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Server stats say movetodon.org reached a new record of 49k users yesterday

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Re: Server stats say movetodon.org reached a new record of 49k users yesterday

#21

Post by jeffbee »

EarlKing wrote: post #12
323 wrote: post #5

It seems the Mastodon ecosystem has serious problems scaling. Most of the servers are closed to registrations, and we are just talking about a couple million new users over 2 months. What if 100 mil users want to move? Are we going to relive the Twitter history, which crashed every time Justin Bieber tweeted?

I've tried telling people before that the Fediverse doesn't scale, that decentralized solutions where nobody is paying for anything only work for flashcrowds (i.e. torrents), and ultimately this is going nowhere... but nobody wants to hear it. Everyone is sure that "torrents work, so this will work", neverminding the fact that the entire peer-to-peer ecosystem only works as long as there are people to seed, seeding c…

Twitter only works because it is centralized. The fediverse works less and less well as the number of federated instances increase. It has anti-scaling properties. And, on the non-technical side, it has a disorganized anonymous set of moderators you've never met or ever heard of, with no particular guiding philosophy or rules, and these guys have total access to your profile and they can do anything they want.

On the technical side, the whole thing is lossy as hell. If I view a foreign profile on my instance it shows a handful of posts and then says that "older posts" aren't shown from other instances. Then if I go to the other instance there are hundreds of posts that aren't older, they were just missing on my instance. None of it really works or makes any sense.

Re: Server stats say movetodon.org reached a new record of 49k users yesterday

#22

Post by deltarholamda »

spaceribs wrote: post #18
standardUser wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How could it replace Twitter? Even the Mastodon devotees admit it can't scale to that level and the sign-up process will turn off most users before they even get started.

Maybe I could pose this question another way, what does Twitter do that Mastodon can't?

If you want to give somebody your handle, you say "@elonmusk," instead of saying "@elonmusk@mast.don.vanity.tld".

(I didn't think Horseshoe Theory would bring back bangpaths, but here we are.)

Personally I believe a big central silo for so-called public discussions is a terrible idea, but I do understand there is some value to it. However, there will always be a problem with this sort of thing because a very large number of people are morons and/or scolds, and they seem to have a lot of free time.

Re: Server stats say movetodon.org reached a new record of 49k users yesterday

#23

Post by ls15 »

323 wrote: post #5

It seems the Mastodon ecosystem has serious problems scaling. Most of the servers are closed to registrations, and we are just talking about a couple million new users over 2 months. What if 100 mil users want to move? Are we going to relive the Twitter history, which crashed every time Justin Bieber tweeted?

> What if 100 mil users want to move?

Some of the new users will have to run new servers.

For example if public officials are moving to Mastodon, I expect the state to run their own servers. It was never a good idea to allow Twitter to be a platform for (semi-)official communication.

Re: Server stats say movetodon.org reached a new record of 49k users yesterday

#24

Post by standardUser »

spaceribs wrote: post #18
standardUser wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How could it replace Twitter? Even the Mastodon devotees admit it can't scale to that level and the sign-up process will turn off most users before they even get started.

Maybe I could pose this question another way, what does Twitter do that Mastodon can't?

Allow users to signup in 3 seconds without "choosing a server".

Re: Server stats say movetodon.org reached a new record of 49k users yesterday

#25

Post by Zak »

EarlKing wrote: post #12
323 wrote: post #5

It seems the Mastodon ecosystem has serious problems scaling. Most of the servers are closed to registrations, and we are just talking about a couple million new users over 2 months. What if 100 mil users want to move? Are we going to relive the Twitter history, which crashed every time Justin Bieber tweeted?

I've tried telling people before that the Fediverse doesn't scale, that decentralized solutions where nobody is paying for anything only work for flashcrowds (i.e. torrents), and ultimately this is going nowhere... but nobody wants to hear it. Everyone is sure that "torrents work, so this will work", neverminding the fact that the entire peer-to-peer ecosystem only works as long as there are people to seed, seeding c…

It will be interesting to see what happens when larger commercial services like Tumblr and Flickr enter this space. There's a good opportunity for startups to experiment with social apps and sites that would have previously struggled to build a large enough network to be useful; support ActivityPub and you have a network.

