Ev BogueA.K. commented about deleting my Twitter handle. He said, "It is a bit unsettling when it's time to move on. Especially if you've laid digital foundations and have connections still actively flourishing on those platforms."
I no longer build digital foundations on platforms I don't own.
Here's why: Any space that doesn't belong to me is subject to change without my consent. I felt frustrated and angry when Twitter stopped working in a beneficial way for me, because of the changes that they made at the end of 2010. I told this whole story in Why I Untethered from Twitter. I don't intend to make this mistake again. Yes, I'll connect with people on Google+, but will I assume that it will be around forever? Will I build a digital foundation there? No. Google+ will not last forever. Right now? It's a vehicle for growth. Next year? It might be a vacant space.
This hasn't just happened on Twitter. Over the years, I've seen this happen to dozens of services that I thought I was laying digital foundations within. What I was building, in actuality? I was building someone else's company.
It's easier to think I'm laying a foundation somewhere else. On a social network, someone else is doing all of the heavy lifting, the code, the connections are being made by a computer. It's easy, because it's not real.
What's real? Here. This space. This sanctuary.
Yes, it's still built in code in a digital world that's constantly in flux. But...
I can choose to build it up, and I can choose to tear it down.
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Have you ever lost a digital foundation, building in a space that didn't belong to you?
How did it feel to lose the space?