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How Does Mastodon Work?

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Re: How Does Mastodon Work?

#21

Post by ISL »

briandear wrote: post #20
samcat116 wrote: post #18

With the death of certain Twitter APIs coming up soon, I wonder if many Twitter client developers will start to make Mastodon apps. I would love to see "Tootbot" by the Tweetbot developers.

Besides a few neckbeard types, does any significant number of people actually care about Mastadoon? I remember App.net got all buzzy several years ago. Whatever happened to that? Facebook got big because college students wanted to get laid and that’s where their friends were. Twitter got big because it captured the Zeitgiest and had a FOMO aspect. I am not sure what Mastadoon has going for it to convince normal peopl…

I do, though I haven't adopted it yet. At some point, a new protocol will get social media right, and free itself from walled gardens.

I don't know if it will be Mastodon, but I'll keep looking with interest until it happens. Mastodon seems to get a bunch of things right, and it may evolve into a more-open (and messier) Face-gram-ter-+ that gets enough traction to thrive.

People derive a lot of value from email. A protocol like this should be viewed as something like email.

Re: How Does Mastodon Work?

#22

Post by colanderman »

mirimir wrote: post #15
colanderman wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With e-mail there is a way to migrate without losing your identity, if you own your own domain, and point its MX records at your provider (who is a real e-mail provider and not a "free" walled garden like GMail or AOL). Unfortunately owning a domain is not as accessible for 95% of the population as it ought to be. This concept of digital identity mobility is important to ensure that one's digital life is not tied to…

Yes, I know that. But email was just the analogy ;) For Mastodon, that would be running your own instance, I guess.

Which is unfortunate. I consider myself a highly skilled technical user, and the burden of running and maintaining my own Mastodon server, or even my own Nginx server to redirect WebFinger requests somewhere else, exceeds the free time I have to devote to the problem. (Keeping another VM alive, updated, and configured through the years costs mental energy, time, and money.)

Whereas, adding an SRV record to my existing DNS server? That's trivial, comes at no marginal cost to me, and doesn't leave me with the constant mental burden of worrying whether my Mastodon or WebFinger server is available, secure, etc.

Owning my own digital identity should be easy. Simplicity encourages adoption, and widespread self-ownership of one's digital identity is key to hindering the growth of walled gardens. Mastodon does not make ownership of one's digital identity simple.

Re: How Does Mastodon Work?

#23

Post by adrianratnapala »

briandear wrote: post #20
samcat116 wrote: post #18

With the death of certain Twitter APIs coming up soon, I wonder if many Twitter client developers will start to make Mastodon apps. I would love to see "Tootbot" by the Tweetbot developers.

Besides a few neckbeard types, does any significant number of people actually care about Mastadoon? I remember App.net got all buzzy several years ago. Whatever happened to that? Facebook got big because college students wanted to get laid and that’s where their friends were. Twitter got big because it captured the Zeitgiest and had a FOMO aspect. I am not sure what Mastadoon has going for it to convince normal peopl…

> Besides a few neckbeard types, does any significant number of people actually care about Mastadoon?

The problem with this kind of argument is that it also explains why nobody uses that neckbeard internet thing and everyone still uses telephones and TV.

And, in a way, that is true. But the internet still exists.

Re: How Does Mastodon Work?

#24

Post by mirimir »

confounded wrote: post #17
mirimir wrote: post #2

Finally, a cogent explanation. Edit: But missing a key issue, perhaps. > Because Mastodon uses a collection of Instances, you’re not at the beck and call of one site owner. If you don’t like the direction an Instance is taking, you can pack your virtual bags and go. Mastodon even has an import/export tool that allows you to migrate the people you follow from one account/instance to another. That sounds great. But if…

Some interesting discussion here: https://github.com/tootsuite/mastodon/issues/177 It seems possible!

Yes, it seems that every user already has a private|public key pair. It's just that instances are apparently storing users' private keys. And that, for what it's worth, seems like a horrible idea.

