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Twitter users jump to Mastodon, but what is it?

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

#411

Post by Karunamon »

zimpenfish wrote: post #405
Karunamon wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is somewhat telling that those who used to dismiss all complaints about Twitter's moderation practices with a variation of the "private companies can do whatever they want" canard, are not really repeating that one anymore, or worse, seem to have abandoned that principle outright and are now complaining that the owner is, indeed, doing whatever he wants. Twitter was a $4 million a day money pit at the time of its…

> Twitter was a $4 million a day money pit at the time of its acquisition. Do you have a source for that? They lost $221M in 2021[1] which is ~$600k/day (and that was after a $800M lawsuit settlement which would have put them at ~$580M profit for 2021.) [1] https://news.yahoo.com/twitter-posts-loss-2021-stock-1301280...

Twitter hasn't even been acquired for a month yet, how are numbers from nearly 2 years ago even relevant?

Straight from the horse's mouth: https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1588671155766194176

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

#412

Post by phpisthebest »

frereubu wrote: post #371
Thorentis wrote: post #350

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really don't think companies care what their ads appear alongside. They care about a Twitter user posting an outrage tweet with a screenshot of an ad for a Burger appearing next to the N word. As if we aren't mature enough yet to separate ad space and user generated content.

Companies do care what their ads appear alongside, because of the outrage tweets and because, en masse, people / the media aren't mature enough to separate ad space and user-generated content.

No a very loud, very vocal, minority of users that have an extreme authoritarian world view and will create the appearance of wide scale social outrage where there is none will scare marketers..

Of course if they had any real data on the impact of their ads they probally will realize that none of the ads are effective anyway. I have never once saw a twitter ad for a large national fast food place, or a car company and said "hey I need to go buy from them"

Now marketing for lesser known things, things I may not have even known existed well that is effective. But a Burger king add no....

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

#413

Post by phpisthebest »

rolenthedeep wrote: post #408
the_third_wave wrote: post #402

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What happens with you "followers" when you change servers? Do they follow along automagically or do they have to undertake action to re-connect to @you@new.server? As to running your own server - something I have been looking in to because I support the decentralisation of the 'net - I am under the impression that Pleroma is a lot easier on the hardware than Mastodon. Does you concur?

Anyone following your old account will automatically follow the new account. The only thing that does not transfer is your post history, for mostly technical reasons. I don't know anything about pleroma, sorry. I do know that mastodon uses a ton of resources when you get a lot of users, but for <5 you can use anything including a raspberry pi

This will not happen is the Admin of the server you are one chooses to block the server you want to move to....

Mastodon has long become a political project ever sense their very public dispute with Gab... They ceased to be a neutral project and clearly showed the limitations of the federation space when it comes to putting users in control, as that control is largely symbolic and just like centralized system unless you run your own server, and you do not run afoul of the project dev team so you do not get put on a default deny list then you are not in control of your data

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

#414

Post by rvz »

slater wrote: post #326
rvz wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This. They're right you know. > I want a world where people have actual ownership over their computing, but federated system designs like Mastodon will not get us that and we have thirty years of failure to prove it. The press pretending otherwise because they hate Elon and see tech companies as a threat are just embarrassing themselves. This is the media capitalising at the maximum over the emotions of the tech crow…

How is my favorite Mastodon-hater doing, you must've had a bad last few days? ;) (i kid, i kid...)

I'm actually laughing at you and the entire Twitter chaos on this 'migration' made up of the same techies overhyping with the media taking advantage of the current outrage pretending that Mastodon is a viable 'alternative' when it remotely isn't.

Given that it already takes much explaining how to use it, 'choosing and instance', struggling to solve it's poor discoverability since a minute amount of Twitter users out of 200M+ have tried to move themselves, it means that you are already losing.

It is not 'early days' anymore. After 6 years of 'exoduses', Mastodon doesn't cut it as an 'alternative' and especially with the exact unchallenged reasons I've stated. It is not about getting manipulated by the current hype by the media, it is always about the retention afterwards that counts. Twitter is here to stay despite the 'current outrage' that the media is riding on.

Sorry to burst your (techie) bubble as hundreds of millions of non-technical people are still using Twitter and won't delete their accounts over something worse.

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

#415

Post by CM30 »

jimbob45 wrote: post #27
raytube wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why can't it get enough reach? What if each news outlet ran their own server? Or would this feel like bondage with people wishing for multiple personas/autonomy?

