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Mastodon Is Better Than Twitter: Elevator Pitch

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Re: Mastodon Is Better Than Twitter: Elevator Pitch

#111

Post by xigma »

fredsir wrote: post #99
xigma wrote: post #95

What I expect of a "better" Twitter: - A timeline that shows what people I follow say, in chronological order - no censorship, unless requested and enforced by authorities in my jurisdiction - no notifications, no @messages (unless I follow them) I don't even understand how Mastodon really works or how it's comparable to Twitter. Do people post onto channels? Do I have to join channels to read what they post on those…

> I don’t even understand ... It works exactly the same as Twitter, except that not everyone is using Twitter.com. Some are using mastodon.social, some are using some other instance and so on, but you can still follow people on other instances, like you can email people using gmail from a hotmail adress and so on. A username is @username@instance instead of just @username as with Twitter.

E-Mail doesn't have moderation (besides Spamfilters). It's unclear to me how this all ties in, if I follow someone and they get banned from their instance, how does it affect me? How does it affect their content?

Not saying there aren't solutions for this, I'm saying it's unclear from just looking at the service and I don't care about moderation in the first place. So it's unclear to me how this is "better".

Re: Mastodon Is Better Than Twitter: Elevator Pitch

#112

Post by bilbo0s »

OK, here's the problem in a nutshell: no one among regular people cares. You guys are splitting hairs right now when talking about the difference between tweeting and boosting or public companies vs open source or what have you. None of that attracts users. If you have no users, then for regular people, your product is useless. Even the article is not really making a pitch for mastodon that indicates any features at all that would convince any of Kim K or Kylie Jenner's followers to go take a look at it. I'll even go a step further and say that Mastodon is probably more for fringe groups than for the unwashed masses those fringe groups are trying to influence.

Look, you want me to get excited about Mastodon? Show me something exciting I can do with it that I can't do with twitter, instagram, or Snapchat. Is there some triple-I indie game that Mastodon will allow me to play in my browser? (Or triple-A non indie? I'm not picky. Just don't show me a point and click please.) Post the link for that game, you'll get a lot more people trying Mastodon. Alternatively, is there some new and novel porn that Mastodon will allow me to access? Or is there a new generation of FIFA stars on Mastodon? Or new generation of NBA stars? I mean, even a new generation of "It" Girls chasing NBA stars would be better for attracting users than "thoughtful and local uncommented retweets". Which is not only what you're asking me to get excited about right now, but is likely not even true. Boosts will be no more thoughtful than retweets, likely a good deal less thoughtful since Mastodon seems to be on a road that relegates it to fringe groups.

Right now, it's like buying a large tract of land in Kansas and saying that you've started a new municipality. No we don't have beaches, or theaters, or parks, or much of anything else, but everyone here is more thoughtful. so we're much better than Miami, San Diego, or Minneapolis.

I mean, it might work? But I think Las Vegas hit on a much better method of populating empty area by just saying, "HEY! We've got gambling and naked women!"

Re: Mastodon Is Better Than Twitter: Elevator Pitch

#113

Post by undoware »

undoware wrote: post #103
dredmorbius wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mastodon has a very large and thriving gender-nonbinary / non-normative population. There's a very large East Asian population (mostly Japan, though with Korea, Vietnam, Thailand, and China represented). I've seen Indian, Indonesian, Arabic, and other voices. European representation is strongly weighted to France, though with numerous countries and languages represented. North-American usage tends to tech-early adopt…

I'm sure it does. I was not replying to Mastodon-the-platform, I was commenting on the cognitive bias present in the OP. Mastodon may well be the cat's pajamas, but not for the reasons given; namely, that centralized social media somehow synthesize outrage ex nihilo. Which got downvoted, because pointing out that class and privilege are lens aberrations in the minds of technologists does not sit well with technologis…

Dorsey's response has to be the funniest; showing folks countervailing views in their feeds via sentiment analysis is a hysterically funny move, equivalent to trying to put out a fire by spraying it with gasoline.

I can't wait to get doxxed.

Re: Mastodon Is Better Than Twitter: Elevator Pitch

#114

Post by Digory »

quadrangle wrote: post #87
wool_gather wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's worth noting that one of the supporting points here > And Twitter doesn't have any choice in the matter, either. [...] Twitter is a public company, funded by investor money; they thus owe a legal duty to make as much money for their investors as they can is not, strictly speaking, true. This has been discussed a few times on HN recently. (And this book The Shareholder Value Myth is well worth reading: https://ne…

If investors feel that profit is not being maximized, they can sue or take other actions to punish those they see as not focusing on profit etc. I mean, the point is that "you aren't prioritizing profit" has legal standing for investors. And "we don't prioritize profit in cases that involve harming the world" does not is not a legal stance for the company unless the harm itself is illegal or the entity is a Benefit C…

You can always be fired for doing a ‘bad’ job, however your employer/shareholder defines bad. The law gives management really broad authority to define “good” and “bad,” though typically that’s easiest to measure and quantify through profit. (Especially for shareholders, who have alternative uses for money —- if the shareholder cares about Cause A, he has less to give to it if his investment underperforms.)

