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It's not a failure. This idea that it has to be huge to be a success comes from the instagram, Facebook, twitter and YouTube way of counting success. 100 millio

It's not a failure. This idea that it has to be huge to be a success comes from the instagram, Facebook, twitter and YouTube way of counting success. 100 million views, 10k likes in an hour, 100k followers... these humongous numbers are not normal, and they're not necessary for a rewarding social experience online. In fact I think the opposite is true. Lots of people use the network daily. I do. It's more fun than twitter. You can experiment. You can say whatever you want if you pick the right servers. And you'll see people doing that, and saying things you don't like. And thats fine. I'll never use big corporate social media again in any form.

rvz 4y ago
> It's not a failure It is a failure. Having 3 million registered users and only 192,000 using it every month in the end after 6 years is more than 90% of all users not using it. With those numbers, there is virtually no-one using the platform which explains why many continued to keep posting on Twitter, more than on Mastodon. So it is still a massive and complete failure in almost every way. [0] http://sp3r4z.fr/mastodon/accurate_user_count http://sp3r4z.fr/mastodon/accurate_user_count
- pgcj_poster 4y ago
  192,000 is not "virtually no one." There are a about dozen sovereign nations with fewer people.
  - rvz 4y ago
    > 192,000 is not "virtually no one." Yes it is, when compared to the total number of registered Mastodon users as I have mentioned from the start with "virtually" meaning 'nearly', 'almost', 'more or less', 'close to'. My use of the word could not get any more accurate and clearer. 192,000 of 3,000,000 is around 6.4%, where that is closer to 0 than 94% is, meaning that approximately 2,808,000 users are still not using it regularly after registration and after 6 years of existence, it has struggled with that ever since. You can try to deny it. But the numbers don't lie.
    - gargron 4y ago
      Why the obsession with total registered users? Do Twitter or Facebook even publish that data? I cannot find it. Every number they use is based on MAU or DAU. Which is because the registered users number is quite meaningless. It just goes up over time. Spammers, bots, multiple accounts, banned accounts. No business or service has a 100% retention rate. Half a million MAU is not the scale of Twitter, but it's not nothing, and it's way more people than you'll ever want to have in your home feed.
- slater 4y ago
  > It is a failure. It's not a failure.
  - rvz 4y ago
    It is a failure as I have already explained.
    - slater 4y ago
      Sorry, I thought we were doing the "my opinion is the rightest, because i said so!" thing. But no, it's not a failure. "low user numbers" does not automagically mean something is a failure, as others in this post have hinted at
      - rvz 4y ago
        > Sorry, I thought we were doing the "my opinion is the rightest, because i said so!" thing. Except mine isn't an 'opinion' and is based on Mastodon's own statistics in daily active user numbers, registered users, user behaviour and the claims, and comparisons made at the time when it already launched and was pitched as a Twitter alternative, especially on HN. [0] [1] Fast forward 6 years later, 94% of people registered are still not using it. That is virtually no-one, other than the tiny tech circles that even still need to post on Twitter since there is still little to no-one on Mastodon. That is a fact; not an opinion. > But no, it's not a failure. "low user numbers" does not automagically mean something is a failure It is a failure and I have repeatedly shown that the numbers don't lie after 6 years of operation. If it is not a failure, then what I am seeing here is the complete denial of this failure. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17788060 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17788060 [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15514987 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15514987
        betwixthewires 4y ago
        It is absolutely an opinion. Your metrics are right, but "it's a failure" is absolutely an opinion. It's your opinion, based on what you place value on. Mastodon is not a failure to the 200k people that use it, it's a success to them. Thats their opinion, because they value different things than you. "194k people use it, that's more than the populations of 20 sovereign nations! That's a success" has correct metrics, as correct as yours, but using that to call it a success is an opinion. Just like your statement is an opinion.
- betwixthewires 4y ago