Re: Server stats say movetodon.org reached a new record of 49k users yesterday

#26

Post by phoe-krk »

323 wrote: post #5

It seems the Mastodon ecosystem has serious problems scaling. Most of the servers are closed to registrations, and we are just talking about a couple million new users over 2 months. What if 100 mil users want to move? Are we going to relive the Twitter history, which crashed every time Justin Bieber tweeted?

It's an error to treat the Fediverse as you would treat Twitter, where there is a singular platform in some way external to its users. Fediverse is a mesh network with single-user instances being feasible. If a single node has problems scaling, split it up. If a whole network has problems scaling, add more nodes. Fediverse is not yet at levels where the whole network is congested, either.

Re: Server stats say movetodon.org reached a new record of 49k users yesterday

#27

Post by phoe-krk »

jeffbee wrote: post #21
EarlKing wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've tried telling people before that the Fediverse doesn't scale, that decentralized solutions where nobody is paying for anything only work for flashcrowds (i.e. torrents), and ultimately this is going nowhere... but nobody wants to hear it. Everyone is sure that "torrents work, so this will work", neverminding the fact that the entire peer-to-peer ecosystem only works as long as there are people to seed, seeding c…

Twitter only works because it is centralized. The fediverse works less and less well as the number of federated instances increase. It has anti-scaling properties. And, on the non-technical side, it has a disorganized anonymous set of moderators you've never met or ever heard of, with no particular guiding philosophy or rules, and these guys have total access to your profile and they can do anything they want. On the…

> And, on the non-technical side, it has a disorganized anonymous set of moderators you've never met or ever heard of, with no particular guiding philosophy or rules, and these guys have total access to your profile and they can do anything they want.

Didn't you just describe Twitter?

Re: Server stats say movetodon.org reached a new record of 49k users yesterday

#28

Post by Zak »

jeffbee wrote: post #21
EarlKing wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've tried telling people before that the Fediverse doesn't scale, that decentralized solutions where nobody is paying for anything only work for flashcrowds (i.e. torrents), and ultimately this is going nowhere... but nobody wants to hear it. Everyone is sure that "torrents work, so this will work", neverminding the fact that the entire peer-to-peer ecosystem only works as long as there are people to seed, seeding c…

Twitter only works because it is centralized. The fediverse works less and less well as the number of federated instances increase. It has anti-scaling properties. And, on the non-technical side, it has a disorganized anonymous set of moderators you've never met or ever heard of, with no particular guiding philosophy or rules, and these guys have total access to your profile and they can do anything they want. On the…

It's a push-based protocol. If somebody on your server follows the account, its posts will be on your server, but they can also be there through boosts, which leads to a seemingly random handful being populated.

A mechanism to backfill posts would definitely be a good addition.

Edit: for clarity, ActivityPub provides an outbox from which another server (or anything else that speaks HTTP) can pull posts. Adding a backfill feature to Mastodon would not require any changes to the protocol.

Re: Server stats say movetodon.org reached a new record of 49k users yesterday

#29

Post by jancsika »

323 wrote: post #5

It seems the Mastodon ecosystem has serious problems scaling. Most of the servers are closed to registrations, and we are just talking about a couple million new users over 2 months. What if 100 mil users want to move? Are we going to relive the Twitter history, which crashed every time Justin Bieber tweeted?

Have you submitted a bug report? :)

Re: Server stats say movetodon.org reached a new record of 49k users yesterday

#30

Post by hejaodbsidndbd »

phoe-krk wrote: post #26
323 wrote: post #5

It seems the Mastodon ecosystem has serious problems scaling. Most of the servers are closed to registrations, and we are just talking about a couple million new users over 2 months. What if 100 mil users want to move? Are we going to relive the Twitter history, which crashed every time Justin Bieber tweeted?

It's an error to treat the Fediverse as you would treat Twitter, where there is a singular platform in some way external to its users. Fediverse is a mesh network with single-user instances being feasible. If a single node has problems scaling, split it up. If a whole network has problems scaling, add more nodes. Fediverse is not yet at levels where the whole network is congested, either.

This makes the network congestion exponentially worse. It’s not scalable.
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