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And most of those servers stopped registrations when the exodus from Twitter began. One reason, so that communities wouldn't get diluted. The other, it's expen

And most of those servers stopped registrations when the exodus from Twitter began. One reason, so that communities wouldn't get diluted. The other, it's expensive to run this.

cratermoon 4y ago
I wouldn't say "most". According to that site, of the 4880 instances list, 1909 are close and another ~300 are invite-only. > it's expensive to run this As the hype about Mastodon spiked after Musk bought twitter, I looked at it to see if I could set up an instance, just to experiment. I'm an experienced programmer and systems administrator. After perusing the requirements and installation process, I decided that it was too much work for a little one-person experiment. This is why I ask about who is running instances. Yes, I had a strong hunch it would be all nerds, but I didn't expect it to be require so much sophistication and outlay. One very dedicated person could certainly set up and run an instance, but most likely any instance of moderate popularity is going to require a team.
- r721 4y ago
  On the topic of costs I saw this today in my Mastodon feed: >The costs were already ~$35/month even with reserved instances; back-of-the-envelope is that the new costs would be in the ballpark of ~$50/month. https://toot.cafe/@nolan/109295574721909717 https://toot.cafe/@nolan/109295574721909717 toot.cafe is #216 (by MAU) in the list above, MAU=315 - there's a data point.
  - zimpenfish 4y ago
    They should migrate to Pleroma and reduce their monthly costs.
- zimpenfish 4y ago
  > After perusing the requirements and installation process Was that the original Mastodon? That does have a reputation of being faffy to install and resource-hungry. Pleroma is much easier and less resource-hungry. Even I managed to spin up a Pleroma server without any trouble. > most likely any instance of moderate popularity is going to require a team. It'll need a team for coverage of moderation, support, perhaps 24/7 ops - but then anything with a lot of users will, surely?
  - cratermoon 4y ago
    > Was that the original Mastodon? Likely. I didn't investigate alternative implementations. > It'll need a team for coverage of moderation, support, perhaps 24/7 ops - but then anything with a lot of users will, surely? I'm under the impression that the claims of Mastodon include "self-moderation" and, because of its supposed decentralization, 24/7 uptime is not needed for any one instance. I have been imagining it like torrents, where no single node matters. Once the initial seeding is complete, the content lives across many instances. If it's not like that, then claims for its decentralization are highly overblown.
    - zimpenfish 4y ago
      > I'm under the impression that the claims of Mastodon include "self-moderation" That's "the instances moderate themselves", really, not "the users moderate themselves". With large numbers of users, you'll need assigned moderators. > because of its supposed decentralization, 24/7 uptime is not needed for any one instance Not sure where you've got that idea - decentralisation just means that I can talk to other instances from mine. But if mine is down, I can't log into another one with my account details and carry on Just Like That. > If it's not like that, then claims for its decentralization are highly overblown. If you're understanding "decentralised" to mean "seeded like a torrent", yeah, it'll seem highly overblown but at the same time it'd be very wrong.
      - cratermoon 4y ago
        That's not really "decentralized", that's "distributed". Those are two different topologies.
- kzrdude 4y ago
  It's much more than running the service, the instance owner is the moderator of that instance basically, if nobody else fills that role. Lack of moderation will eventually kill an instance (other instances will blacklist it, if it is seen as a safe haven for whatever they don't want to see).
  - dustymcp 4y ago
    who is they ?
    - kzrdude 4y ago
      In this sentence "other instances will blacklist it, if it is seen as a safe haven for whatever they don't want to see", _they_ refers back to _other_instances_ (individually, i.e. they make independent choices)
- twmiller 4y ago
  It took me about 45 minutes last night to install a pleroma server and get it set up. Also as 'just an experiment'. This was on a server that had nginx running on it but not much else.
  - cratermoon 4y ago
    In contrast, I set up IPFS[1] in less than half that time. 1 https://ipfs.tech/ https://ipfs.tech/
    - manfre 4y ago
      Visited link. Not exactly sure what it is. An OS, a protocol, a file share network?
- qualudeheart 4y ago
  Instances will be run by small groups of people motivated by personal or political reasons.
r721 4y ago
Well, the scale of exodus was unanticipated? I mean Paul Krugman who has 4.6M Twitter followers just announced his Mastodon account. I think things will stabilize in a couple of days/weeks.
johannes1234321 4y ago
They stopped to throttle, but that's not necessarily permanent. Also for which instances will survive and how they will operate and how they will finance will play out. In the moment there is a lot wild west of people figuring things out and experimenting. Similar to email - for a long time somebody in a university basement had been running those and now it's google, Microsoft and a bunch of smallers or selfhosted where you can pick the offering you like.

