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I think it's more of a replacement for twitter. And I am genuinely excited about Mastodon, with ~600k users and 1400 instances, I think something special is hap

I think it's more of a replacement for twitter. And I am genuinely excited about Mastodon, with ~600k users and 1400 instances, I think something special is happening there. I guess diaspora* is supposed to be the decentralized facebook replacement, but I don't think it's any good. I dare say that it's too late for even a good replacement to compete with facebook. Google tried while there was still time (and failed). But now? I don't think you can.

Existenceblinks 9y ago
We need 1 instance for every individual, that's the problem. Non techies who already have privilege to access internet should be able to instantiate their own instances very easily.
- glenstein 9y ago
  I'm all for it if we can get there, but I think a wide range of individual, federated instances is a good step in that direction, and even that would be a huge achievement. I think something like Opera Unite had the potential to be a single instance per person if that ever caught on.
  - Existenceblinks 9y ago
    I think Mastodon as a native or Electron app that uses bit torrent protocol should do it. Not sure what's the problem with that or I am too optimistic.
- piaste 9y ago
  That would be optimal, but I don't think it's strictly necessary. The fundamental requirement is that, if the owner of an instance behaves poorly, users should be able to move elsewhere without being cutting off from the larger network.
ams6110 9y ago
The name Mastodon is bad. Doesn't say anything about what the site does. Compare Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat....
- anigbrowl 9y ago
  Yes, it's just a twitter clone where people 'toot' instead of 'tweet'. It's fine work but they don't seem to have any idea how to make it desirable for people to use.
  - Grue3 9y ago
    I can't look at the word "toot" without being reminded of a terrible, terrible Alvin and the Chipmunks song where it's an euphemism for farts.
Chathamization 9y ago
> I dare say that it's too late for even a good replacement to compete with facebook. Google tried while there was still time (and failed). Google hasn't had a great track record with these things in general. The problem with a lot of Facebook alternatives is that they make a somewhat better Facebook and then hope everyone will switch over. Of course that's going to fail. Sites that succeed have reasons for people to use them even if there aren't mass migrations. We know that people have a need for social sites other than Facebook. Slack's been successful, so has Discourse. Heck, meetup.com is still going even though by a naive understanding of things Facebook should have subsumed it (it has a much smaller base, and you need to pay something like $140 a year if you want to start a group). A Facebook alternative will eventually catch on, but it's not going to be a site that starts out by trying to mimic Facebook with a few extra bells and whistles attached.

Existenceblinks 9y ago

We need 1 instance for every individual, that's the problem. Non techies who already have privilege to access internet should be able to instantiate their own instances very easily.

glenstein 9y ago
I'm all for it if we can get there, but I think a wide range of individual, federated instances is a good step in that direction, and even that would be a huge achievement. I think something like Opera Unite had the potential to be a single instance per person if that ever caught on.
- Existenceblinks 9y ago
  I think Mastodon as a native or Electron app that uses bit torrent protocol should do it. Not sure what's the problem with that or I am too optimistic.
piaste 9y ago
That would be optimal, but I don't think it's strictly necessary. The fundamental requirement is that, if the owner of an instance behaves poorly, users should be able to move elsewhere without being cutting off from the larger network.

ams6110 9y ago

The name Mastodon is bad. Doesn't say anything about what the site does. Compare Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat....

anigbrowl 9y ago
Yes, it's just a twitter clone where people 'toot' instead of 'tweet'. It's fine work but they don't seem to have any idea how to make it desirable for people to use.
- Grue3 9y ago
  I can't look at the word "toot" without being reminded of a terrible, terrible Alvin and the Chipmunks song where it's an euphemism for farts.

Chathamization 9y ago

> I dare say that it's too late for even a good replacement to compete with facebook. Google tried while there was still time (and failed). Google hasn't had a great track record with these things in general. The problem with a lot of Facebook alternatives is that they make a somewhat better Facebook and then hope everyone will switch over. Of course that's going to fail. Sites that succeed have reasons for people to use them even if there aren't mass migrations. We know that people have a need for social sites other than Facebook. Slack's been successful, so has Discourse. Heck, meetup.com is still going even though by a naive understanding of things Facebook should have subsumed it (it has a much smaller base, and you need to pay something like $140 a year if you want to start a group). A Facebook alternative will eventually catch on, but it's not going to be a site that starts out by trying to mimic Facebook with a few extra bells and whistles attached.