Twitter users jump to Mastodon, but what is it? • Hacker News Board

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

#91

Post by gpm » Sun, Nov 06, 2022, 7:56 PM UTC

whimsicalism wrote: post #32

sigmar wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What specifically do you mean by "mostly just doesn't work"?

Pretty much all instances are having massive issues keeping up with the new traffic.

I've had pretty much no issues, but the (10k user) instance I've been on has been closed to new user registration except by invite (from any existing user) the whole time this twitter thing has been happening.

Generally I'd assume that any big open instance is going to have scaling pains right now, but not all instances.

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

#92

Post by GekkePrutser » Sun, Nov 06, 2022, 7:56 PM UTC

sigmar wrote: post #55

vorpalhex wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The advertisers pulled before any layoffs. Actually they started pulling the day before he took over. The teams he cut are mostly silly teams. A climate team? At twitter? AI Ethics? He has to stop burning money. He is moving twitter from ad funded (which never paid the bills) to subscription funded (which might pay the bills? $8/mo is nothing. It will certainly make bans hurt more. It will significantly help spam.)

The ad model works for instagram, youtube, and tiktok. Why can't it work for twitter? I don't understand why the mostly text-based site would be so much more expensive than the various other social media sites that don't require subscriptions to achieve high-reach. I'm sure it'll massively cut down on spam, but think Elon might be overestimating how much other ppl care about spam based on his own feed/replies/notific…

It works financially but not ethically. Tracking users to maximize ad revenue is something advertisers demand and it's frowned on more and more. In the EU it's now illegal to do so without the user's consent. So.think it's smart to look at subscription business models and much more ethical too. At least you can give the user a choice now.

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

#93

Post by xg15 » Sun, Nov 06, 2022, 7:56 PM UTC

jmann99999 wrote: post #5

If this BBC story doesn't indicate that there is an overreaction to new Twitter management, I don't know what will. It reminded me of when I was considering trying to move all of our customers to receive PGP encrypted mail in 2005. An intelligent employee brought up that an average business person would never do that. Luckily we never implemented it. Mastodon is great but it isn't a replacement for Twitter. Too much…

> Too much friction.

Is there some way to reduce the friction, now that Mastodon has so much interest? Something like a "twitter importer" e.g.?

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

#94

Post by abzolv » Sun, Nov 06, 2022, 7:57 PM UTC

mytailorisrich wrote: post #79

baxtr wrote: post #66

I have no clue what Twitter will be turned into by Musk. I also don’t have a very strong opinion about the entire situation or about the changes he’s implementing right now. But here is what concerns me: the speed of execution. Ofc speed matters a lot in startups. But Twitter is a not a startup anymore. Compare that to when Steve Jobs returned to Apple. He took some weeks (months?) to understand what was going on ins…

The deal for Musk to buy Twitter was agreed in April. He has indeed taken control only this week but he had months to get a plan together, with, as far as I know, a level of access to Twitter's internals during that time.

Kara Swisher said some advertisers had told her, after a meeting with Musk last week in NY, that either he came to the meeting totally unprepared or he actually had no plan. He could not articulate a sensible plan to them.

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

#95

Post by ploika » Sun, Nov 06, 2022, 7:57 PM UTC

addajones wrote: post #35

nimbius wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>there is an overreaction to new Twitter management Oh i think its a perfectly legitimate and reasonable reaction to new Twitter management. a guy worth about 200bn USD spent his first day at the office dragging a piece of plumbing around cheerleading his impending job cuts and upcoming $8 surcharge for a feature that only really benefits and legitimizes the platform. he then axes most of the company, especially the…

Why does it matter how much he’s worth? Never understood why people are so concerned about him cutting jobs? He bought the company and took it private. It’s his right to restructure it and try to make it generate profit as he’d wish. The board of directors of public Twitter approved of this. What do people think, the USA is FOSS?

It's not just about the USA. Twitter has to follow the law wherever it operates. The way the company went about announcing redundancies in the Dublin office could well fall foul of Irish employment law (IANAL etc), and people have legitimate cause for annoyance if Musk feels he's rich and powerful enough to get away with doing it anyway.

