Wendy Leibowitz, Tom Mighell, Dennis Kennedy and others I respect are weighing the pros and cons of moving to Twitter alternatives. A few thoughts on a complex situation:

Big problems with Elon Musk, who seems to be a case study of how people with hypomania can succeed in business (cf. Ted Turner). Musk, who has pretty much admitted to being bipolar seems to me to possibly be slipping over the edge into dysfunction.

The impulse to escape Twitter’s current mix of chaos and nastiness is understandable but a yellow light is in order.

Network effects matter. If you became dissatisfied with the political views of the #1 fax machine vendor, would you move to a new, incompatible fax standard created by a relatively unknown vendor?

Network effects apply even more strongly to social media. Facebook has large problems which will most likely worsen. LinkedIn also has a few problems. However, their value proposition is the network. No matter how successful a competitor might become, migrators lose much or most of their investment in building networks of contacts. LinkedIn, Facebook and yes, even Twitter, are sticky.

I suggest this approach is worth considering:

Wait on Twitter. It might get better. Musk and other, saner investors will probably see soon that it’s folly to allow a multi billion dollar business to go down the drain.

If not, then ditch it later and switch to what looks like the best available alternative.

Is this the best approach? I don’t know. Educate me. Share your insights below or in comments on my LinkedIn post today.