Boy I was wrong about the Fediverse • Hacker News Board

Re: Boy I was wrong about the Fediverse

#161

Post by raffael_de » Sat, Mar 07, 2026, 11:19 PM UTC

Arainach wrote: post #142

GOD_Over_Djinn wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You would see comments from random trolls under a whitelist model. You would only see stuff from your friends.

"friends and followees" Only allowing posts between mutual friends is instant messaging, not a social network. Discovery, engagement, and platform growth comes from people wanting to hear from and interact with followers who they don't necessarily follow themselves.

i think you are trying to solve a problem that in my opinion should just be skipped. i don't want to be part of a social network where some algo decides what i see. all i care about is what my friends do and maybe the friends of my friends. and that's it. that was the golden era of social networks, when precisely this was just the norm until they discovered that they can make more money by messing with the feed. no incentive to mess with the feed is what i'd expect from a non-commercial solution like the fediverse. or - at least allow for configuring my feed. if somebody wants to be exposed to all sorts of people - do it. i don't.

Re: Boy I was wrong about the Fediverse

#162

Post by philistine » Sat, Mar 07, 2026, 11:23 PM UTC

xigoi wrote: post #119

philistine wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nope. Air is static and no one has to pay to keep it there. A mastodon server is private property, and needs maintenance and money to stay on. You cannot force a private entity to host your speech. They always have a choice.

Mastodon is a federated service, like e-mail. Would you use an e-mail server where the admin reads messages delivered to your inbox and deletes the ones they don’t like?

Mastodon is exactly like email. Try running a nazi newsletter off of Gmail and see what happens.

Re: Boy I was wrong about the Fediverse

#163

Post by BugsJustFindMe » Sat, Mar 07, 2026, 11:35 PM UTC

krapp wrote: post #156

BugsJustFindMe wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Those differences are not so complex and confusing One might ask why Bluesky has more sign-ups and monthly active users acquired in less time even without the facestagram login power funnel that Threads has. And of course Threads has waaaaaayyy more. The evidence of what people want from a social media service is right in front of us and very clear. This reads to me very much like the timeless words of Seymour Skin…

Bluesky had the benefit of marketing, association with Twitter and the support of influencers and Threads is owned by Meta and is integrated into Facebook. What is that supposed to prove, beyond that advertising companies are good at advertising themselves?

> Bluesky had the benefit of marketing, association with Twitter and the support of influencers

Everywhere that people have ever asked why people join Bluesky and not Mastodon, the objections to Bluesky are always philosophical (not actually decentralized, corporate overlords, and so forth) and the objections to Mastodon are always practical (signup sucks[ed?], search sucks[ed?], feed curation sucks[ed?]). Bluesky's selling point has always been "like Twitter, better control, none of the bullshit of Mastodon". That's exactly why any influencers went there and not to Mastodon. Look... I'm not telling you my opinion, I'm communicating the common message given over and over and over by everyone who looked and bounced and talked about it. And when people say over and over and over that Mastodon is frustrating, and people have indeed said that over and over and over, all you need to do is believe them instead of saying they're wrong. Threads has the trifecta of like Twitter, not Twitter, connected to maybe the biggest central platform in the world.

Re: Boy I was wrong about the Fediverse

#164

Post by Yodel0914 » Sat, Mar 07, 2026, 11:37 PM UTC

BugsJustFindMe wrote: post #147

krapp wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've seen plenty of "normal" and non "techie" people on Mastodon. And the point is the complaints about the "complexity" of Mastodon - which isn't really that complex you can literally join an instance as easily as signing up for a subreddit - are disingenuous coming from this crowd.

People don't want to join "an instance". People don't want to care about what "an instance" is which also means being asked to be aware of things like instance-specific moderation rules. And I don't know what it's like now, but cross-server following used to be quite annoying.

Being able to join an instance with its own culture, while still being able to connect outside that culture, is the only reason I use any social media at all.

I understand it can be confusing for people coming from Twitter or Facebook or wherever, the local instance culture is Mastodon’s greatest strength. That, of course, and the lack drive to turn a profit from users.

Re: Boy I was wrong about the Fediverse

#165

Post by __d » Sat, Mar 07, 2026, 11:57 PM UTC

sph wrote: post #146

t0bia_s wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

if you restrict moderation to stuff like gore and porn, then you don't need that many moderators. On mastodon, porn-like content is mostly welcomed. Especially with anime or fox characters. Not sure why.

Because it overwhelmingly attracts a certain demographic of people who have a higher-than-average rate of various paraphilias as well as interest in software but such arguments are a bit taboo to discuss even if they are quite self-evident. I liked the Internet better when it was all nerds and only code cared, rather than gender identity or listing neuroses in own's social media profile as if it was an audition for a…

I’ve seen the Internet from the 1980’s until today. It has always had people exploring gender identities and public sharing of neuroses. Mostly nerds, though.

