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Twitter users jump to Mastodon, but what is it?

bbc.com

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Re: Twitter users jump to Mastodon, but what is it?

#21

Post by wheats »

primeradical wrote: post #12

Pretty clear a good portion of the Twitter users moving to Mastodon don't understand that it's a federated application, and expect a centralized Twitter clone. If your complaint is Elon's flavor of moderation on Twitter, moving to a Mastodon server with an admin with their own fun and unique ideas about moderation isn't the tea.

>moving to a Mastodon server with an admin with their own fun and unique ideas about moderation isn't the tea.

Well, that's supposed to be the benefit of Mastodon, isn't it? Every platform has moderation rules and owners/admins, and every platform will have these things change periodically. Mastodon is built around the idea that you can easily migrate your data to a different instance without having to leave the platform if you disagree with how it is being run. You can even be your own owner/admin of an instance if you feel strongly enough about it but still be on the same platform as other users you follow.

Re: Twitter users jump to Mastodon, but what is it?

#23

Post by colordrops »

godelski wrote: post #19
raytube wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why can't it get enough reach? What if each news outlet ran their own server? Or would this feel like bondage with people wishing for multiple personas/autonomy?

> Why can't it get enough reach? > What if each news outlet ran their own server? I think you answered your own question.

Email is run just like this and it has plenty of reach.

Re: Twitter users jump to Mastodon, but what is it?

#24

Post by sigmar »

Eji1700 wrote: post #13
jmann99999 wrote: post #5

If this BBC story doesn't indicate that there is an overreaction to new Twitter management, I don't know what will. It reminded me of when I was considering trying to move all of our customers to receive PGP encrypted mail in 2005. An intelligent employee brought up that an average business person would never do that. Luckily we never implemented it. Mastodon is great but it isn't a replacement for Twitter. Too much…

Having it brought to my attention, and as someone who never got into twitter, I figured I'd give it a shot and see if it fit my desires better. So far it mostly just doesn't work, so that's neat.

What specifically do you mean by "mostly just doesn't work"?

Re: Twitter users jump to Mastodon, but what is it?

#25

Post by nimbius »

jmann99999 wrote: post #5

If this BBC story doesn't indicate that there is an overreaction to new Twitter management, I don't know what will. It reminded me of when I was considering trying to move all of our customers to receive PGP encrypted mail in 2005. An intelligent employee brought up that an average business person would never do that. Luckily we never implemented it. Mastodon is great but it isn't a replacement for Twitter. Too much…

>there is an overreaction to new Twitter management

Oh i think its a perfectly legitimate and reasonable reaction to new Twitter management. a guy worth about 200bn USD spent his first day at the office dragging a piece of plumbing around cheerleading his impending job cuts and upcoming $8 surcharge for a feature that only really benefits and legitimizes the platform. he then axes most of the company, especially the moderation team, and acts shocked when brand-safety conscious corporations pull their advertising out of an abundance of caution.

hes lucky corporate brands and advertisers havent figured out they could start their own Mastodon instance for almost nothing, plug it until it becomes more popular than Twitter, and maintain all their existing brand safety controls in the process.

If Musk wanted to take a 44bn USD kick to the knackers and spend the end of his year getting deadass roasted on his new social media platform by literally everyone, its a success.

Re: Twitter users jump to Mastodon, but what is it?

#27

Post by jimbob45 »

raytube wrote: post #15
jmann99999 wrote: post #5

If this BBC story doesn't indicate that there is an overreaction to new Twitter management, I don't know what will. It reminded me of when I was considering trying to move all of our customers to receive PGP encrypted mail in 2005. An intelligent employee brought up that an average business person would never do that. Luckily we never implemented it. Mastodon is great but it isn't a replacement for Twitter. Too much…

Why can't it get enough reach? What if each news outlet ran their own server? Or would this feel like bondage with people wishing for multiple personas/autonomy?

There’s probably a good test for competing products that one could apply. Between my daughter, me, my mother, and my grandmother, how many of us can or will want to switch to the competing product? If it’s too hard for at least two generations, you’re probably not going to meet success because you’ve already lost a large chunk of your potential user base before we even begin discussing if the users want your service in the first place.

Re: Twitter users jump to Mastodon, but what is it?

#28

Post by Laremere »

jmann99999 wrote: post #5

If this BBC story doesn't indicate that there is an overreaction to new Twitter management, I don't know what will. It reminded me of when I was considering trying to move all of our customers to receive PGP encrypted mail in 2005. An intelligent employee brought up that an average business person would never do that. Luckily we never implemented it. Mastodon is great but it isn't a replacement for Twitter. Too much…

I really felt that there was an overreaction and we needed time to see what changes actually happened under Musk. Lots of very confident and different guesses about what was going on.

Then Musk started to say he'd name and shame advertisers who have lowered/removed their spend on the platform. I don't know what the bar for advertisers deciding a platform is too risky to advertise on, but that has to cross it. There are a lot of different sites to advertise on, so it only really takes being riskier than the rest to lower/remove the amount you're willing to spend on the platform.

But maybe that take is just as bad as the rest. Perhaps Twitter sometime soon finds a crowd that will pay enough to sustain it, and the crowds that fled from it slowly come back after becoming frustrated with overly technical alternatives.

Re: Twitter users jump to Mastodon, but what is it?

#29

Post by LightG »

primeradical wrote: post #12

Pretty clear a good portion of the Twitter users moving to Mastodon don't understand that it's a federated application, and expect a centralized Twitter clone. If your complaint is Elon's flavor of moderation on Twitter, moving to a Mastodon server with an admin with their own fun and unique ideas about moderation isn't the tea.

I'll take it as a stopgap until we figure out what is the next step.

Musk can shove his $8 up his big, fat... fail whale.

Re: Twitter users jump to Mastodon, but what is it?

#30

Post by sieabahlpark »

nimbius wrote: post #25
jmann99999 wrote: post #5

If this BBC story doesn't indicate that there is an overreaction to new Twitter management, I don't know what will. It reminded me of when I was considering trying to move all of our customers to receive PGP encrypted mail in 2005. An intelligent employee brought up that an average business person would never do that. Luckily we never implemented it. Mastodon is great but it isn't a replacement for Twitter. Too much…

>there is an overreaction to new Twitter management Oh i think its a perfectly legitimate and reasonable reaction to new Twitter management. a guy worth about 200bn USD spent his first day at the office dragging a piece of plumbing around cheerleading his impending job cuts and upcoming $8 surcharge for a feature that only really benefits and legitimizes the platform. he then axes most of the company, especially the…

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