A quick post in two parts. ## Where are all the startups? In the office yesterday, the subject of startups came up. More precisely, the lack of them in the Stockholm tech scenes these days. Where are they? Where did they go? (By “startup”, I do not refer to the corporations that are Klarna and Spotify and the likes.) _When I was young_ (2005-2016), there was a myriad of small startups all around. In the vibrant scene that is a technical university, the topic of joining or founding startups was ever present. It wasn’t much of a question whether to join one or not, but more _“Which one?”_. I’m not the person who has these smart analytical thoughts on the holistic health of the industry, but if I’d guess, it’s down to that these days, there is: * less venture capital available. Investors are more risk averse. * we’re not generally in good economic times. Young people and workers overall want financial stability and job security. Things typically not associated with startups. But is it only The Economy? Stockholm (Sweden overall, really) is traditionally associated with innovation and our welfare state has made it possible to try out ventures without having to put your family on the street if that venture would fail. Maybe I’m old and completely disconnected from The Scene nowadays, but I seldom hear about innovative startups any longer, nor young people wanting to work for such business. ## Where are all the apps? In my Mastodon feed yesterday, I saw a post about a new app: Current. It’s an RSS feed reader, built in an innovative. I recommend reading through the whole marketing site: it’s a beautiful example of product design and indie app making. These kinds of releases of apps for iOS or Mac _used to_ be a monthly phenomenon in the mid-late 2000s and early 2010s. There were “fun” apps, beautifully design apps and icons, there was a whole lifestyle of using apps from indie developers and being in awe of every new major release. People were _so good_ at designing user interfaces. What happened?! I have no layman guess for this at all. Maybe we’ve moved away from the app industry and more into “services” (derogatory) and “subscriptions”. For myself, I’m not the change I want to see in the world either. Honestly, I have less and less energy to find and use new apps and tools these days. Maybe it’s age, having kids, and having more IRL hobbies which lets me loiter around online considerably less. Maybe apps have become noise to me in an everyday life where my top priority is simplicity and _removing_ things that take my focus. Still, my iPhone is totally less “fun” now compared to how it was in 2010.

Based on the initiative Leave X, I wrote to all of the Swedish members of parliament still active on X, currently 230 people. Out of those, **9 people** replied within 24 hours. Turns out that “active” is a keyword here which we’ll return to below. ## Rickard Nordin (C) Claims he’s _inactive_ , and hasn’t deleted his account because he wants to follow sports on there in certain communities. Communities, he further claims, are _only present_ on X and he can’t control that. Thus, he won’t leave a super problematic site. ## Patrik Lundqvist (S) Claims he’s _inactive_ , and totally shares my view that X is a bad platform. He hasn’t replied when I suggested he’d delete his account. ## Katarina Luhr (MP) Invites me to follow her on Bluesky, but is still on X — probably _inactive_ — in order to keep herself updated on what’s going on there. Hasn’t replied yet when I suggested she’d delete her account. ## Helena Vilhelmsson (C) Totally agrees with me, and has even brought it up in some parliament working group. She has been _inactive_ for years, and sadly can’t access the account in order to delete it. Asks me for advice. We do some back and forth with tech troubleshooting and she will try to reset the password via her phone number. Exciting. ## Martin Melin (L) Claims he’s been _inactive_ since 2018, and has tried to delete the account, but no access to the old email. I refrain from offering to troubleshoot since the vibe in the thread tells me he’s not psyched to do that right now. He concludes that since he’s not _active_ on X, that will show his stance in the matter. I refrain from linking to “What does it mean to be “active” on X?”. ## Hanna Gunnarsson (V) Totally agrees with me in theory (“so in theory, X is bad, but practically, it’s good? Like heroin?”, I think). She’s still on X for practical reasons, and cross posts to Bluesky. She knows X and how it works, and has her followers. Works for her. “I know it’s bad, but it’s practical”. My reply includes a small novella about our her presence legimitises X and the people there, and recommend her to delete her account and commit to Bluesky. ## Alexander Christiansson (SD) Claims he’s a grown up and don’t need pressure to switch platforms. “Okay”. P.S. This is a member of the right-wing, authoritarian, racist party Sweden Democrats. ## Martin Kinnunen (SD) Just replies with a question of who’s prompting these emails about leaving X. I reply that I don’t find that super relevant. P.S. Same racist party as above. ## Jan Ericson (M) Totally understands my point, but at the same time thinks it’s important that not only Russian trolls, Trump supporters, and islamists are the ones getting to post at X. He won’t leave, as he has 46.000 followers to take care of. Wow. Did he really say that? I reply that he surely would do greater impact by bringing those 46.000 followers to an alternative platform, and link to a post about precisely the fallacy he’s an example of. * * * ## Summary * All but one of the left/liberal/centrist party members claim they are _inactive_ but for reasons, they can’t/won’t delete their accounts. Only Hanna Gunnarsson from the Left Party is still active on X, and has the guts to tell me so. * The one member from the conservative party will _not_ leave because he’s still out there, fighting trolls, islamists, and Trump supporters. How valiant. * Two members from the racist party became a bit upset over my email I think. ## Appendix: Party labels * **C** : Centerpartiet. Centrist, allied with the Social Democrats. * **S** : Socialdemokraterna. Social democrats. The usual suspects. * **L** : Liberalerna. Liberals, allied with the conservative block. * **MP** : Miljöpartiet. The green party. Allied with the social democrats. * **V** : Vänsterpartiet. The leftmost party. Allied with the social democrats. * **M** : Moderaterna. Conservatives. * **SD** : Sverigedemokraterna. Right-wing, nationalistic, authoritarian, neo-conservative racists.

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