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

#96

Post by kemayo » Sun, Nov 06, 2022, 7:57 PM UTC

joshmanders wrote: post #72

forgotusername6 wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because there is something distasteful about a man that rich firing loads of people. There is something almost medieval about it. He's basically a modern day king. I've never understood the complete lack of empathy displayed by so many people on HN. It's worse than Reddit. "He bought the man, it is his property now. He can do with him as he wishes" - legal ownership can still be wrong.

> "He bought the man, it is his property now. He can do with him as he wishes" - legal ownership can still be wrong. Jesus do you even read the words you just typed? Someone bought a company that was hemorrhaging money, he let go of the fluff and you're equating it to slave ownership?!

Is this the moment to snarkily bring up "corporations are people, my friend"? :D

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

#97

Post by rco8786 » Sun, Nov 06, 2022, 7:57 PM UTC

sosull wrote: post #81

ambrozk wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> hes lucky corporate brands and advertisers havent figured out they could start their own Mastodon instance for almost nothing, plug it until it becomes more popular than Twitter, and maintain all their existing brand safety controls in the process. This is a very funny way of thinking which gets reality backwards. Corporate brands go where user eyeballs are. In the past the eyeballs read newspapers, and advertisers…

Is there even a remotely balanced alignment between the number of users on a platform and that platform’s advertising market share? I think the answer is no. Google and Meta dominate ads. No-one else really has traction, irrespective of their platform’s success.

That’s a super weird take. Google and Meta absolutely dominate on users also.

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

#98

Post by expensive_news » Sun, Nov 06, 2022, 7:58 PM UTC

forgotusername6 wrote: post #50

addajones wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why does it matter how much he’s worth? Never understood why people are so concerned about him cutting jobs? He bought the company and took it private. It’s his right to restructure it and try to make it generate profit as he’d wish. The board of directors of public Twitter approved of this. What do people think, the USA is FOSS?

Because there is something distasteful about a man that rich firing loads of people. There is something almost medieval about it. He's basically a modern day king. I've never understood the complete lack of empathy displayed by so many people on HN. It's worse than Reddit. "He bought the man, it is his property now. He can do with him as he wishes" - legal ownership can still be wrong.

Twitter has lost money nearly every year since it’s been public, and was losing $4 million a day when Elon took over. If jobs don’t generate money they can’t exist in the free market, and the real shock is that the previous board of directors didn’t initiate layoffs sooner.

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

#99

Post by abzolv » Sun, Nov 06, 2022, 7:58 PM UTC

mytailorisrich wrote: post #79

baxtr wrote: post #66

I have no clue what Twitter will be turned into by Musk. I also don’t have a very strong opinion about the entire situation or about the changes he’s implementing right now. But here is what concerns me: the speed of execution. Ofc speed matters a lot in startups. But Twitter is a not a startup anymore. Compare that to when Steve Jobs returned to Apple. He took some weeks (months?) to understand what was going on ins…

The deal for Musk to buy Twitter was agreed in April. He has indeed taken control only this week but he had months to get a plan together, with, as far as I know, a level of access to Twitter's internals during that time.

The months you’re referring to was spent trying to get out of the deal. It was not spent preparing for it to close.

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

#100

Post by baxtr » Sun, Nov 06, 2022, 7:58 PM UTC

mytailorisrich wrote: post #79

baxtr wrote: post #66

I have no clue what Twitter will be turned into by Musk. I also don’t have a very strong opinion about the entire situation or about the changes he’s implementing right now. But here is what concerns me: the speed of execution. Ofc speed matters a lot in startups. But Twitter is a not a startup anymore. Compare that to when Steve Jobs returned to Apple. He took some weeks (months?) to understand what was going on ins…

The deal for Musk to buy Twitter was agreed in April. He has indeed taken control only this week but he had months to get a plan together, with, as far as I know, a level of access to Twitter's internals during that time.

Maybe he had access to internals. But do you really believe it's comparable to the SJ situation? He was the CEO and could talk to all the people in person. He spent most of his time understanding. It's seems very different now.