But whatever, if users had control of their private keys, they could easily move. As long as routing depended on public key hash (as with Tor .onion sites) instead of user@instance. More of a web model, instead of an email model ;)

Re: How Does Mastodon Work?

#25

Post by colanderman »

confounded wrote: post #17
mirimir wrote: post #2

Finally, a cogent explanation. Edit: But missing a key issue, perhaps. > Because Mastodon uses a collection of Instances, you’re not at the beck and call of one site owner. If you don’t like the direction an Instance is taking, you can pack your virtual bags and go. Mastodon even has an import/export tool that allows you to migrate the people you follow from one account/instance to another. That sounds great. But if…

Some interesting discussion here: https://github.com/tootsuite/mastodon/issues/177 It seems possible!

That seems like an overly complex scheme to solve a problem that XMPP solved years ago with SRV records.

Re: How Does Mastodon Work?

#26

Post by mirimir »

adrianratnapala wrote: post #23
briandear wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Besides a few neckbeard types, does any significant number of people actually care about Mastadoon? I remember App.net got all buzzy several years ago. Whatever happened to that? Facebook got big because college students wanted to get laid and that’s where their friends were. Twitter got big because it captured the Zeitgiest and had a FOMO aspect. I am not sure what Mastadoon has going for it to convince normal peopl…

> Besides a few neckbeard types, does any significant number of people actually care about Mastadoon? The problem with this kind of argument is that it also explains why nobody uses that neckbeard internet thing and everyone still uses telephones and TV. And, in a way, that is true. But the internet still exists.

Yes, to flesh that out, the Internet has morphed into "telephones and TV" :( For all too many, at least.

Re: How Does Mastodon Work?

#27

Post by username3 »

mirimir wrote: post #2

Finally, a cogent explanation. Edit: But missing a key issue, perhaps. > Because Mastodon uses a collection of Instances, you’re not at the beck and call of one site owner. If you don’t like the direction an Instance is taking, you can pack your virtual bags and go. Mastodon even has an import/export tool that allows you to migrate the people you follow from one account/instance to another. That sounds great. But if…

Keybase

Re: How Does Mastodon Work?

#28

Post by [deleted] »

briandear wrote: post #20
samcat116 wrote: post #18

With the death of certain Twitter APIs coming up soon, I wonder if many Twitter client developers will start to make Mastodon apps. I would love to see "Tootbot" by the Tweetbot developers.

Besides a few neckbeard types, does any significant number of people actually care about Mastadoon? I remember App.net got all buzzy several years ago. Whatever happened to that? Facebook got big because college students wanted to get laid and that’s where their friends were. Twitter got big because it captured the Zeitgiest and had a FOMO aspect. I am not sure what Mastadoon has going for it to convince normal peopl…

[deleted]

Re: How Does Mastodon Work?

#29

Post by mirimir »

colanderman wrote: post #22
mirimir wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, I know that. But email was just the analogy ;) For Mastodon, that would be running your own instance, I guess.

Which is unfortunate. I consider myself a highly skilled technical user, and the burden of running and maintaining my own Mastodon server, or even my own Nginx server to redirect WebFinger requests somewhere else, exceeds the free time I have to devote to the problem. (Keeping another VM alive, updated, and configured through the years costs mental energy, time, and money.) Whereas, adding an SRV record to my existin…

I totally agree. And it seems like Mastodon devs are starting to take the issue seriously. So perhaps there's hope.

Re: How Does Mastodon Work?

#30

Post by PKop »

mirimir wrote: post #2

Finally, a cogent explanation. Edit: But missing a key issue, perhaps. > Because Mastodon uses a collection of Instances, you’re not at the beck and call of one site owner. If you don’t like the direction an Instance is taking, you can pack your virtual bags and go. Mastodon even has an import/export tool that allows you to migrate the people you follow from one account/instance to another. That sounds great. But if…

I think this is a good use case for keybase.io

It aggregates known (proven) identities, allows all currently verified identities to prove ownership of your next new one.

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