5 ms·

Very few people outside of open source tech and a couple fandoms seem to really use Mastodon.

by mattl 5y ago

rvz 5y ago
There you go and that is the truth here. Other than the open source tech echo chamber using it, it has no network effect to get regular users off of Twitter and to use Mastodon (the actual platform). 2 million users after 6 years is more or less of a slow failure to move users off of Facebook, and Twitter on to Mastodon's own platform. I had high hopes for Mastodon to compete against the likes of even Twitter. It still cannot. It is also not 'early days' either.
- mattl 5y ago
  Yeah. I’m the co-founder of GNU social, a previous attempt at all this.
- riffic 5y ago
  Compared with previous versions of fediverse server software, Mastodon has been wildly successful as an open source project. It's not only maintained a solid release cycle, but it's shipped native clients and has slowly but surely built out an interest in the federated social web. Mattl, you can chime in and tell us what things were like back in the Gnu Social days or maybe someone else remembers the StatusNet/Identi.ca era further back. How many installations did you have, roughly? It wasn't a very active scene. Seems like Eugen Rochko and Mastodon gGmbH know what they're doing. Yes it's not 'early days' but we can also argue the whole system (based on ActivityPub, including software like Pixelfed, Peertube, Misskey, etc) is a genie unable to be returned inside its bottle. It doesn't really matter if Mastodon gets mass adoption or not, as long as it follows the same path taken by email, DNS, or other internet standards it'll do okay in the end (Lindy Effect: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lindy_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lindy_effect - these old and crusty standards have proven the test of time and are not going anywhere soon. Twitter could collapse tomorrow depending on what Elon decides to do with it.)
  - mattl 5y ago
    Mastodon was at one point a rewrite of GNU social in Ruby/Rails and I urged Eugen to at least change the license to AGPL to match. Identi.ca was a lot of fun, but it was basically a silo. I’m glad to see Mastodon having lots of servers but I feel like Mastodon.social runs the risk of being seen as the only instance that matters to many.
    - riffic 5y ago
      I'm really excited to see that GNU social is still alive and kicking (https://www.gnusocial.rocks/ https://www.gnusocial.rocks/), I had almost written it off as a dead project. I firmly believe that as a whole, the Fediverse needs diversity in software implementations. While I like Mastodon, I don't like to see the Fediverse heavily weighted towards being the "Mastoverse". As much as I myself cheer Mastodon on, people should also be cheering on all the other component projects that make up the network.
      - mattl 5y ago
        Yeah, I steer very clear away from it now. I'm not really interested in writing code these days other than to help myself with my own small problems.
proactivesvcs 5y ago
I follow a load of people who are written and visual artists, storytellers, animators, word fiends and all that ilk; a small minority are tech experts, or interested at all in open source. https://mastodon.art/ https://mastodon.art/ would be one example of an instance that caters for artists, rather than the techerati.
- mattl 5y ago
  How many of them are on Twitter?
  - proactivesvcs 5y ago
    No idea. They all interact on Mastodon so their content and engagement certainly seems substantial.
rapnie 5y ago
In many comments about the fediverse in general I read the disappointment that 'after many years fediverse still hasn't grown enough to blow Twitter and FB out of the water'. And if that's your objective I can understand the sentiment. But to say "Very few people outside of open source tech and a couple fandoms" when refering to a group of between 3 to 5 million people makes me laugh a bit. If you want to find a good circle of followers and those following you to interact and have a good time with, then that is surely enough of a basis to choose from. On your personal timeline you'd have at most a couple a hundred persons you follow, and with a couple hundred who followed you out of interest there'll be a good social vibe going on the topics of your interest. You will find that those people are more responsive than similar numbers on Twitter would be. For influencers however, who crave millions of followers, the fediverse is less interesting.

Very few people outside of open source tech and a couple fandoms seem to really use Mastodon.

by mattl 5y ago

Very few people outside of open source tech and a couple fandoms seem to really use Mastodon.

rvz 5y ago

There you go and that is the truth here. Other than the open source tech echo chamber using it, it has no network effect to get regular users off of Twitter and to use Mastodon (the actual platform). 2 million users after 6 years is more or less of a slow failure to move users off of Facebook, and Twitter on to Mastodon's own platform. I had high hopes for Mastodon to compete against the likes of even Twitter. It still cannot. It is also not 'early days' either.

mattl 5y ago
Yeah. I’m the co-founder of GNU social, a previous attempt at all this.
riffic 5y ago
Compared with previous versions of fediverse server software, Mastodon has been wildly successful as an open source project. It's not only maintained a solid release cycle, but it's shipped native clients and has slowly but surely built out an interest in the federated social web. Mattl, you can chime in and tell us what things were like back in the Gnu Social days or maybe someone else remembers the StatusNet/Identi.ca era further back. How many installations did you have, roughly? It wasn't a very active scene. Seems like Eugen Rochko and Mastodon gGmbH know what they're doing. Yes it's not 'early days' but we can also argue the whole system (based on ActivityPub, including software like Pixelfed, Peertube, Misskey, etc) is a genie unable to be returned inside its bottle. It doesn't really matter if Mastodon gets mass adoption or not, as long as it follows the same path taken by email, DNS, or other internet standards it'll do okay in the end (Lindy Effect: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lindy_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lindy_effect - these old and crusty standards have proven the test of time and are not going anywhere soon. Twitter could collapse tomorrow depending on what Elon decides to do with it.)
- mattl 5y ago
  Mastodon was at one point a rewrite of GNU social in Ruby/Rails and I urged Eugen to at least change the license to AGPL to match. Identi.ca was a lot of fun, but it was basically a silo. I’m glad to see Mastodon having lots of servers but I feel like Mastodon.social runs the risk of being seen as the only instance that matters to many.
  - riffic 5y ago
    I'm really excited to see that GNU social is still alive and kicking (https://www.gnusocial.rocks/ https://www.gnusocial.rocks/), I had almost written it off as a dead project. I firmly believe that as a whole, the Fediverse needs diversity in software implementations. While I like Mastodon, I don't like to see the Fediverse heavily weighted towards being the "Mastoverse". As much as I myself cheer Mastodon on, people should also be cheering on all the other component projects that make up the network.
    - mattl 5y ago
      Yeah, I steer very clear away from it now. I'm not really interested in writing code these days other than to help myself with my own small problems.

proactivesvcs 5y ago

I follow a load of people who are written and visual artists, storytellers, animators, word fiends and all that ilk; a small minority are tech experts, or interested at all in open source. https://mastodon.art/ https://mastodon.art/ would be one example of an instance that caters for artists, rather than the techerati.

mattl 5y ago
How many of them are on Twitter?
- proactivesvcs 5y ago
  No idea. They all interact on Mastodon so their content and engagement certainly seems substantial.

rapnie 5y ago

In many comments about the fediverse in general I read the disappointment that 'after many years fediverse still hasn't grown enough to blow Twitter and FB out of the water'. And if that's your objective I can understand the sentiment. But to say "Very few people outside of open source tech and a couple fandoms" when refering to a group of between 3 to 5 million people makes me laugh a bit. If you want to find a good circle of followers and those following you to interact and have a good time with, then that is surely enough of a basis to choose from. On your personal timeline you'd have at most a couple a hundred persons you follow, and with a couple hundred who followed you out of interest there'll be a good social vibe going on the topics of your interest. You will find that those people are more responsive than similar numbers on Twitter would be. For influencers however, who crave millions of followers, the fediverse is less interesting.