  1) it's not a platform, 2) 192000 is the number for mastodon, there's a wider network that mastodon servers are a part of, 3) this is not some company like twitter or gab or whatever with quarterly performance announcements and user on boarding targets, it is software that works, works well and people use it. That's the criteria for "not a failure" in this case. You know whats a failure? The corporate "unite the world by sharing ideas, a better world through freedom of information exchange" ideology and motivation of the founders of the big tech sites, specifically twitter. They have already proven this by abandoning it. They're failures.
  - rvz 4y ago
    > 1) it's not a platform, It is a platform. The creator of Mastodon seems to think it is. > 192000 is the number for mastodon, there's a wider network that mastodon servers are a part of, That is the daily active user count of the entire Mastodon network and instances that have been online for long enough to at least have one user login once a week. > this is not some company like twitter or gab or whatever with quarterly performance announcements and user on boarding targets, Yet, out of 3 million registrants and only 192k use it. That is more than 90% of people not using it meaning that there is virtually no one using it on a daily or even weekly basis. That is a failure for something that has been constantly compared to as a 'Twitter alternative' or 'alternative social network' ever since its 1.0 or 2.0 release and each time Mastodon is brought up anywhere else other than Mastodon; like this site for example [0][1], Twitter, Facebook and online news articles. After 6 years of existence, it really is a total failure and the denial, constant contradictions by it's supporters (it is a platform like it or not) and deflections underscores the low usage with a clear majority of users still running back to Twitter after a few days of using Mastodon. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17788060 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17788060 [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15514987 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15514987
sidlls 4y ago
The fact that multiple companies have those numbers indicates the numbers are in fact “normal”. What isn’t normal is continuing to insist that the typical person cares enough about the ideology that motivates projects like Mastodon in spite of the literally hundreds and thousands of failed projects indicating the contrary.
- betwixthewires 4y ago
  I dont know what hundreds of thousands of projects you're talking about, or what ideology for that matter. It isn't about ideology. I can actually talk to hundreds of thousands of people and say whatever I want. Whatever I want. And they can too. And nobody comes in and tells us to do anything. And there's not a bunch of political influencers and journalists coming around trying to tell us what to think, there's no billion dollar names, just people. It is legitimately a better experience. I don't care what a typical person cares about, that's the point you're not getting. Nobody on fedi does. Nobody on the internet does outside of the stockade. Caring about what other people care about is how you get these monoculture wannabe coca cola commercials that are the mainstream 5 site web. The old internet we have nostalgia for is still there, with modern technology, you just have to go use it. So that's what people like me do.
  - sidlls 4y ago
    The people who view Mastodon as a Twitter disruptor care.
art4ur 4y ago
It's a total failure. John Mastodon, the CEO and founder of Mastodon, was just fired from the company after their stock prices hit an all time low. That's not how it works. It's open source and can be forked and improved upon. It doesn't need millions of users to survive and be useful to a lot of us.
- rvz 4y ago
  This is how it works today: Outside of the tech circle, virtually no-one cares at all after 6 years of existence especially with the constant comparisons to Twitter back then and today. This also explains that many people who left Twitter to Mastodon months ago came right back to post on Twitter again because the level of interaction on Mastodon is extremely low. It isn't early days anymore and 6% of registered users are not using it. If that is not a failure to convince Twitter users to use or migrate to Mastodon, then I don't know what is. Not exactly a convincing elevator pitch for normal users to use outside of tech.
  - gargron 4y ago
    Mastodon is used by German and European government agencies (e.g. social.bund.de, social.network.europa.eu). There was a real-life meet-up of Mastodon users a few hours away from where I live last month. Jan Boehmermann, a German comedian and TV personality started his own Mastodon server, and the Mastodon logo appears in the intro of his TV show. The uni I studied at uses it, and so does the bank I use.
sexy_panda 4y ago
I agree. Mastodon is more fun to use than Twitter.