Re: Boy I was wrong about the Fediverse

#166

Post by __d » Sun, Mar 08, 2026, 12:00 AM UTC

xigoi wrote: post #110

ses1984 wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Free speech does exist in the law, not just as an ethical ideal. The law states that the government can’t infringe on your speech. Anyone who is not the government is free to block your ass if they don’t like you or what you’re saying. Not all speech is worth defending. The only people who benefit from free speech absolutism are the ones with only horrible things to say.

I am fine with blocking. However, it should be me who decides whose speech I don’t want to see, not someone else.

So run your own instance.

Using someone else’s instance is just outsourcing your decisions.

Other people might be ok with or even enthusiastic about that, but that shouldn’t be your problem.

Re: Boy I was wrong about the Fediverse

#167

Post by __d » Sun, Mar 08, 2026, 12:05 AM UTC

xigoi wrote: post #149

archagon wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems like most of the people complaining about this aren't actually on Mastodon.

Well, obviously you’re not going to be on a platform you dislike. I have signed up for Mastodon several times, but always ended up finding the instance dependency off-putting. I wish for a protocol where the instance mostly doesn’t matter and you can trivially switch to a different one, like with e-mail.

How is ActivityPub instance migration worse than switching email providers?

Re: Boy I was wrong about the Fediverse

#168

Post by jasomill » Sun, Mar 08, 2026, 12:17 AM UTC

ses1984 wrote: post #91

lolurnt wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Free speech does exist in the law, not just as an ethical ideal. The law states that the government can’t infringe on your speech. Anyone who is not the government is free to block your ass if they don’t like you or what you’re saying. Not all speech is worth defending. The only people who benefit from free speech absolutism are the ones with only horrible things to say.

The union of everything considered horrible by significant fractions of the American public over the years suggests otherwise.

Re: Boy I was wrong about the Fediverse

#169

Post by GOD_Over_Djinn » Sun, Mar 08, 2026, 12:29 AM UTC

Arainach wrote: post #142

GOD_Over_Djinn wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You would see comments from random trolls under a whitelist model. You would only see stuff from your friends.

"friends and followees" Only allowing posts between mutual friends is instant messaging, not a social network. Discovery, engagement, and platform growth comes from people wanting to hear from and interact with followers who they don't necessarily follow themselves.

None of the things that you listed are stated goals of fediverse networks. In fact, they explicitly avoid them.

Re: Boy I was wrong about the Fediverse

#170

Post by krapp » Sun, Mar 08, 2026, 12:59 AM UTC

BugsJustFindMe wrote: post #163

krapp wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bluesky had the benefit of marketing, association with Twitter and the support of influencers and Threads is owned by Meta and is integrated into Facebook. What is that supposed to prove, beyond that advertising companies are good at advertising themselves?

> Bluesky had the benefit of marketing, association with Twitter and the support of influencers Everywhere that people have ever asked why people join Bluesky and not Mastodon, the objections to Bluesky are always philosophical (not actually decentralized, corporate overlords, and so forth) and the objections to Mastodon are always practical (signup sucks[ed?], search sucks[ed?], feed curation sucks[ed?]). Bluesky's…

>Everywhere that people have ever asked why people join Bluesky and not Mastodon, the objections to Bluesky are always philosophical (not actually decentralized, corporate overlords, and so forth) and the objections to Mastodon are always practical (signup sucks[ed?], search sucks[ed?], feed curation sucks[ed?]).

Untrue. People complain about Mastodon's politics and make many of the same "philosophical" arguments as they do with Bluesky. People even argue Mastodon isn't even decentralized.

>Bluesky's selling point has always been "like Twitter, better control, none of the bullshit of Mastodon".

None of Bluesky's marketing has ever mentioned Mastodon as far as I'm aware.

>Look... I'm not telling you my opinion, I'm communicating the common message given over and over and over by everyone who looked and bounced and talked about it.

No, you are literally telling me your opinion. Your ever-increasing use of hyperbole rather than sources demonstrates that you're making an emotional argument grounded in hypotheticals.

>And when people say over and over and over that Mastodon is frustrating, and people have indeed said that over and over and over, all you need to do is believe them instead of saying they're wrong.

I think a lot of them are wrong, and are intentionally overstating how difficult Mastodon is because they view it as "leftist" and feel obligated to shit on it as much and as often as possible. I find it difficult to believe so many of the brilliant technically gifted minds on HN can't figure out how it works, but George Takei, random scientists, gardeners, musicians, authors and other "normal" people can. And a lot of those people also have accounts on Bluesky.