There’s probably a good test for competing products that one could apply. Between my daughter, me, my mother, and my grandmother, how many of us can or will want to switch to the competing product? If it’s too hard for at least two generations, you’re probably not going to meet success because you’ve already lost a large chunk of your potential user base before we even begin discussing if the users want your service…

You could also probably ask how many of those people used Twitter to begin with? In my own experience, most of my friends and family don't use Twitter at all, especially if they don't have a business or creative hobby to promote online

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

#416

Post by mmplxx »

narag wrote: post #218
sydney6 wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

That's a measure of fame. When nobody knows you, they use the complete name, Elon Musk. When you're famous, they drop the given name, you're Musk. When you're ultrafamous, they only use the given name, now you're Elon.

And when you're God, they cannot utter your name.

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

#417

Post by rodgerd »

Thorentis wrote: post #350
frereubu wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think it's that simple is it? Companies like Ford don't advertise on sites like Parler not just because there aren't many people there, but because of the content that their adverts would be presented alongside. What seems to concern companies about the new direction of Twitter is that more extremists may be allowed back on Twitter if the content rules are loosened, and the companies' advertising may be prese…

I really don't think companies care what their ads appear alongside. They care about a Twitter user posting an outrage tweet with a screenshot of an ad for a Burger appearing next to the N word. As if we aren't mature enough yet to separate ad space and user generated content.

> I really don't think companies care what their ads appear alongside.

It's always funny to see people on HN confidently assert absolute horseshit based on no experience.

As someone who's worked in ad-supported publishing, they absolutely do. A lot of time and energy goes into trying to ensure ads never appear alongside content that the purchaser doesn't want, and failure usually results in running ads for free, at a minimum.

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

#418

Post by cavisne »

bsder wrote: post #220
torginus wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Aerospace had a lot of overqualified, underutilized engineers that were spectacularly easy to tap into with a little bit of extra money and a very interesting project. That does not hold for Twitter. There is no magic clump of overqualified, underutilized people to tap into without throwing LOTS of money around. On top of that, Twitter mostly isn't that interesting.

He could probably make it interesting though.

At the moment there is a magic clump of such people, large language model experts from big tech who have left because they got sick of not being able to apply the technology.

They are currently floating around in various startups, but we are entering a tough market for VC funding. Twitter can offer hardware, data and a culture of shipping.

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

#419

Post by darawk »

slg wrote: post #364
luckylion wrote: post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, what are the 1024 companies Musk poured lots of money in to get 2 or 3 massive hits since it's all just a game of numbers and chance?

It might not be 1024, but he probably has more failures than successes: Solar City, Neuralink, Boring Company, Hyperloop (he decided not to turn this into a company, but he wasted his and his other companies' resources on this so I think it is fair to consider it a Musk failure).

Solar City isn't a failure, it's part of Tesla now. Still selling panels, as far as I know.

Boring company is also not yet a failure, and has recently built several tunnels. Neuralink is an early stage research company and is still humming along. It may fail some day, but it certainly hasn't failed yet. As for Hyperloop, he specifically said he wasn't going to build it, and several companies are still working on it, including in China:

https://futurism.com/the-byte/china-maglev-vactrain-hyperloo...

None of these things are "failures". They may become failures one day. It'd be crazy if some of them didn't. But you can't count a research project as a failure just because it doesn't have a product yet.

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

#420

Post by darawk »

Swenrekcah wrote: post #382
darawk wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Let's not forget that Elon Musk's real success has been in marketing. He has obviously been highly successful at marketing. But his "real success" has been in delivering products like useful electric cars and reusable rockets that didn't previously exist. His marketing skills help with that, but all the marketing in the world isn't going to sell a product that doesn't exist (except in crypto).

I think those aren’t incompatible views. Undeniably Elon’s success is his tremendous wealth, the basis of which are two very valuable companies that the cofounded and has as CEO marketed brilliantly, if not always honestly. He obviously knows a lot about what people to work with. It is highly unlikely he knows how to build or design almost anything Spacex or Tesla makes. He knows a lot about everything they make of c…

I don't know how you're measuring "greatest" but I certainly consider his greatest accomplishments to be putting together, betting on, and operating the companies that produced these products. Of course he doesn't know how to build a Tesla batter or a SpaceX rocket himself - probably no one person does.

These were very difficult industries, industries that were extremely contrarian to bet on when he did. Making the financial bet alone would be a great accomplishment for any normal person. Peter Thiel is a famous investor for making far less contrarian and far less successful bets without operating anything except Paypal.

Musk's bets were far more concentrated, and he chose the personnel, operated the companies, made the strategic decisions, and yes, also marketed them brilliantly. But he only got to flex those marketing muscles because he spent a decade assembling, managing, and financing the teams that built the product in the first place.

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