Mastodon is interesting as like a lot of open-source projects it focuses on solving a technical problem over a user-experience problem. And it’s why, even if El

Mastodon is interesting as like a lot of open-source projects it focuses on solving a technical problem over a user-experience problem. And it’s why, even if Elon drives Twitter into a ditch, like a Tesla on FSD, it’ll never become the replacement. The problem being solved with Mastodon is ‘like Twitter but open source and without central control’. Federated! Decentralised! Instances! Great for people who are interested in that sort of thing, but I can guarantee that most Twitter users couldn’t give two shits about any of that, just as they don’t care about Twitter’s infrastructure. Things people do care about are ease of use (do I have to spend more time thinking about how to post than what to post?) and audience (are there things to see and will my stuff be seen?). With Twitter the answers are clear, but with Mastodon the emphasis on solving a particular architecture problem has led to a host of usability issues that each add friction to the experience. People who care about federation and ownership and all that may be willing to push through, but I’m not sure most would.