The World's Common Tater

I’ve always been someone who likes to try out the new online spaces. I have accounts on so many random social media sites that have popped up over the years. Sometimes, they become something I use regularly. FriendFeed was my favorite online space before Facebook bought it and shut it down. Like everyone else, I still use Facebook and Twitter regularly. I’m on Instagram. I have a Snapchat that I have only used to communicate with my daughter when we are overseas and have no phone service. I have a TikTok account and I browse there on occasion.

Some I tried to like and couldn’t. I signed up for Google Plus and tried to like it more than I did. I would post there and interact with others, but I never got in a habit of using it regularly. Someone built an alternative to FriendFeed and a lot of my friends from there used it, but I kept forgetting it existed.

Some I never intended to use, but signed up to see what was there. Parler was one of those. All of my conservative friends frome home started posting on Facebook that they were on Parler. It was in the news constantly. So, I signed up for an account, looked around a bit and then never used it again.

All of that babble above leads me to last night. It used to be you would get invites to a new service before it was widely available and you would readily give them to people. I always posted on Facebook and FriendFeed when I had invite to a service and gave them to the first people who asked. There is a new service called Clubhouse out there. People post on Twitter about events on Clubhouse. I like to try new things, so I reserved a username and am waiting for them to let me in. Last night, a TV person I like posted about a talk she is doing the weekend. I responded that it sounded interesting, but I was not on Clubhouse yet. Someone replied that they had invites and I should DM them. So I did. I woke up tis morning to find a message from them telling me they expect payment for the invites to Clubhouse. I don’t care enough to pay someone to get in early. I assume this has always happened and I’ve just been lucky enough before to have friends who gave me invites for free.

Do people really send randos on Twitter money and trust that they will actually get an invite? Do people want in on things like Clubhouse bad enough to pay for it? I don’t even care enough about the social media I use regularly to pay for it. Do people post on Twitter that they are doing a thing on Clubhouse to get more people listening or to brag that they are in the exclusive club?

I also noticed last night that Twitter has started a new “spaces” feature that is also an audio discussion thing. It is also only available to certain users and it seems to be the same people who are also on Clubhouse. The difference? If someone I follow has it and starts one I can listen in if I want.

Long story short – I like free samples but I’m not going to pay for a sample.

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