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Mastodon's founder has a vision to democratize social media

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Re: Mastodon's founder has a vision to democratize social media

#131

Post by riffic »

OscarCunningham wrote: post #128
Joeboy wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Two big, vanilla instances are https://mastodon.social and https://mas.to . Unfortunately they've both been struggling to keep up with demand lately. If you're paralyzed by choice, I'd say just go for one of those if / when they're accepting new users. I think Mastodon would get more signups if interested people were just pointed at like ten working, non-specialized, non-tiny instances, rather than being confronted w…

In the category of large general instances, there's also https://mstdn.social and https://mastodon.online .

these large servers are being toasted right now beyond their capacity, which is giving the larger community a poor impression of this system.

I'd recommend joining smaller instances or like, just running your own. WordPress with the AP plugin is a nice alternative if you just want to feed your own thoughts out into the fedi-sphere.

Re: Mastodon's founder has a vision to democratize social media

#132

Post by DavidSJ »

allan-a wrote: post #79
Al-Khwarizmi wrote: post #58

I really want to like Mastodon, and every few years I make an attempt to join. But then, I am faced with the decision of choosing a server - if I like cooking and golf, do I join the cooking server or the golf server? What if I choose wrong ? - and the choice overload makes me just give up. And even if I really joined, then apparently my server's administrator would be able to silently prevent me from seeing other "e…

Just a small note, you can't really choose wrong because you can participate across the fediverse, with other "servers", and even non-mastodon federated social media. However if it irks one to join a specific community, there does exist general purpose instances.

If I can’t choose wrong then why am I forced to choose at all? The user experience doesn’t add up.

Re: Mastodon's founder has a vision to democratize social media

#133

Post by yanderekko »

kstrauser wrote: post #129
yanderekko wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Anyone has numerous servers to choose from that will let them say whatever they want, but other people have the choice to go to servers which don't federate with the other one. And then people who are unhappy with the mere existence of other servers hosting speech they dislike will launch coordinated attacks on the upstream infrastructure and revenue streams of those servers, as we've seen time and time and time aga…

That’s a strange take. If another server hosts content I, as a Mastodon admin, dislike, then I can simply choose not to talk to them. I do not owe them a platform. I’m not preventing my users from creating a second account on that server so that they can interact with it. That server has perfect freedom to host whatever they see fit, and I have perfect freedom not to see it. And if I’m too quick to block servers, my…

I'm not saying that it's a Mastadon technology problem. I'm saying it's a social problem, that the "federation model" only truly works down to the layer of the tech stack which is not federated, which is still most layers. Activists will not be content to merely defederate, they will coordinate to have disfavored Mastadon instances brought down by their hosts and funders.

Re: Mastodon's founder has a vision to democratize social media

#135

Post by OscarCunningham »

ceejayoz wrote: post #59
samsepi0l wrote: post #46

I dont think Mastodon will gain mainstream adoption because of the naming, and they call messages "Toots". Normal people will baulk at the branding of it all.

I remember complaining the “iPad” sounded like a menstrual product. Seemed to do fine.

The Wii did fine too.

Re: Mastodon's founder has a vision to democratize social media

#136

Post by tramtrist »

riffic wrote: post #131
OscarCunningham wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the category of large general instances, there's also https://mstdn.social and https://mastodon.online .

these large servers are being toasted right now beyond their capacity, which is giving the larger community a poor impression of this system. I'd recommend joining smaller instances or like, just running your own. WordPress with the AP plugin is a nice alternative if you just want to feed your own thoughts out into the fedi-sphere.

Really surprised fosstodon.org doesn't get mentioned on HN more..

Re: Mastodon's founder has a vision to democratize social media

#137

Post by ahelwer »

fredgrott wrote: post #42

I think most of us are missing where things are converging: 1. Easier to do ads as overlay on vid clips than 12 character content 2. User base is getting to trained to expect and WANT short vid clip content 3. Ease and reach of story telling via short vid clips 4. Move off of social graph to AI graph 5. Automated moderation but open where you can see what posts were moderated and why pertaining to the rules of the SM…

Who cares about "winning the market". Join a server and talk with your friends, colleagues, and like-minded people. Have a good time. Kick a few bucks at your instance for hosting costs maybe. Let the back-alley knife fight for the right to spy on & manipulate you happen somewhere else, never even crossing your mind.

Re: Mastodon's founder has a vision to democratize social media

#139

Post by beardedman »

imhoguy wrote: post #108
beardedman wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> what stops you to choose instance served by a company That when the goodwill of said company runs out, there is very little incentive for them to maintain the service (other than trying to monetize it).

There is no free lunch. Somebody has to pay electricity bills and spend resources (time) on administration. But you have a choice: so you trust the dude in rural Canada who pays the server bills with his harvest earnings, or you agree with monetization T&C by giving up your privacy to ads corporation, or you pay a hosting company who manages your instance on VPS, or you setup your own instance, or you participate in…

I think I will trust/use/invest in the company whose business model depends on me using the platform.

Re: Mastodon's founder has a vision to democratize social media

#140

Post by geoffeg »

Al-Khwarizmi wrote: post #58

I really want to like Mastodon, and every few years I make an attempt to join. But then, I am faced with the decision of choosing a server - if I like cooking and golf, do I join the cooking server or the golf server? What if I choose wrong ? - and the choice overload makes me just give up. And even if I really joined, then apparently my server's administrator would be able to silently prevent me from seeing other "e…

How is that different from email though? Email providers will block whole swaths of IPs without telling you but you don't really notice it because it's very likely those IPs are only being used maliciously.

We're in a weird time right now though. Most people choose an email provider based on word of mouth or what their friends use but not enough people know about Mastodon to make that possible. Maybe Mastodon itself isn't the right answer, but I hope that a federated/distributed system is.

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