rvz 4y ago

> It's not a failure It is a failure. Having 3 million registered users and only 192,000 using it every month in the end after 6 years is more than 90% of all users not using it. With those numbers, there is virtually no-one using the platform which explains why many continued to keep posting on Twitter, more than on Mastodon. So it is still a massive and complete failure in almost every way. [0] http://sp3r4z.fr/mastodon/accurate_user_count http://sp3r4z.fr/mastodon/accurate_user_count

pgcj_poster 4y ago
192,000 is not "virtually no one." There are a about dozen sovereign nations with fewer people.
- rvz 4y ago
  > 192,000 is not "virtually no one." Yes it is, when compared to the total number of registered Mastodon users as I have mentioned from the start with "virtually" meaning 'nearly', 'almost', 'more or less', 'close to'. My use of the word could not get any more accurate and clearer. 192,000 of 3,000,000 is around 6.4%, where that is closer to 0 than 94% is, meaning that approximately 2,808,000 users are still not using it regularly after registration and after 6 years of existence, it has struggled with that ever since. You can try to deny it. But the numbers don't lie.
  - gargron 4y ago
    Why the obsession with total registered users? Do Twitter or Facebook even publish that data? I cannot find it. Every number they use is based on MAU or DAU. Which is because the registered users number is quite meaningless. It just goes up over time. Spammers, bots, multiple accounts, banned accounts. No business or service has a 100% retention rate. Half a million MAU is not the scale of Twitter, but it's not nothing, and it's way more people than you'll ever want to have in your home feed.
slater 4y ago
> It is a failure. It's not a failure.
- rvz 4y ago
  It is a failure as I have already explained.
  - slater 4y ago
    Sorry, I thought we were doing the "my opinion is the rightest, because i said so!" thing. But no, it's not a failure. "low user numbers" does not automagically mean something is a failure, as others in this post have hinted at
    - rvz 4y ago
      > Sorry, I thought we were doing the "my opinion is the rightest, because i said so!" thing. Except mine isn't an 'opinion' and is based on Mastodon's own statistics in daily active user numbers, registered users, user behaviour and the claims, and comparisons made at the time when it already launched and was pitched as a Twitter alternative, especially on HN. [0] [1] Fast forward 6 years later, 94% of people registered are still not using it. That is virtually no-one, other than the tiny tech circles that even still need to post on Twitter since there is still little to no-one on Mastodon. That is a fact; not an opinion. > But no, it's not a failure. "low user numbers" does not automagically mean something is a failure It is a failure and I have repeatedly shown that the numbers don't lie after 6 years of operation. If it is not a failure, then what I am seeing here is the complete denial of this failure. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17788060 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17788060 [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15514987 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15514987
      - betwixthewires 4y ago
        It is absolutely an opinion. Your metrics are right, but "it's a failure" is absolutely an opinion. It's your opinion, based on what you place value on. Mastodon is not a failure to the 200k people that use it, it's a success to them. Thats their opinion, because they value different things than you. "194k people use it, that's more than the populations of 20 sovereign nations! That's a success" has correct metrics, as correct as yours, but using that to call it a success is an opinion. Just like your statement is an opinion.
betwixthewires 4y ago
1) it's not a platform, 2) 192000 is the number for mastodon, there's a wider network that mastodon servers are a part of, 3) this is not some company like twitter or gab or whatever with quarterly performance announcements and user on boarding targets, it is software that works, works well and people use it. That's the criteria for "not a failure" in this case. You know whats a failure? The corporate "unite the world by sharing ideas, a better world through freedom of information exchange" ideology and motivation of the founders of the big tech sites, specifically twitter. They have already proven this by abandoning it. They're failures.
- rvz 4y ago
  > 1) it's not a platform, It is a platform. The creator of Mastodon seems to think it is. > 192000 is the number for mastodon, there's a wider network that mastodon servers are a part of, That is the daily active user count of the entire Mastodon network and instances that have been online for long enough to at least have one user login once a week. > this is not some company like twitter or gab or whatever with quarterly performance announcements and user on boarding targets, Yet, out of 3 million registrants and only 192k use it. That is more than 90% of people not using it meaning that there is virtually no one using it on a daily or even weekly basis. That is a failure for something that has been constantly compared to as a 'Twitter alternative' or 'alternative social network' ever since its 1.0 or 2.0 release and each time Mastodon is brought up anywhere else other than Mastodon; like this site for example [0][1], Twitter, Facebook and online news articles. After 6 years of existence, it really is a total failure and the denial, constant contradictions by it's supporters (it is a platform like it or not) and deflections underscores the low usage with a clear majority of users still running back to Twitter after a few days of using Mastodon. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17788060 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17788060 [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15514987 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15514987

sidlls 4y ago

The fact that multiple companies have those numbers indicates the numbers are in fact “normal”. What isn’t normal is continuing to insist that the typical person cares enough about the ideology that motivates projects like Mastodon in spite of the literally hundreds and thousands of failed projects indicating the contrary.

betwixthewires 4y ago
I dont know what hundreds of thousands of projects you're talking about, or what ideology for that matter. It isn't about ideology. I can actually talk to hundreds of thousands of people and say whatever I want. Whatever I want. And they can too. And nobody comes in and tells us to do anything. And there's not a bunch of political influencers and journalists coming around trying to tell us what to think, there's no billion dollar names, just people. It is legitimately a better experience. I don't care what a typical person cares about, that's the point you're not getting. Nobody on fedi does. Nobody on the internet does outside of the stockade. Caring about what other people care about is how you get these monoculture wannabe coca cola commercials that are the mainstream 5 site web. The old internet we have nostalgia for is still there, with modern technology, you just have to go use it. So that's what people like me do.
- sidlls 4y ago
  The people who view Mastodon as a Twitter disruptor care.

art4ur 4y ago

It's a total failure. John Mastodon, the CEO and founder of Mastodon, was just fired from the company after their stock prices hit an all time low. That's not how it works. It's open source and can be forked and improved upon. It doesn't need millions of users to survive and be useful to a lot of us.

rvz 4y ago
This is how it works today: Outside of the tech circle, virtually no-one cares at all after 6 years of existence especially with the constant comparisons to Twitter back then and today. This also explains that many people who left Twitter to Mastodon months ago came right back to post on Twitter again because the level of interaction on Mastodon is extremely low. It isn't early days anymore and 6% of registered users are not using it. If that is not a failure to convince Twitter users to use or migrate to Mastodon, then I don't know what is. Not exactly a convincing elevator pitch for normal users to use outside of tech.
- gargron 4y ago
  Mastodon is used by German and European government agencies (e.g. social.bund.de, social.network.europa.eu). There was a real-life meet-up of Mastodon users a few hours away from where I live last month. Jan Boehmermann, a German comedian and TV personality started his own Mastodon server, and the Mastodon logo appears in the intro of his TV show. The uni I studied at uses it, and so does the bank I use.

sexy_panda 4y ago

I agree. Mastodon is more fun to use than Twitter.