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Almost, yeah. Mastodon, and conceptually others like Gnu Social, are twitter-like alternatives, but that's not fairly telling the full story of their capabilit
by mxuribe 9y ago
Almost, yeah.
Mastodon, and conceptually others like Gnu Social, are twitter-like alternatives, but that's not fairly telling the full story of their capabilities. These platforms bring with them decentralization benefits like classic email does. Remember when so many people's email addresses were not something like @gmail.com or @hotmail.com? When they used their own domain names (either personal, or for their organization, etc.), such as joe@whatever.net, or jane@something .org, and lived on their own servers, though could still interact - that is, email - people from other domains, servers? Mastodon - and again others like Gnu Social - can, and in fact SHOULD live on separate servers and domains...though still allow for interaction. This is the bigger benefit, and personally, i believe what makes mastodon and other similar platforms pretty cool.
Now, the benefit of decentralization above may not be compelling enough for someone on a personal basis to set up/manage their own server...and for that, there certainly are several "largish" mastodon servers where you could create your own account...and STILL interact with folks on other servers, etc.
I acknowledge that i sound like a salesperson for mastodon - i assure i'm not. I'm just a fan of decentralized platforms, and admit that mastodon's UI is easy to use. But if you're curious, i invite you to start an account, and see for yourself. Worse case, you can always abandon it if you really dislike it. Visit https://joinmastodon.org/ https://joinmastodon.org/ and scroll down to the part that helps you choose which instance to join...if you're stumped, simply join the main/first one (https://mastodon.social https://mastodon.social)
Cheers!
- SOLAR_FIELDS 9y agoI will advocate for this software solely on the principle you have defined in this post - it is a disruption of the hegemony of Facebook. Of course, it could go wrong, but currently it is a 100% better choice when it comes to being a part of a social network and simultaneously not having your life creepily vacuumed up by Big Brother.
- rhinoceraptor 9y agoIMO it’s a better choice than ever to have your own domain for email. It’s basically impossible to get a good Gmail address. And now you have plenty of great, inexpensive email hosting choices.