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

mastodon.social

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

#71
post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, it depends what you mean by 'replace'. Mastodon is already filling many of the functions that twitter filled for millions of people. Will it be a like-for-like replacement for Twitter? Of course not; I don't think anyone's saying that. But as Twitter crumbles, it's a place for many Twitter users to go which will work for many purposes. > the people who had bleu checks before the $7.99 fee are addicted to atte…

I don't use Twitter so maybe this is just wrong, but isn't part of the appeal of Twitter that regular users can interact with celebrities?

I think it depends on what you mean by _celebrities_.

For me, the appeal of Twitter is being able to interact with various communities (such as the legal twitter community). There are people who are fairly popular in that sphere, that I really like being able to see their thoughts on various issues and even ask the occasional question (Popehat, Akiva Cohen, Mike Dunford, Greg Doucette), etc.

Are these people celebrities? Kinda, in their niche, yea. In the broader sense of the word not really.

But all of those people have moved to Mastodon. So, I think that kind of reinforces the point. It's more communities within Twitter that move. That move is relatively sticky. And there are people within that community that are highly connected in that community ("celebrities" within the niche), and when they move it tends to solidify the move of the community.

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

#73
post #8

Mastodon is not and will not ever be a replacement for Twitter. Twitter's too large and the people who had bleu checks before the $7.99 fee are addicted to attention, validation, and/or lording their bleu check status over others. That's why Mastodon won't replace it. Sure, a few small (relative to Twitter) alternative Mastodon instances will pop up, but no real challenger or contender for the throne.

Holy. Shit.

I need to make an exclusive invite-only Mastodon instance with verified accounts, so being @ that server will be a status symbol.

Is Bluecheck.com taken?

(except now someone else will do it. Also I'm too lazy to actually do this)

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

#74
post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't use Twitter so maybe this is just wrong, but isn't part of the appeal of Twitter that regular users can interact with celebrities?

I think it depends on what you mean by _celebrities_. For me, the appeal of Twitter is being able to interact with various communities (such as the legal twitter community). There are people who are fairly popular in that sphere, that I really like being able to see their thoughts on various issues and even ask the occasional question (Popehat, Akiva Cohen, Mike Dunford, Greg Doucette), etc. Are these people celebrit…

Yeah, that's another point that I think probably goes in Mastodon's favour. Most of the people who could be loosely classed as celebrities that I follow either are posting to both, or have flat-out moved. But they generally are niche "celebrities", not people with millions of followers.

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

#75
post #21

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…

Every instance has its own moderation policies, and the user has the option of moving to another instance (and keep being able to interact with the fediverse at large) if they clash with the mods or don't think they're doing enough. Instance maintainers are named and contactable if you have issues with them or other users. If you don't trust them with your account, move to an instance that you can.

What can you do if you have issues with the moderation team at Twitter? Honest question-- I've been off Twitter for over a decade and hear about everything there second-hand.

This sword cuts both ways for the fediverse (allowing bad actors to just move to another instance, for example) but on the whole I find it allows for a more people-centric approach to online community.

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

#76
post #8

Mastodon is not and will not ever be a replacement for Twitter. Twitter's too large and the people who had bleu checks before the $7.99 fee are addicted to attention, validation, and/or lording their bleu check status over others. That's why Mastodon won't replace it. Sure, a few small (relative to Twitter) alternative Mastodon instances will pop up, but no real challenger or contender for the throne.

I hope Mastodon doesn't "replace" twitter (as in becomes like twitter). So far Mastodon is much nicer than twitter so I hope Mastodon stays like it is and is something better than twitter had become.

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

#77
post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, it depends what you mean by 'replace'. Mastodon is already filling many of the functions that twitter filled for millions of people. Will it be a like-for-like replacement for Twitter? Of course not; I don't think anyone's saying that. But as Twitter crumbles, it's a place for many Twitter users to go which will work for many purposes. > the people who had bleu checks before the $7.99 fee are addicted to atte…

I don't use Twitter so maybe this is just wrong, but isn't part of the appeal of Twitter that regular users can interact with celebrities?

[deleted]

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

#78
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…

Federated systems are more resilient, which is the half of the trade-off you leave out. Also, “scale” is too vague a term in this context. It could mean efficiency or it could mean uptime. These are very different, and federated systems will have higher “uptime” in the sense that one instance crashing won’t cause all to crash. However, it will be less efficient, but there are huge efficiency gains to be had with the current design.

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

#79
post #8

Mastodon is not and will not ever be a replacement for Twitter. Twitter's too large and the people who had bleu checks before the $7.99 fee are addicted to attention, validation, and/or lording their bleu check status over others. That's why Mastodon won't replace it. Sure, a few small (relative to Twitter) alternative Mastodon instances will pop up, but no real challenger or contender for the throne.

in the past few weeks I've personally found it very amusing to see pre-$8 bluechecks on twitter telling their followers that they're moving to other (non-mastodon) social media services, then you click the link to their new profile there and almost without exception find out that they've been "Verified" on that platform too. it's like they can't imagine using a social media website unless they have some kind of visible Status Signifier that the unwashed masses don't get to have. all other leadership decisions aside, the $8 bluecheck is the best thing anyone could've done to twitter.

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

#80
post #10

The pessimism of the comments here confuses me. In fact, Mastodon has handled this extraordinarily well, as I see it. I'm very much in the "median Twitter user" bucket: I don't post much, I have a feed of a few hundred accounts that I follow because I want to hear what they have to say, and I browse the feed once or twice on most days to catch up, with occasionally binges during newsworthy events. And... I've done al…

Yeah, I run a Mastodon server, registrations are open, and it's never gone down. What I see mostly are people coming over from Twitter and making a go of it. Some bounce, most stay, and some vastly prefer it. Part of the trick is moving over communities. You don't need the world and its dog. It's working already. It's replaced Twitter for me, and then some. The pessimism here on HN is bizarre! Isn't this what so many…

> The pessimism here on HN is bizarre!

This has been my experience on HN in general, though I recognize I've been part of the problem. It's really easy to dump on things and feel smart.

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