You can’t intentionally waste assets, you can’t put personal interests above the company’s interests, and there’s another set of rules when you sell the company — but “prioritizing profit” is an economic argument about what’s good and best, not quite so much a legal standard.

Re: Mastodon Is Better Than Twitter: Elevator Pitch

#115

Post by asntbqjkwbucaa »

tlholaday wrote: post #100
quadrangle wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If investors feel that profit is not being maximized, they can sue or take other actions to punish those they see as not focusing on profit etc. I mean, the point is that "you aren't prioritizing profit" has legal standing for investors. And "we don't prioritize profit in cases that involve harming the world" does not is not a legal stance for the company unless the harm itself is illegal or the entity is a Benefit C…

I agree that investors may sue management for fraud or corruption. "Not maximizing profit" is neither fraudulent nor corrupt. Investors who feel that profit is not being maximized can sell their shares or can vote to replace management. They can also buy sufficient shares from other unhappy shareholders to let them take control of the company altogether, and manage it themselves. What evidence do you have that any sh…

It's true that investors can sell if profit isn't being maximized, but how often does that happen in privately held companies?

E.g. if startup X has the tech to take over a market, but is insufficiently pursuing a profit opportunity because of moral squeamishness, chances are relatively good that investors in X will simply replace the executives with somebody that will pursue those opportunities since that's vastly cheaper than building up competitive tech in a new investment.

Similarly with publicly traded companies, not pursuing profit opportunities can result in large sell offs of a stock. You see a lot of animus against short sellers that suggests that the "businesses must maximize profit" norm is thoroughly ingrained in investor communities even if it's not legally mandatory.

Re: Mastodon Is Better Than Twitter: Elevator Pitch

#117

Post by TillE »

bilbo0s wrote: post #112

OK, here's the problem in a nutshell: no one among regular people cares. You guys are splitting hairs right now when talking about the difference between tweeting and boosting or public companies vs open source or what have you. None of that attracts users. If you have no users, then for regular people, your product is useless. Even the article is not really making a pitch for mastodon that indicates any features at…

You say problem, I say advantage. Not everything has to be a massive public square! It's okay to be niche. Until the mid/late 2000s, the internet was far more decentralized and often much the better for it.

In other words: https://mastodon.social/@helldude/100572161034726032

Re: Mastodon Is Better Than Twitter: Elevator Pitch

#118

Post by phreack »

So instances are like subreddits? Having never used Mastodon I'm not entirely sure I understood what an instance is, but if they are just like subreddits then I'd say that's a way better elevator pitch than trying to define them, and it also helps to show that people do like to congregate on a large platform around topics.

Re: Mastodon Is Better Than Twitter: Elevator Pitch

#119

Post by philippz »

TillE wrote: post #117
bilbo0s wrote: post #112

OK, here's the problem in a nutshell: no one among regular people cares. You guys are splitting hairs right now when talking about the difference between tweeting and boosting or public companies vs open source or what have you. None of that attracts users. If you have no users, then for regular people, your product is useless. Even the article is not really making a pitch for mastodon that indicates any features at…

You say problem, I say advantage. Not everything has to be a massive public square! It's okay to be niche. Until the mid/late 2000s, the internet was far more decentralized and often much the better for it. In other words: https://mastodon.social/@helldude/100572161034726032

"You say problem, I say advantage."

- What are you aiming for then? What is the whole point of that "elevator pitch" if not getting more attention for and grow it so it's not that niche anymore?

Re: Mastodon Is Better Than Twitter: Elevator Pitch

#120

Post by ohtwenty »

bilbo0s wrote: post #112

OK, here's the problem in a nutshell: no one among regular people cares. You guys are splitting hairs right now when talking about the difference between tweeting and boosting or public companies vs open source or what have you. None of that attracts users. If you have no users, then for regular people, your product is useless. Even the article is not really making a pitch for mastodon that indicates any features at…

>Look, you want me to get excited about Mastodon? Show me something exciting I can do with it that I can't do with[…]

Have a healthy conversation? I know some people who stopped or reduced social media usage because that was pretty much impossible. Plus the local feed thing. Start an instance for your neighbourhood, follow people who are on there, and you've got all the neighbourhoodly gossip on there. Whilst still being able to follow whoever else you want (except Wil Wheaton because he went to a non-federated instance)

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