Cohost wasn't a perfect website by any means, and I didn't expect it to kick around forever. But it was here, and it was brilliant, and while I didn't spend as much time here as perhaps I would have liked I still greatly enjoyed what time I did spend. And I deeply wish, as we're coming to the end, that we had more of it.

Goodbye, CSS crimes.

Goodbye, inexplicable fanart of Eggbug.

Goodbye, strange inside jokes which seemingly appeared out of nowhere.

Goodbye to a website that encouraged slow, thoughtful use. A website which matched well with my tendency to write for a long time about things I care about. A website which allowed me to find what I care about in a way that many websites don't.

I'll never completely forget following along with @CohostTextAdventures each morning, or discovering that Ryan Reynolds was nothing but carbon. It'll live with me in the same way that other websites and games and gathering places long gone do. And I don't think I'll ever completely stop missing it.

I don't know anyone on this website very well, but we were strangers together and I don't think anything can ever take that away from us. I'll miss you. I'll miss being able to swing around and spot you out of the corner of my eye and say "hey, that seems pretty cool."

Cohost was the perfect piece of social media for me to want to use it, at least for a while. I miss these smaller dedicated communities that are just public enough to be open to everyone and just wide enough that everything's happening on them all at once. Cohost had a feeling to it that was fundamentally different from a website like Tumblr or Twitter. It's almost like a big wide forumboard about everything and anything. I wonder how long it'll take to find another one like that.

Maybe I'll keep an eye on Bluesky.

I'm working out in Cali rn and these ducks want food

Not much else to post just this and ducks, wanted to post art but I won't get to that until after stuff goes to just read mode and whatnot :(

I love all yall 🫶 ty for the support

read-only ~ five days away

i know i said i'd be gone but i just wanted to make one final post because this fits really well for the shutdown imo, at least the first half
(also i have a twitter now, @sapphirazurite)

finale

read only ~ zero days away

all I can think to myself is that "I can't believe I didn't know this was on this site" or "Wait, THAT person I love the work of was actually posting here?!" Everything I saw about Cohost outside of Cohost was just stuff like "They aren't funny" and "Zero Discoverability." Never anything about people I like reading the writing of only being here, or the CSS crimes, or The New Garfield, etc.

But the truth is, you guys are pretty funny.

The Minimal Discoverability did actually impact the site, though, I don't know how else to make a site like this one if you have one. Even the ones where the algorithm is entirely optional to view, it still causes problem after problem for people. People outright hated that anyone even bothered to post in tags like The Global Cohost Feed, let alone an automatic version that you can't even opt into or out of. Though I don't think you could stop users from creating what they want, there isn't much to say really. I grew up with the only options to view something being "Newest" and "Highest Rated" and with the way this site is set up only one of those would be an option, though that wouldn't even be useful for what this site wants either.

I really don't think 2 years is enough time either. I've seen so, so many things get cut early. Way too early to make any even educated guesses on how they'll turn out. 2 years? You think you can tell it's time to pull the plug after 2 years? When we don't have video yet? When the game you're working on isn't released yet? When that's NOTHING in the grand scheme of things? When the Mighty Tyrants of today spent 4, 5, 6, sometimes even more years getting their feet off the ground first? It saddens me to no end, to see this happen so often.

I wish short term profit didn't stifle so much in this world.

I wish I spent more time here, wish I told more people about it, and I hope the next Cohost succeeds.

(In the meantime, you should switch over to Firefox {it's even easier than switching to OperaGX from Chrome} and then get the Feedbro & uBlock Origin extensions. Feedbro lets you click it and then click "find RSS feeds in page" and then just add them. If there's an atom and an RSS just pick one, it doesn't matter afaik. It's literally like following someone on whatever other social media)