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Mastodon Is Better Than Twitter: Elevator Pitch

codesections.com

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Re: Mastodon Is Better Than Twitter: Elevator Pitch

#211

Post by [deleted] »

adamrezich wrote: post #201
thevardanian wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People often forget that at the beginning none of the current giants were "mainstream", in fact what made them attractive was the fact that they had a unique audience that formed a strong community amongst each other. The idea of "mainstream" is dying, and will continue to do so. What we're seeing is a deep cultural fracture where communities, ideas, and people do not form the kind of stardom or centralized propagati…

Why did the other reply to this get killed after only having been posted for eight minutes? Seems inoffensive and like perfectly valid discussion from where I'm standing. Is drawing attention to the "attention economy" taboo here?

[deleted]

Re: Mastodon Is Better Than Twitter: Elevator Pitch

#213

Post by iamdave »

xigma wrote: post #159
codesections wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 I don't think the advantage for Mastodon is being able to do anything that Twitter can't. Instead, it's being able to do everything that Twitter can without a lot of the negatives that come with Twitter. My view is that, fundamentally, Twitter is a good platform, but it suffers from a number of…

Everything I hate about Twitter is getting content pushed into my timeline that I don't care about. I unfollow everyone who becomes overly political or comments on every outrage-du-jour. These people are inviting the bullshit. They're not making important contributions to political discourse. I don't care if they get dogpiled for it. As a result, my Twitter experience has been smooth.

This has been my same approach lately. I'm noticing certain friends are constantly the ones either starting arguments, or their posts are the ones that frequently get bumped back up to the top of whatever the hell Facebook's "timeline" thinks its doing-because there's a small arms conflict going on in the comment section.

Even though in many cases, I would otherwise be in complete agreement with the core argument being made. The vitriol and vociferation is vexing though (sorry about that).

For all the shade I throw in its direction, the 'snooze' and 'unfollow' features have been more than welcome additions to Facebook as far as I'm concerned.

Gotta be honest, I never thought I'd see the day where "First day of school" pics and statuses actually get engagement from me--they're so much more pleasant and calming than "($CONSERVATIVE_PERSON| $LIBERAL_PERSON | $GROUP | $PARTY ) DID A THING, I HAVE FEELINGS ABOUT IT, AND YOU'RE GOING TO HEAR ABOUT IT".

Re: Mastodon Is Better Than Twitter: Elevator Pitch

#214

Post by elm-tree- »

majewsky wrote: post #172
Exuma wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What he's saying is that's not a good enough reason to switch. Regular users simply do not care about any of that, and that's where 90% of your base comes from.

I disagree with the argument though. By the same line of reasoning, you could have said in 1997 that Amazon is not a compelling idea because you can already buy books elsewhere. But Amazon allowed you to buy books without the hassle of going to the store. So, without making any predictions about Mastodon, I think that "like X, without the things that make X annoying" is a reasonable pitch if executed correctly.

Amazon made it easier to get books; you no longer need to leave your house. What does Mastadon make easier?

Re: Mastodon Is Better Than Twitter: Elevator Pitch

#215

Post by AsyncAwait »

notyourtypical wrote: post #187

> Mastodon Is Better Than Twitter I sort of agree, it's like Twitter users forming their own groups but it didn't make me like Mastodon. I don't like the name, I don't like the fact I have to sign up for every group, every group has its own layout, which is confusing and I just don't get the whole idea behind it. Sorry, I'll stick to Reddit

> I don't like the name, I don't like the fact I have to sign up for every group

You don not have to do that at all. The point of federation is that you sign up on one instance and can follow and communicate with people on practically every other instance from that single account. Think about how email works.

Re: Mastodon Is Better Than Twitter: Elevator Pitch

#216

Post by twblalock »

teleclimber wrote: post #190
twblalock wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Regular people do not self-host websites or know what RSS is. What does Mastodon offer that regular people care about?

Fine, that was technical. But regular people care about being threatened and hateful conduct. On twitter countless reports go unanswered, and it's pretty clear at this point that there is no intent to make the situation better. On Masto when you report someone or a post for being abusive you've got an actual human (your instance admin) who will look at it and actually do something about it (like blocking that user fo…

If the instance admin becomes abusive, or treats the server like his own petty little fiefdom, what can be done about it? Why should I trust an instance admin?

Re: Mastodon Is Better Than Twitter: Elevator Pitch

#217

Post by im3w1l »

peatmoss wrote: post #36
icebraining wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the 90s app-centric view of the world this is a non-issue, because following other people is the client’s job, for better or worse. In the 90s, if you moved from your universities' mail server to Lycos, you also lose all the people who you were following, since they still had the previous email address. Mastodon just happens to work in the reverse (you have a list of people you follow, rather than of people who fo…

Yes, though it was hypothetically possible to buy a domain and host your own email. Not a solution for most people in those days, certainly! That’s gotten harder and easier today. It’s never been harder to properly manage a mailserver yourself. On the other hand, registering a vanity domain and hosting with a neutral 3rd party like (my current) Fastmail has never been easier. Someone should make a startup that sugges…

Many webhost deals will include a domain and a webserver. I guess the main thing they lack is marketing: people in the market for a vanity email will not now to look for those deals.

Re: Mastodon Is Better Than Twitter: Elevator Pitch

#218

Post by tomjen3 »

teaneedz wrote: post #171
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…

I think you nailed the USP of Mastodon. Keeping out the marketers, advertisers, vanity metric chasing or fandom makes Mastodon that peaceful scenic beach where your fellow beach goers say hello and share some of their food with you. I'll take Mastodon fringe over obnoxious Twitter or Facebook anytime.

That is kind of funny, because Twitter can totally be that, if you want it. You have to be liberal in your usage of the block button, but the advantage is that you have so many genuinely interesting people to follow and learn from. I wouldn't have 1 in 1000 of those on Masterdon, and with their doubling of tweet size, I don't see the problem with arguments.

Before anybody goes about the ecochamber: I ban obnoxious people, self-promoters, bad arguers, I don't ban for sincerely held, well argued politics. I follow a former cam girl, a couple in the rational altruistic movements and a Catholic, pro-life convert.

Re: Mastodon Is Better Than Twitter: Elevator Pitch

#219

Post by wool_gather »

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…

Profit is not the same thing as share value.

> they can sue

Not, as far as I know, with any likelihood of success, no. There's a doctrine called the "Business Judgement Rule", which says that -- generally speaking -- boards/officers are not liable for bad stuff happening to the company as long as they act in good faith, without conflict of interest, and using their honest judgement of what is best for the company -- which doesn't mean the shareholders.

Re: Mastodon Is Better Than Twitter: Elevator Pitch

#220

Post by bluishgreen »

I tried to login, and this error gif gave me a headache. I get it, some error has happened, but this looping speed some sort of triggers me. https://mastodon.social/oops.gif

Mastodon needs more designers and a general sense of visual design. If not a keen visual design ethic, then at least a basic sense of "visual obnoxiousness" to avoid.

(Any Mastodoners watching, kindly pass on the message)

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