And most of those servers stopped registrations when the exodus from Twitter began. One reason, so that communities wouldn't get diluted. The other, it's expensive to run this.

cratermoon 4y ago

I wouldn't say "most". According to that site, of the 4880 instances list, 1909 are close and another ~300 are invite-only. > it's expensive to run this As the hype about Mastodon spiked after Musk bought twitter, I looked at it to see if I could set up an instance, just to experiment. I'm an experienced programmer and systems administrator. After perusing the requirements and installation process, I decided that it was too much work for a little one-person experiment. This is why I ask about who is running instances. Yes, I had a strong hunch it would be all nerds, but I didn't expect it to be require so much sophistication and outlay. One very dedicated person could certainly set up and run an instance, but most likely any instance of moderate popularity is going to require a team.

r721 4y ago
On the topic of costs I saw this today in my Mastodon feed: >The costs were already ~$35/month even with reserved instances; back-of-the-envelope is that the new costs would be in the ballpark of ~$50/month. https://toot.cafe/@nolan/109295574721909717 https://toot.cafe/@nolan/109295574721909717 toot.cafe is #216 (by MAU) in the list above, MAU=315 - there's a data point.
- zimpenfish 4y ago
  They should migrate to Pleroma and reduce their monthly costs.
zimpenfish 4y ago
> After perusing the requirements and installation process Was that the original Mastodon? That does have a reputation of being faffy to install and resource-hungry. Pleroma is much easier and less resource-hungry. Even I managed to spin up a Pleroma server without any trouble. > most likely any instance of moderate popularity is going to require a team. It'll need a team for coverage of moderation, support, perhaps 24/7 ops - but then anything with a lot of users will, surely?
- cratermoon 4y ago
  > Was that the original Mastodon? Likely. I didn't investigate alternative implementations. > It'll need a team for coverage of moderation, support, perhaps 24/7 ops - but then anything with a lot of users will, surely? I'm under the impression that the claims of Mastodon include "self-moderation" and, because of its supposed decentralization, 24/7 uptime is not needed for any one instance. I have been imagining it like torrents, where no single node matters. Once the initial seeding is complete, the content lives across many instances. If it's not like that, then claims for its decentralization are highly overblown.
  - zimpenfish 4y ago
    > I'm under the impression that the claims of Mastodon include "self-moderation" That's "the instances moderate themselves", really, not "the users moderate themselves". With large numbers of users, you'll need assigned moderators. > because of its supposed decentralization, 24/7 uptime is not needed for any one instance Not sure where you've got that idea - decentralisation just means that I can talk to other instances from mine. But if mine is down, I can't log into another one with my account details and carry on Just Like That. > If it's not like that, then claims for its decentralization are highly overblown. If you're understanding "decentralised" to mean "seeded like a torrent", yeah, it'll seem highly overblown but at the same time it'd be very wrong.
    - cratermoon 4y ago
      That's not really "decentralized", that's "distributed". Those are two different topologies.
kzrdude 4y ago
It's much more than running the service, the instance owner is the moderator of that instance basically, if nobody else fills that role. Lack of moderation will eventually kill an instance (other instances will blacklist it, if it is seen as a safe haven for whatever they don't want to see).
- dustymcp 4y ago
  who is they ?
  - kzrdude 4y ago
    In this sentence "other instances will blacklist it, if it is seen as a safe haven for whatever they don't want to see", _they_ refers back to _other_instances_ (individually, i.e. they make independent choices)
twmiller 4y ago
It took me about 45 minutes last night to install a pleroma server and get it set up. Also as 'just an experiment'. This was on a server that had nginx running on it but not much else.
- cratermoon 4y ago
  In contrast, I set up IPFS[1] in less than half that time. 1 https://ipfs.tech/ https://ipfs.tech/
  - manfre 4y ago
    Visited link. Not exactly sure what it is. An OS, a protocol, a file share network?
qualudeheart 4y ago
Instances will be run by small groups of people motivated by personal or political reasons.

r721 4y ago

Well, the scale of exodus was unanticipated? I mean Paul Krugman who has 4.6M Twitter followers just announced his Mastodon account. I think things will stabilize in a couple of days/weeks.

johannes1234321 4y ago

They stopped to throttle, but that's not necessarily permanent. Also for which instances will survive and how they will operate and how they will finance will play out. In the moment there is a lot wild west of people figuring things out and experimenting. Similar to email - for a long time somebody in a university basement had been running those and now it's google, Microsoft and a bunch of smallers or selfhosted where you can pick the offering you like.