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Mastodon gained 70k users after Musk’s Twitter takeover

theguardian.com

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Re: Mastodon gained 70k users after Musk’s Twitter takeover

#211

Post by VectorLock »

lapcat wrote: post #208
VectorLock wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a good argument that Twitter and a whole class of other social media and related sites (HN, Reddit, YouTube, TV etc) are "time wasters." I think if any of these disappeared, or all of them, are people suddenly going to start finding more productive uses of their time? No, they're just going to find other time wasters.

> are people suddenly going to start finding more productive uses of their time? I think switching to "less destructive" would be a big step up.

It might be hard to quantify the positive/negative impact each of these have had but you have to agree they all had major effects on society.

Re: Mastodon gained 70k users after Musk’s Twitter takeover

#212

Post by fsflover »

zimpenfish wrote: post #197
defulmere wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Also Discovery is a huge problem: how do I discover people I know? How do content creators who want to build an audience (and so create content that would attract users to the platform) get discovered? Hashtags play a huge role on Mastodon - discover people by following hashtags and include hashtags in your posts so that people can discover you.

> Hashtags play a huge role on Mastodon - discover people by following hashtags I'm probably twiddling the wrong buttons or something but whenever I've clicked on a Fediverse hashtag, it's always just been the hashtag on the originating server . Is there a way to get a wider view that I've missed?

"The original server" should also show relevant posts from other servers, unless they are blacklisted.

Re: Mastodon gained 70k users after Musk’s Twitter takeover

#213

Post by VectorLock »

ceejayoz wrote: post #70
stewbrew wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think these are just ergonomic wrinkles. I was surprised to learn that it seems to matter which instance you join. I assumed "decentralized" means "it doesn't matter where you're located". To me this is rather a basic, philosophical flaw. I would also expect a decentralized network to easily support multiple identities. At least the default client seemingly does not. Twitter on the other hand allows switching…

> I would also expect a decentralized network to easily support multiple identities. At least the default client seemingly does not. The official iOS client certainly does. Long press on the profile icon at the bottom right to switch/add.

Gmail client on Android lets you change profiles by swiping up/down on the profile icon which is probably one of the best discoveries of my week (its been a slow week)

Re: Mastodon gained 70k users after Musk’s Twitter takeover

#214

Post by toofy »

VectorLock wrote: post #49
philipov wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Centralization makes it harder to deal with bad actors, because the cost of moderating a huge platform is massive, and the centralized social media platforms we have today have been unable or unwilling to do it. Federal platforms like Reddit and Discord are able to moderate effectively, on the other hand, because the cost of moderation is devolved to the municipal governments: subreddits and servers. Moderation at th…

That makes Mastodon more of an attractive alternative to Discord rather than a replacement of the "digital commons" aspect of Twitter. But as some people have stated, maybe Mastodon doesn't want to _be_ that, but some people hope that there can be something that can assume that mantle.

a bit of a tangent, but, this “digital commons” marketing strikes me as a bit hilarious.

there is nothing “commons” about a privately owned space owned by a billionaire.

and even worse, elon is trying to make us believe one can meaningfully discuss anything in 280 characters?

this whole “digital commons” really reinforces my concerns that hes just doing more manipulation and relying on the fact that few people stop to actually think how ludicrous the idea is from the ground up.

Re: Mastodon gained 70k users after Musk’s Twitter takeover

#215

Post by VectorLock »

claudiawerner wrote: post #185
VectorLock wrote: post #26

People used to think the network effect for MySpace and Friendster were insurmountable. I played around with Mastodon last night and I think it has some bad but not insurmountable ergonomic wrinkles, but I worry its decentralization will prevent it from ever becoming mainstream. Centralization makes it easier to deal with "bad" actors. Also Discovery is a huge problem: how do I discover people I know? How do content…

It's worth looking at why people who are already on Twitter don't want to use Mastodon/Fediverse. The last time this topic came up on Twitter with Musk's first proposal to buy Twitter, several concerns were raised (and well-liked by thousands of other users) in several threads I noticed: * Migrating one's account and tweets to Mastodon * Finding people on Mastodon * General confusion about what federation is, or what…

This is a great list, practically summed up every issue I've found in my few days of poking around.

Re: Mastodon gained 70k users after Musk’s Twitter takeover

#216

Post by remram »

anotherrandom wrote: post #177
remram wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the fact that this needs to be explained at all should already be a hint that it will never be mainstream Ah yes, because users are incapable of learning anything at all

The average Twitter user likely does not know what a file is (see: that one iPad commercial where the kid says "what's a file?" or something), and likely uses a mobile device of some kind (tablet or phone) as their daily driver.

Having unusual new concepts you need to explain is a negative point for sure, but that's a world away from the parent comment saying that having any new concept at all means it's doomed entirely.

Twitter had plenty of new concepts with replies, quote tweets, hashtags, threads, ratios. The evidence is that people can figure out this amount of new stuff.

Re: Mastodon gained 70k users after Musk’s Twitter takeover

#218

Post by intel_brain »

cmrdporcupine wrote: post #35
VectorLock wrote: post #26

People used to think the network effect for MySpace and Friendster were insurmountable. I played around with Mastodon last night and I think it has some bad but not insurmountable ergonomic wrinkles, but I worry its decentralization will prevent it from ever becoming mainstream. Centralization makes it easier to deal with "bad" actors. Also Discovery is a huge problem: how do I discover people I know? How do content…

It doesn't need to be mainstream, nor do I want to be mainstream. I just use it to follow a number of interesting people and to write my thoughts here and there. A bit like how Twitter was in its early days. (Except without the stupid short word limits which encouraged pithy one liners.) I don't need it to have celebrities or big media organizations. That is literally the worst part of Twitter. I don't need my mom on…

> It doesn't need to be mainstream, nor do I want to be mainstream.

Who t f are you? You seem the narcissistic here.

Re: Mastodon gained 70k users after Musk’s Twitter takeover

#220

Post by toofy »

VectorLock wrote: post #195
linsomniac wrote: post #155

I've been pondering: If 1% of Twitter users move to Mastodon, can it even handle it? 1% is ~4.5M users, currently the entire Fediverse is around 5.5M users, so that'd be nearly doubling. In looking at the server lists when I tried to sign up, many of them were closed for invites and mastodon.social where I had previously signed up wouldn't load the homepage. Sounds like the mastodon.social admin is ordering new hardw…

Looking at it from another perspective what is the INCENTIVE to run a Mastodon server? What are those server costs and time to setup and moderate worth? Notoriety? Control over the users?

my guess is it’s the same rewards that drove people to run usenet servers, bbs servers, irc servers, forums, countless open-source projects, and whatever other non-centralized platforms flourished in the past and present.
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