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Twitter users jump to Mastodon, but what is it?

bbc.com

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Re: Twitter users jump to Mastodon, but what is it?

#171

Post by sillysaurusx »

torginus wrote: post #149
code_runner wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m always surprised when there are still people acting like Elon isn’t just BEGGING to be hated. I’m still of the opinion he is not doing the work and his success is mostly throwing money at eager (and smart) engineers. That’s a smart thing to do, good call on his part, but it’s almost like he doesn’t know that’s how his companies work. Maybe he is just great at running tech companies or something but acting like th…

If that's all he is doing - paying smart people and expecting them to work hard - why isn't literally everyone else doing the same?

I don’t agree with them, but this counter argument doesn’t quite work. In a system with x% chance of success, we’d expect most people to fail for small x. But some few will still succeed multiple times.

Throw in that your odds get better the more you’re successful, and it’s classic survivorship bias.

Re: Twitter users jump to Mastodon, but what is it?

#172

Post by unsupp0rted »

pjc50 wrote: post #139
gonehome wrote: post #102

Mastodon and federated systems like it will not succeed beyond a tiny niche, will not replace twitter, and don't even solve most of the problems they try to solve. They don't fix the upstream issues that lead to centralization. Incentives mean most users end up centralized on a handful of servers with a worse experience. It's the worst of both worlds. As designed the UX is bad and cannot be fixed because of these iss…

> People dismiss his obvious success elsewhere in other insanely hard domains People also dismiss his failures in hard domains, like The Boring Company.

If he didn’t fail sometimes in hard domains then they wouldn’t be hard.

He’s intentionally choosing to do things that have a relatively high likelihood of failure.

Re: Twitter users jump to Mastodon, but what is it?

#173

Post by josh2600 »

gonehome wrote: post #102

Mastodon and federated systems like it will not succeed beyond a tiny niche, will not replace twitter, and don't even solve most of the problems they try to solve. They don't fix the upstream issues that lead to centralization. Incentives mean most users end up centralized on a handful of servers with a worse experience. It's the worst of both worlds. As designed the UX is bad and cannot be fixed because of these iss…

I’ve spent a lot of time at the edge of decentralized and useful tech. You’re right that most decentralized systems don’t accomplish the goals they set out to achieve.

A few key things: decentralized means a network of at least 3 nodes where no operator controls more than 1. Anything beyond that is vanity or more censorship resistance depending on your vantage point.

What we actually want is governance with checks and balances. I would argue that the problem with the US has been the centralization of power in the executive and judicial branches, particularly the executive. A functioning parliamentary system with three branches of governance is quite effective when there is a balance of power.

Now to how emulate that in software is another quandary. I think ethereum for all of its faults is doing a decent job at decentralized governance.

I think we’re still in the very early days of decentralized finance. A lot of lessons will be learned (and relearned from the past) as we move forward.

Re: Twitter users jump to Mastodon, but what is it?

#174

Post by blfr »

code_runner wrote: post #132
gonehome wrote: post #102

Mastodon and federated systems like it will not succeed beyond a tiny niche, will not replace twitter, and don't even solve most of the problems they try to solve. They don't fix the upstream issues that lead to centralization. Incentives mean most users end up centralized on a handful of servers with a worse experience. It's the worst of both worlds. As designed the UX is bad and cannot be fixed because of these iss…

I’m always surprised when there are still people acting like Elon isn’t just BEGGING to be hated. I’m still of the opinion he is not doing the work and his success is mostly throwing money at eager (and smart) engineers. That’s a smart thing to do, good call on his part, but it’s almost like he doesn’t know that’s how his companies work. Maybe he is just great at running tech companies or something but acting like th…

his success is mostly throwing money at eager (and smart) engineers

That's even more damning for his detractors since they could have been doing the same but instead sneer from the sidelines.

Re: Twitter users jump to Mastodon, but what is it?

#175

Post by bombcar »

nemo44x wrote: post #14
jrnichols wrote: post #4

I think a lot of instances are about to experience their own version of the Eternal September.

