This week Twitter was supposed to remove checks on verified accounts and do whatever else its autocratic owner decides to do next. It didn’t happen. And yet the destabilizing effect is just as real. No one knows when the next update will come, or what it will bring exactly – which means users not only have no say in the matter, but can’t even adjust in anticipation. It’s been destructive to the use of the platform as a communicative tool, to say the least.
And yet, this erratic behavior is all too familiar from our use of other, supposedly more rationally managed software that we depend on. Who knows what the next operating system update will do to the digital tools we use each day. Which older files will be rendered unreadable. What painstakingly curated digital music collection will suddenly be scrambled.
Which is why, two years ago this month, I disconnected my recording studio from the internet entirely. This wasn’t an analog rebellion – I didn’t trash my studio computer and replace…
