Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

mastodon.social

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

231–240 of 257 posts

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

#231

Post by crazygringo »

lapcat wrote: post #215
crazygringo wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sorry, but just a million times no. If Mastodon isn't "a messaging service that intends to connect people across the world", then I can't even imagine what it's supposed to be. Because that is exactly what it is. And if it somehow hit a limit at 10 million total users, then it would be a complete failure. And to say that "it wouldn't really detract from the Fediverse" if you couldn't follow popular people because…

I think you're missing the point of a social network. Barack Obama is not social on Twitter. You can't talk to him. You can't have a conversation. Look at his Twitter feed: when's the last time he's replied to anyone? He issues mini press releases, that's all. You can't email Barack Obama either, by the way. I mean, you can try, but good luck with that. You talk about a messaging service, but it's entirely one-way me…

You're missing the point that Obama was just an example, to use the most followed person on Twitter.

There are tons of people on Twitter with over 10 million followers who interact with Twitter a ton. They're very "social".

If a social network can't handle people who are popular, then that's a real problem. And remember, people's accounts can start unpopular, and then they gain millions of followers over years. So what do you do, boot them off for the sin of saying things lots of people want to listen to and interact with?

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

#232

Post by lapcat »

crazygringo wrote: post #231
lapcat wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you're missing the point of a social network. Barack Obama is not social on Twitter. You can't talk to him. You can't have a conversation. Look at his Twitter feed: when's the last time he's replied to anyone? He issues mini press releases, that's all. You can't email Barack Obama either, by the way. I mean, you can try, but good luck with that. You talk about a messaging service, but it's entirely one-way me…

You're missing the point that Obama was just an example, to use the most followed person on Twitter. There are tons of people on Twitter with over 10 million followers who interact with Twitter a ton. They're very "social". If a social network can't handle people who are popular, then that's a real problem. And remember, people's accounts can start unpopular, and then they gain millions of followers over years. So wh…

> There are tons of people on Twitter with over 10 million followers who interact with Twitter a ton.

They certainly don't interact with 10 million people. That's impossible. They only interact with a tiny subset of their followers.

> If a social network can't handle people who are popular, then that's a real problem. And remember, people's accounts can start unpopular, and then they gain millions of followers over years.

I disagree. The most popular person I followed on Twitter had 300K followers and had been on Twitter since 2006. It's really not a big deal if there are no celebrities. The celebrities can post wherever else on the web they like. Don't need them. Let them continue on Twitter, whatever. Not a problem.

I've spent literally decades on the internet, on countless forums, never interacting with celebrities. It's fine. It's great!

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

#233

Post by datacruncher01 »

fleddr wrote: post #144
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…

I will join you in your unpopular opinion. People have become so entitled that they can't appreciate the value they have in their hands today. Services like Twitter, Insta, FB, the like are in many ways incredible. We've forgotten all about that, but let's explore... They're pretty much always available. They scale endlessly without you noticing. They are fast. They have apps on every touch point. They preserve your…

All those systems were built and designed during a time where free money via cheap credit was available to fund growth at all costs to become the dominant market player. That money is fading with the Fed rate increases and is looking like it may stay that way for a long time. What this means for tech is more paid everything. Expect most of the free services to disappear. Twitter, Elon or not was going to have to make major cuts to stay afloat.

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

#234

Post by [deleted] »

TheHappyOddish wrote: post #222
maxsilver wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It seems every Mastodon instance is its own kingdom managed by people I don't know running on arbitrary rules they've set. Yep! This is also exactly how e-mail works, and yet everyone manages to get an e-mail account (or ten) with no problems. > I still gave their server browser a try, and couldn't find anything that looks remotely official on the first page. "Hello, helpdesk? I can't find the official email server…

> Yep! This is also exactly how e-mail works, and yet everyone manages to get an e-mail account (or ten) with no problems. The vast majority of people have their primary address in one of the following ways: 1) Their ISP gave them an email when they signed up (with handhold support) 2) Their work gave them an email when they started (with handhold support) 3) They asked a tech savvy friend who told them to use GMail…

[deleted]

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

#235

Post by lasc4r »

fleddr wrote: post #144
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…

I will join you in your unpopular opinion. People have become so entitled that they can't appreciate the value they have in their hands today. Services like Twitter, Insta, FB, the like are in many ways incredible. We've forgotten all about that, but let's explore... They're pretty much always available. They scale endlessly without you noticing. They are fast. They have apps on every touch point. They preserve your…

That's one way of looking at it, too much like explaining the wonder of efficiency that is the gasoline supply chain without mentioning CO2 though. Kinda changes the 'incredible amount of value offered' for me.

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

#236

Post by kitsune_ »

darkwater wrote: post #230
kitsune_ wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many of the focused niche discussions around the globe still happen in forums (and subreddits).

Reddit is as centralized as a platform could ever be.

