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I like Mastodon but haven't stuck with it reliably yet -- I think the instances are key, and it could have a lot of value for instances focused on certain commu

I like Mastodon but haven't stuck with it reliably yet -- I think the instances are key, and it could have a lot of value for instances focused on certain communities (e.g. certain geographic regions, or academics, or whatever). Sort of like federated forums. My gut tells me it won't reach critical mass though and I have mixed feelings about it (e.g., maybe that's fine, maybe it has a circular uptake problem). I've liked Gurlic too a lot, but I'm not sure how well it will scale to a more heterogeneous community. It reminds me a lot of HN but broader in its focus and smaller.

sundarurfriend 6y ago
> I think the instances are key, and it could have a lot of value for instances focused on certain communities (e.g. certain geographic regions, or academics, or whatever). These exist - Japanese instances, German instances, an instance for academia, etc. - but instance discovery and search in general is pretty bad on Mastodon. I think that's a key problem that'd holding a lot of the potential of federation back.