the two best things to ever happen to my mental health over the last decade have been 1) block assholes on sight. no warnings, zero tolerance 2) locking a comments section away behind money. this continued commitment to the internet being some kind of town square is just futile, some people suck.the two best things to ever happen to my mental health over the last decade have been 1) block assholes on sight. no warnings, zero tolerance 2) locking a comments section away behind money. this continued commitment to the internet being some kind of town square is just futile, some people suck.

There is seemingly a correlation between people that praise the town square idea and people who grew up in very non-diverse, affluent communities.

At least in an actual town square you could punch these assholes right in their dumb faces.

Also this is what town squares are often like! It's not like most of the people taking to speaker's corner were people that anybody else wanted to listen to. That's why they were out there

for years i felt badly about 2), as the blogosphere/early Twitter opened my eyes to so many perspectives and subcultures and marginalized people i had no visibility on before. but i eventually realized that just meant the “free, open Internet” had simply been gatekept by the money it took to get on

It's kind of crazy how simply adding a paywall filters out so much toxicity from a comment section and keeps it largely a place for enthusiasts. The only problem is not being rich enough to subscribe to all the sites I want 😭