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It looks like I’m moving to Mastodon

simonwillison.net

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Re: It looks like I’m moving to Mastodon

#271

Post by tchaffee »

dmix wrote: post #205
tchaffee wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's your source for popularity and does it do a breakdown by demographics advertisers are most interested in? Because I think that tells a very different story from "still most popular with boomers". Their earnings and stock price also tell a different story from "still most popular".

Just go through the list of most popular Twitter users and ask yourself where else are they going to go? I personally wouldn't gamble the farm on corporation ad spending's adherence to social justice if those eyeballs are all in one place... at least long term. At least FB has to compete with messaging apps and Instagram/TikTok. Twitter doesn't have a good #2. It's probably a mistake to take the emotional outrage new…

You avoided my question. Can you provide your source for your claim about Facebook?

Re: It looks like I’m moving to Mastodon

#272

Post by oneeyedpigeon »

breezedream wrote: post #268
oneeyedpigeon wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When you say "figures", do you mean that's what the evidence shows? If so, presumably twitter's automatic switching from chrono to algo is a significant factor.

I think OP meant “it figures,” as in “that’s not surprising.” But regarding figures as in statistics and usage, I have only anecdata but it seems Twitter recently is respecting the user selection for a longer period.

I've also noticed the longer period, but I assumed that was based on me having manually selected it so many times rather than being a global setting.

Re: It looks like I’m moving to Mastodon

#273

Post by tchaffee »

concordDance wrote: post #263
tchaffee wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> basically we don't know Yes, it has been grossly mismanaged from a PR perspective. Expecting no fallout from that is naive.

Honestly there was no way to get good PR out of this. Musk is disliked by those who form "public opinion" and he's been threatening to make their home (twitter) no longer their home (by making it no longer reflect progressive values). There is no universe where Musk takes over twitter and gets good PR.

Getting good PR and having disastrous PR are not the only two possible outcomes. This could have been managed far better. But Musk is impulsive and there are PR consequences to being impulsive.

You could also consider that Musk rushed into buying Twitter with a poorly written contract and he was legally forced to buy the company. He didn't end up there due to a well managed plan. He's there thanks to his impulsive and childish nature.

Re: It looks like I’m moving to Mastodon

#274

Post by dnh44 »

gnuj3 wrote: post #86
dnh44 wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just counted all of my signal chats that have had activity since the beginning of September and there’s 34 of them. On WhatsApp that number is 29 and on iMessages(not SMS) it’s 21. The best way I’ve found to actually get people to keep using signal after you’ve got them to download it is to respond to their WhatsApp messages on signal. It won’t take long until they stop initiating conversations on WhatsApp.

Or do what I had done - delete whatsapp and text them saying it’s either text messages or download Signal from here [link]. Everyone I gave a shit about had done that.

Deleting was my first choice but I’m on one group chat that I don’t want to leave.

Re: It looks like I’m moving to Mastodon

#275

Post by concordDance »

tchaffee wrote: post #237
nootropicat wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hating Elon is in vogue now, anything else is irrelevant.

By your reasoning hating on Kevin Spacey is also in vogue. It's probably not in vogue. It's more likely that his own words and actions are resulting in lots of people not liking him. Imagine that. A world where your own words and actions have consequences.

Based on talking to those who dislike him they're mostly pretty hating him for things he hasnt done, views he doesnt hold and traits he doesnt have (no, he isnt a success because he had an uber wealthy father who owned an emerald mine, it was a tiny share in a mine and his father contributed little to Musks business ventures).

Musk is a driven, childish, stubborn, fairly intelligent, 90s era libertarian who really likes first principles reasoning and this leads to both success (SpaceX) and failure (Boring company).

Re: It looks like I’m moving to Mastodon

#276

Post by pera »

Andrew_nenakhov wrote: post #176

I find this hilarious. We all understand that the core reason some people might want to hurt twitter is because it is no longer going to follow the moderation policy that they liked (namely, silencing people with different political opinions). Yet, people can't name this reason honestly, and invent some other thin weiled excuses like 'layoffs are baaaad and unethical'. Bold prediction: this influencer with 40k follow…

It seems that your prediction was too bold: he has accumulated ~1100 followers so far

Re: It looks like I’m moving to Mastodon

#277

Post by Nasreddin_Hodja »

gonehome wrote: post #46
TulliusCicero wrote: post #12

I think it'd be great for more decentralized platforms to supplant centralized ones, but they usually seem to struggle to acquire more mainstream users. Even if Twitter collapses under Musk's leadership, my hunch is that a (new?) centralized competitor is more likely to take most of their market share, rather than Mastodon. I know, I know, there's some obvious exceptions like email, or just the web in general, but it…

Email isn’t really an exception - it’s largely another federated system failure with most users on one centralized system (gmail). You can’t even run an email server yourself without getting blacklisted these days. I doubt Twitter is going anywhere, I’m not even sure it can be replaced, it’s an unusual niche product of its time and network. Mastodon doesn’t solve the underlying problems that lead to centralization ei…

> Mastodon doesn’t solve the underlying problems

Mastodon doesn't but standalone activitypub compatible blog does.

Re: It looks like I’m moving to Mastodon

#278

Post by est »

hrbf wrote: post #247

Regarding Mastodon, I really like the idea behind it but always hit a wall when thinking about starting an instance. The alternatives appear to be * paying around $9/month for a managed instance * hosting it yourself (with all the costs and responsibilities that come with yet another self-hosted service) * signing up at a public instance (and potentially lose everything connected to it once an operator loses interest…

I keep saying that ActivityPub should be a static protocol to begin with, then people can host their profile on some Github Page easily. Effectively zero cost.

Re: It looks like I’m moving to Mastodon

#279

Post by tchaffee »

luckylion wrote: post #270
tchaffee wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not liking Elon Musk and moving to a different platform is taking an action. Taking action is the opposite of virtue signaling.

> Taking action is the opposite of virtue signaling. No, you signal your virtue with actions. That action can be lots of things, from buying some brand, to protesting some policy, or hating some person.

You are wrong.

The act or practice of conspicuously displaying one's awareness of and attentiveness to political issues, matters of social and racial justice, etc., especially instead of taking effective action. [1]

And from the person who coined the term:

British journalist James Bartholomew claims to have originated the modern usage of the term "virtue signalling," in a 2015 Spectator article. His 2015 formulation described virtue signalling as empty boasting.

"No one actually has to do anything. Virtue comes from mere words or even from silently held beliefs. There was a time in the distant past when people thought you could only be virtuous by doing things...[that] involve effort and self-sacrifice." [2]

[1] https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/virtue%20signalin...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtue_signalling#History

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