Same here. But for private trackers the traffic is basically “invisible” as the whole point of private trackers is to keep out snoopers and whatnot.

It’s kind of interesting how well these private, trust-based networks work. While there are some they get breached, based on my experience there are many that exist for decades and have thousands of strangers cooperating toward a common goal, in shared secret.

It gives me hope that humanity is largely “below the surface” of productive groups quietly meeting and doing stuff. And it’s not visible because they aren’t tweeting.

This gives me joy compared to the more visible alternative that the whole world is an idiot because idiots are constantly tweeting.

I've never thought about it this way but it makes a lot of sense. In a world where it looks like everyone is tweeting there are actually a lot of people not tweeting, you just don't hear about them because, well, they aren't tweeting!

I’m not sure the name of the fallacy, but there’s a common urge to assume what’s measurable is real. So in statistics you have to really design your sample well.

But frequently whatever is nearby can still be useful for selling ads or whatever so people get used to using it for everything.

Back in the olden days people would mock others who quoted a random twitterer who said “George Bush thinks xyz” but now that’s like half of all the news stories.