121–130 of 136 posts
The amount of users who care about Mastodon is negligible when compared with the amount of Twitter users. People have already voted and Mastodon got the thumbs down.
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In the early days of email, most people got an email account automatically from their work or school. When it went mainstream in the 1990s, most people got an email automatically from their ISP-and a lot of older people (like my parents age, who are in their early-to-mid 70s) still rely on that for their personal email. Then along came independent free email services such as Yahoo/Hotmail/Gmail, which either started…
In the early days of social media, most people got an account on the nearest BBS. When it went mainstream in the 1990s, most people automatically got a Facebook account and a lot of older people still rely on that for social media. Then along came independent free social media services such as Twitter/Discord/TikTok... It's exactly comparable, just a few years down the timeline from email.
The friction that prospective Mastadon users have experience is the knowledge that an easier option exists.
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Want to join Email? First you have to choose a server ... No wonder email failed to thrive as an open protocol, distributed communication system. It's just too darned hard and unfamiliar to figure out how to join.
In the early days of email, most people got an email account automatically from their work or school. When it went mainstream in the 1990s, most people got an email automatically from their ISP-and a lot of older people (like my parents age, who are in their early-to-mid 70s) still rely on that for their personal email. Then along came independent free email services such as Yahoo/Hotmail/Gmail, which either started…
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In the early days of email, most people got an email account automatically from their work or school. When it went mainstream in the 1990s, most people got an email automatically from their ISP-and a lot of older people (like my parents age, who are in their early-to-mid 70s) still rely on that for their personal email. Then along came independent free email services such as Yahoo/Hotmail/Gmail, which either started…
In the early days of social media, most people got an account on the nearest BBS. When it went mainstream in the 1990s, most people automatically got a Facebook account and a lot of older people still rely on that for social media. Then along came independent free social media services such as Twitter/Discord/TikTok... It's exactly comparable, just a few years down the timeline from email.
The majority of people never used “the nearest BBS”, only a relatively small percentage of the population ever did. Even in their heyday, they were mainly popular with computer enthusiasts, who have always been a minority of the population. Many computer enthusiasts find technical complexity intriguing, the average person finds it off-putting
> When it went mainstream in the 1990s, most people automatically got a Facebook account and a lot of older people still rely on that for social media.
Who “automatically” got a Facebook account? The vast majority of users had to go to Facebook.com and sign up. People got an email given to them by their work/school/ISP, I’ve never heard of someone being given a Facebook account by any of those (Workplace doesn’t really count.) And unlike Mastodon, Facebook never asked its users to “choose an instance”
> Then along came independent free social media services such as Twitter/Discord/TikTok...
All of which are big commercial services, and none make you “choose an instance” in the way that Mastodon does when you sign up for them
> It's exactly comparable, just a few years down the timeline from email.
It’s completely different; it’s only “exactly comparable” if you ignore many key details
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Twitter is easier for new users to join. If you aren’t on Twitter and want to be (or have left and want to give it another try), the flow to create a new account is really easy - go to twitter.com, and then the sign-up flow is pretty standard, something almost everyone nowadays is familiar with. Want to join Mastodon? First you have to choose an instance - there are so many to choose from. If you are joining Mastodon…
It's no different to email.
That’s not true. Rather than repeat myself, I’ll just link to my other comment in which I explain why: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35579360
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Search, or the lack thereof, is my least favorite thing about the fediverse. The federated nature means it's not feasible to search across all instances the way I can search across all of Twitter.
I mean, the Internet is decentralised and we still have Google and friends. It might be harder to implement than Twitter, but it's surely not "not feasible".
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I would never say this for real, but in my head I've always asked, how smart can you be if you're turning your nose up at or not joining in the most interesting open active conversations in the world? I agree that the majority of the world or even sharp people weren't actually there. But in effect, every other place for conversations was a drop in the bucket compared to Twitter's ocean. Finding some good inspiring in…
> how smart can you be if you're turning your nose up at or not joining in the most interesting open active conversations in the world? Frankly, I tend towards the opposite view. How smart can you be if you spend any significant amount of time engaged in the worst platform for intelligent conversation on the internet? Well, clearly there are plenty of smart people in either category, but we can objectively say there…
This continues to strike me as passing up on something amazing. Most issues with birdsite depend on where you tread. The forum itself is not exceptional but really people just make such mountains over little molehills. Just learn to unfollow & trust your own judgements. Focusing only on negatives is a "whether you believe you can or whether you believe you can't, you're right".
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On Ads, perhaps you have an adblocker on your desktop, but on mobile you’ll end up forced to use an app, and given twitter’s api is now pretty much closed off, there will be ads in those clients/apps. Elon needs to make money, and you will eventually see ads or give him money if you use his platform
Don’t the people hosting these instances need to make money as well?
But they don't generally seek to make a profit, just cover costs.
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In the early days of social media, most people got an account on the nearest BBS. When it went mainstream in the 1990s, most people automatically got a Facebook account and a lot of older people still rely on that for social media. Then along came independent free social media services such as Twitter/Discord/TikTok... It's exactly comparable, just a few years down the timeline from email.
> In the early days of social media, most people got an account on the nearest BBS. The majority of people never used “the nearest BBS”, only a relatively small percentage of the population ever did. Even in their heyday, they were mainly popular with computer enthusiasts, who have always been a minority of the population. Many computer enthusiasts find technical complexity intriguing, the average person finds it off…
You're really leaning in to 'choose an instance', which has only really been a problem for tech experts. Everyone I know on Mastodon just clicked one of the listed instances on joinmastodon.org and never thought about it again.
And no, most people didn't have to go anywhere to sign up for Facebook. For an extremely long time, there was a LinkedIn-like email invitation system, and when you made your account it suggested "people you may know" and generally guessed right. Literally all you needed to do to get a Facebook account was make up a password. I'm not familiar with whatever the current growth hacks are.
Anyway, it's easy to make comparisons by ignoring many key details. You did it too, you just described those key details as "obscure exceptions" or saying they don't "really count." I'm not sure what anyone is supposed to get from your text except that you're really stumped about decentralization.
To this day people have to "choose an instance" to sign up for email, because people use email before they get jobs and they can't hang onto primary-school accounts after they leave school. Sure, most people sign up for GMail or Apple mail, because their phones tell them to. That's still choosing an instance, and Microsoft, Yahoo, Fastmail, and other providers continue to exist and turn profits, even though their users had to battle the indominitable hellscape of having to choose an instance.
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I doubt that the vast majority of Twitter users made an active decision of giving Mastodon the thumb down. They just didn't hear of it, or had no impetus to find a different option. I think that's an important distinction.
The format of the fediverse is anti-virality and anti-discovery. It's also anti-index. It's a joke that anyone thinks it could ever compete with Twitter. It's not for a lack of interest or advertising.
That's maybe the sentiment of the users, but the implementation details allow indexing of public content very easily.
Anyway, the purpose - at least in my eyes - is not to compete with twitter as a whole, but to offer alternatives to people that desire it. And to this end, I think Mastodon, and I hope the rest of the fediverse proved quite successful.