Summary
Stephen King announced his departure from X (formerly Twitter), calling the platform “too toxic” and urging followers to join him on Threads.
King has frequently clashed with X owner Elon Musk over verification charges and political disputes, including Musk’s support for Donald Trump.
Other entities, including The Guardian, German football club St Pauli, and actor Jamie Lee Curtis, have also left the platform, citing concerns over toxic content, misinformation, and hate speech.
Rival platforms like Threads and Bluesky are gaining traction, with Bluesky reporting nearly 15 million users globally.
Better late than never for all of these people, I guess.
Sunk cost fallacy hits people hard.
I wish people would have left earlier as well, but it’s not just sunk cost fallacy. Network effects are a rational reason to stay, and that’s the issue. If he has a community, he loses the community. I get it.
That’s why I wish celebrities would coordinate and all leave at once - it’s far more likely their network will follow them in that case, both hurting X more and helping themselves more, and accelerating people leaving as the network effects disappear on X.
The physics metaphor applies pretty directly here: They need to create momentum to counteract inertia.