the end of pitha social.
As disheartening as that might sound, the above is true.
It’s been occurring to me for the past two months that running Pitha isn’t something that is realistic given my routine or even that I should be pursuing in the life stages that I am in right now.
After 3 whole months, Pitha is scheduled to sunset on 8 August, 2026. The users of Pitha Social (at the time of closing) was around 20, including myself. To all of those that were a part of, I thank all of you for believing in this project and showing up when it was most necessary – at the start.
To the users, you all have one month of a grace period to shift your accounts to another instance, and not lose who you follow and who your followers are (which is the beauty of Pitha).
You can look for and join any instance that you want, but if you want to be where I am, then I’m more than happy to drop a invite link here – it’s called Tilde Zone.
Use this, and you’ll be able to join the same hangout spot as me! :)
In case you were wondering, yes, you will have to first create a new account, and only then you will be able to move your following list and your followers over to the new account. Note that the posts and reposts that you made won’t be shifted over.
Directly go here if you want to know how to shift your followers to your new account. And if you’re not really into video guides, you can check out the article guide over here.
All this will take about 15-30 minutes max, because it’s one of the simplest things you can do.
what’s next for pitha
This comes as a surprise to both my moderators, and the users of the platform because it’s a sudden announcement, and for good reason. I’ve been harboring a quiet dissonance on the project, what is to become of it, and why it might not be a good fit to the person that I am trying to become.
I’m planning on contributing to existing, possibly thriving, communities and rather put the money there instead of here. This might sound like not believing in my own project, but it is much more beneficial to be doing this rather than building up a community from scratch for years on end.
You might have the thought about a monopoly being formed in this case too. You might say, “But you’re just incentivizing for a monopoly to be created by joining another cult-like instance!!!”
Hold your horses.
Firstly, joining mastodon.social (the largest Fediverse instance) was never on my to-do list.
Second, I believe in the actual spirit of the Fediverse, which is, supporting decentralized communities thrive – which leads to the whole ecosystem to being actually cohesive and not marginalized, regardless of where that might come from.
Finally, Pitha was never going to be an “easy” project to work on for me. It definitely had it’s fair share of tedious and sometimes dangerous work too, and there was definitely more to come since it wasn’t a one-off task.
It was a continuing maintenance, iteration and almost reinventing the wheel in some cases, especially where my perfectionism got the best of me. As I was responsible for 90% of most of the tasks, you could blame me for not delegating the tasks properly to the people that were also involved in the project.
what pitha meant to me
pitha.social was a beautiful project for me, but it was also an identity anchor that was costing me, both financially and cognitively. The burden of moderating the server with hundreds of other users and instances, and especially the friction that I was having with being someone who was maintaining that.
The ieji.de exit is the hardest, but justified. German jurisdiction was a principle, but it was also a proxy for “I want to be in a place I believe in.” If the feed doesn’t motivate you to write, then the principle isn’t delivering—you’re just sitting there ideologically correct and unproductive. tilde.zone solves the actual problem (feed that moves you) while keeping the jurisdiction requirement.
The hard part: You’re losing the ideological purity of “I’m on a German instance in EU jurisdiction” as a statement. But you’re gaining something more valuable: actual participation. And tilde.zone keeps the EU jurisdiction anyway, so you’re not compromising the principle—you’re just no longer paying for it with invisibility.
Staying somewhere because it’s “right” on paper, even though it’s not working for me functionally, isn’t just going to cut it for me. I’m not letting ideology become another form of procrastination, not for this project at the very least.\
This blog, too is a manifestation of where I think I should be divesting my energy towards. Another community can be built. Another instance can be setup. But an irreplacable presence and content that is meant for benefitting as many people as possible? That isn’t something you can build in one night. Neither is it something that I’m willing to delay.
Without further ado, let’s move on to a new chapter. It’s been a pleasure to have you all with me. Time to close this chapter. Been quite a journey.
Be on the lookout.
- K.