I didn't claim otherwise

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

#237

Post by crazygringo »

lapcat wrote: post #232
crazygringo wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're missing the point that Obama was just an example, to use the most followed person on Twitter. There are tons of people on Twitter with over 10 million followers who interact with Twitter a ton. They're very "social". If a social network can't handle people who are popular, then that's a real problem. And remember, people's accounts can start unpopular, and then they gain millions of followers over years. So wh…

> There are tons of people on Twitter with over 10 million followers who interact with Twitter a ton. They certainly don't interact with 10 million people. That's impossible. They only interact with a tiny subset of their followers. > If a social network can't handle people who are popular, then that's a real problem. And remember, people's accounts can start unpopular, and then they gain millions of followers over y…

You're completely missing the point, again.

This isn't about "celebrities" (a word I never used), it's about popular people all around, like authors, journalists, and so on.

And sure nobody is personally replying to all of their 10 million+ followers, but those 10 million+ followers do want to follow! And popular figures absolutely interact with and reply to tons of their followers quite frequently, that's the whole point.

Frankly, nobody cares if you "don't need" anybody popular. But to argue that a place like Mastodon should make it impossible for anybody to be popular, is ludicrous. If Mastodon wanted to stay tiny for people like you, separated into little popular-people-not-supported bubbles with a some hard max limit on followers, then why would it even have been built on federation in the first place...?

The idea that an author with only a few followers could have a best-selling book, and then at some point enthusiastic readers try to follow them only to get "error: max follow limit reached", would be a total and utter failure. A bug, not a feature.

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

#238

Post by drewzero1 »

thejohnconway wrote: post #183
yborg wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

HN has become The Establishment, it skews older, and thus is extremely skeptical of any change to the comfortable status quo. It's of course supremely ironic in a community that (originally) represented the Silicon Valley startup culture of Disrupt Everything.

> Silicon Valley startup culture The answer might lay in that, I guess. Mastodon isn't much of a venture capital opportunity. No startup in the space is likely to return billions.

So true. SV-types have been so conditioned to look for the monetization angle and the fediverse has been designed and built to be the direct opposite of that. I think a lot of people are so busy looking for the fame and the money that they miss the point.

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

#239

Post by mindslight »

TheHappyOddish wrote: post #226
mindslight wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're not bang paths, but rather the standard user@host of email. Imagine the absurdity of arguing "if you want to give someone your screenname, you just say SteveCase instead of having to say stevecase@example.com" What I don't get is why all of these services with the similar format have to adopt their own quirky address formatting, rather than piggybacking on the same format as email. I should be able to just te…

This is much more difficult for normal users. You'd need to set up your domain of example.org to have some form of SRV or TXT record to say "example.org" points to "mastodon.social", or even records per user if you wanted granularity. You could also use .well-known or other domain verification/pointer methods. However if I'm joe@gmail.com, how does another user on mastodon know how to contact me? Where is my home ser…

It only looks difficult because the custom has not been created for advanced users, to then trickle down into functionality for basic users.

If you own a domain, you or your registrar configures the appropriate A/SRV/TXTs to point services at your chosen service provider, just like is already done. If you use something like Gmail, then you're looking at Google to run a Mastodon server or at least a stub redirection server.

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

#240

Post by lapcat »

crazygringo wrote: post #237
lapcat wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There are tons of people on Twitter with over 10 million followers who interact with Twitter a ton. They certainly don't interact with 10 million people. That's impossible. They only interact with a tiny subset of their followers. > If a social network can't handle people who are popular, then that's a real problem. And remember, people's accounts can start unpopular, and then they gain millions of followers over y…

You're completely missing the point, again. This isn't about "celebrities" (a word I never used), it's about popular people all around, like authors, journalists, and so on. And sure nobody is personally replying to all of their 10 million+ followers, but those 10 million+ followers do want to follow! And popular figures absolutely interact with and reply to tons of their followers quite frequently, that's the whole…

> This isn't about "celebrities" (a word I never used), it's about popular people all around, like authors, journalists, and so on.

I don't want to quibble over terms. Celebrities, popular people, whatever you want to call them.

> And popular figures absolutely interact with and reply to tons of their followers quite frequently, that's the whole point.

And popular people have plenty of places where they can do that. But why does everyplace have to be amenable to people with 10+ million followers?

> But to argue that a place like Mastodon should make it impossible for anybody to be popular, is ludicrous.

That's a straw man. It's simply a question of whether it's technically/financially feasible to scale to that level. And there's no reason why it has to be. I don't see why it needs to be designed around the needs of super popular people.

> The idea that an author with only a few followers could have a best-selling book, and then at some point enthusiastic readers try to follow them

It's possible for a person to outgrow a place. That doesn't mean there was anything wrong with the original place. Popular people have different needs than non-popular people, but that doesn't mean we have to cater to popular people as a prime directive.

I find it ludicrous that every social space on the web would have to make itself accessible to celebrities (my word), as if it were a legal requirement like making it accessible to the disabled. Celebrities are not a protected class. ;-)

The sites that cater to celebrities are supported by advertising. They need all the eyeballs brought by celebrities. Mastodon does not have advertising. It doesn't have the same incentives. That's not a flaw, it's just a different set of choices and priorities.

Post reply on HN