You should be free to leave TouchGrass too
Independence from Big Tech should include making it practical to leave TouchGrass itself. A smaller service can still become difficult to leave. Size alone says little about whether people have a useful choice.
An account gathers things that matter: writing, photographs, recommendations and relationships. As that history grows, the effort of moving can become a reason to stay. We think a social network has a responsibility to reduce that dependence, including when its users are perfectly happy today.
TouchGrass provides account exports and connections through the open social web. Those are practical parts of that responsibility. Keeping your own copy of what you've shared and talking with people on other services give you choices that extend beyond this particular app.
The principle should also shape what we build next. A new feature ought to leave people with more useful control over their social lives. It should be possible to explain what they can keep, use elsewhere or move. We want people to stay because TouchGrass suits them, and to treat a decision to leave as a normal exercise of that same freedom.
An account gathers things that matter: writing, photographs, recommendations and relationships. As that history grows, the effort of moving can become a reason to stay. We think a social network has a responsibility to reduce that dependence, including when its users are perfectly happy today.
TouchGrass provides account exports and connections through the open social web. Those are practical parts of that responsibility. Keeping your own copy of what you've shared and talking with people on other services give you choices that extend beyond this particular app.
The principle should also shape what we build next. A new feature ought to leave people with more useful control over their social lives. It should be possible to explain what they can keep, use elsewhere or move. We want people to stay because TouchGrass suits them, and to treat a decision to leave as a normal exercise of that same freedom.