and message them frequently.
One has a hotel / restaurant / wine room and the other runs a social media agency.
My restaurant friend is a semi professional relationship and I would not be able to maintain contact with them easily without remaining on Xitter and my social media agency friend has her entire life on Instagram and TikTok.
I follow her often and communicate via WhatsApp gradually purple pilling her towards NOSTR. She is curious, but I am honest in saying she cannot get a significant revenue stream from NOSTR yet. She employs around 8 staff and has some large brands she works with. They are part of NOSTR’s future, but we are not ready yet.
I also use legacy social media, primarily Xitter to stay in touch with events in the real world. The recent OCEAN mining pool outage was only posted on Xitter and so I acted as a bridge and cross posted to NOSTR. I have also been following the fortunes of Roger Ver, Calvin Ayre, CZ and Craig Wright as well as following events in FTX’s life and that of Caroline Ellison.
Also, the latest events in OpenAI have been unfolding dramatically on Xitter and seeing what Elon is doing with Xitter as well as cars and rockets I feel is very important.
I tend not to judge or critique directly, I prefer to keep my opinions private, but it is much more important to talk to people you disagree with or dislike than to communicate with people you agree with and like. The later makes you feel good, but is an enclosed echo chamber, which generally achieves little. The former allows you to understand your enemies and your opposition, in what ever arena that may be. This gives you an advantage and is another type of cheat code.
In short, I listen and talk to everybody, my enemies and opposition more than my friends and colleagues because I need to understand the whole world, not just the part I occupy. I am not an influencer, but I have been more successful in my own field than you may imagine and operate in ways that would feel alien to most.
To distinguish who to pay attention to, you can gauge the same signals with wealth as you can with success. The richest are those you never hear or see, the less well off are people in the public eye that drive the Lambos we all joke about. So it is with wealth and success, some cannot avoid being in the public domain, but most are hidden. Be aware of this when you see the illusions people portray, it is rarely real.
I am explaining this because I am of an older generation and am now in the second act of my life. I feel obliged to offer this advice to anybody who wishes to listen as we Bitcoiners tend to pride ourselves on our ability to think individually, yet pervading evidence tells me this is less frequent than we portray.
Don’t follow the crowd, don’t focus on swelling the echo chamber. You don’t need to tell people you disagree or have a different opinion, but keep hold of your own thoughts and reasoning and keep testing to see if it’s valid.
Be your own person.
In the words of one now departed, “Stay Hungry, Stay Foolish”