I agree. It’s going to be the worst thing that happened to some of the communities there. Scam and Spam in particular have fresh greenfield with little to stop them. That is if the entire thing doesn’t fall over.

The smart instances have closed the doors hard (or invite-only) to try to mitigate the destruction.

The waves will pass, but some servers will have suffered fatal damage from it.

Re: Twitter users jump to Mastodon, but what is it?

#176

Post by pjc50 »

jayflux wrote: post #26

A lot of this overreaction reminds me of when Facebook bought WhatsApp. All the alternatives came up for a few weeks/months, but the dust settled and not that many left in the end. Maybe it’s different this time? But the cycle feels the same

Did whatsapp change significantly?

Twitter has a "culture" in a way that whatsapp doesn't really. That's a lot more ephemeral and subject to disruption.

Re: Twitter users jump to Mastodon, but what is it?

#177

Post by seydor »

Even if mastodon takes off, it will be like any other protocol on the internet: A centralized free service will appear , like Gmail did, which most people will be there . Twitter will probably convert its service to activityPub then. Slightly better than what we have today, but it wont be immune.

Also, does anyone remember the backlashes every time facebook made a major change to their website? Yeah , all those users went to friendster for sure ... Social networks have network lock-in. The more mad your users are, the more they talk about it, on the service, which ironically is good for the service.

Re: Twitter users jump to Mastodon, but what is it?

#178

Post by sydney6 »

gonehome wrote: post #102

Mastodon and federated systems like it will not succeed beyond a tiny niche, will not replace twitter, and don't even solve most of the problems they try to solve. They don't fix the upstream issues that lead to centralization. Incentives mean most users end up centralized on a handful of servers with a worse experience. It's the worst of both worlds. As designed the UX is bad and cannot be fixed because of these iss…

Why are so many people calling Elon Musk by his first name, like he's their buddy or neighbor? This reminds me when Steve Jobs had passed away, many people were walking the streets with candles and cards in memoriam of "Steve". How come?

Re: Twitter users jump to Mastodon, but what is it?

#179

Post by PetitSasquatch »

gonehome wrote: post #102

Mastodon and federated systems like it will not succeed beyond a tiny niche, will not replace twitter, and don't even solve most of the problems they try to solve. They don't fix the upstream issues that lead to centralization. Incentives mean most users end up centralized on a handful of servers with a worse experience. It's the worst of both worlds. As designed the UX is bad and cannot be fixed because of these iss…

It seems to me like there is a possible, albeit compromised, middle ground between highly centralised and the (in reality) partially centralised Mastodon model where users flock to popular monoliths: strictly per-user instances.

Given the right tooling etc etc, expediting user's migration to their own instances, of something like a Mastodon node, could be an achieveable route to greater decentralisation without getting muddled down in things like blockchain etc.. And executed correctly the model could be more communicable than what it presently appears to be.

From what I can see though, Mastodon isn't currently the technology stack to achieve, perhaps it could get there.

No solution is going to be perfect, but surely an emphasis on data sovereignty would reduce the volume of arguments over what a given platform should be.

Re: Twitter users jump to Mastodon, but what is it?

#180

Post by code_runner »

darawk wrote: post #161
code_runner wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m always surprised when there are still people acting like Elon isn’t just BEGGING to be hated. I’m still of the opinion he is not doing the work and his success is mostly throwing money at eager (and smart) engineers. That’s a smart thing to do, good call on his part, but it’s almost like he doesn’t know that’s how his companies work. Maybe he is just great at running tech companies or something but acting like th…

How many rich people and fund managers around the world have been throwing money at engineers they thought were smart for the past several decades? How many have succeeded on the scale Elon has? "Throwing money at smart engineers" is not a novel idea. Executing it well is extremely hard, especially when cash has been cheap for the past two decades.

I responded to another with something similar…

Throwing money at people and saying “I want these charts to be customizable” vs “let’s land a rocket booster, it’s ok if a few blow up, we can test it live” will get VERY different levels of passion/expertise

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