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Mastodon is too fragmented to work... well. For example; this tweet: https://twitter.com/joinmastodon/status/1585756076305444864 https://twitter.com/joinmastodo

Mastodon is too fragmented to work... well. For example; this tweet: https://twitter.com/joinmastodon/status/1585756076305444864 https://twitter.com/joinmastodon/status/1585756076305444864. Would you really host your email on a server that some dude in rural Canada runs in his spare time? I don't think so. Not just for reliability reasons, but for privacy reasons as well.

imhoguy 4y ago
As with email hosting, what stops you to choose instance served by a company? Let's imagine Google Fedi+, MS Fedilook or Proton Fedi hosted from some bunker in Switzerland.
- beardedman 4y ago
  > what stops you to choose instance served by a company That when the goodwill of said company runs out, there is very little incentive for them to maintain the service (other than trying to monetize it).
  - imhoguy 4y ago
    There is no free lunch. Somebody has to pay electricity bills and spend resources (time) on administration. But you have a choice: so you trust the dude in rural Canada who pays the server bills with his harvest earnings, or you agree with monetization T&C by giving up your privacy to ads corporation, or you pay a hosting company who manages your instance on VPS, or you setup your own instance, or you participate in coop scheme where you share instance with some common interest group, or you find some rich and trusted philanthropist. Otherwise the owner can't sustain the operations and may need to shut down one day (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33120136 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33120136)
    - beardedman 4y ago
      I think I will trust/use/invest in the company whose business model depends on me using the platform.
      - mmplxx 4y ago
        I'm still trying to make up my mind about all this, but it's likely that the fact that many servers are running subject to the same set of rules may increase competition since servers are highly substitutable, so a paid server business model may actually be more customer oriented because of the "Mastodon market" pressure it faces, isn't it?
bombcar 4y ago
Handling it less like email and more like a “well if it blows up ah well” is part of the featureset in my opinion.
- beardedman 4y ago
  Social accounts are monetizable & part of peoples brands now - “well if it blows up ah well” might be fine for you or for me, but might not be for others.
  - bombcar 4y ago
    Arguably we’re seeing the beginning of Twitter blowing up and if that falls to Digg-like irrelevance they face a similar issue.
  - notpushkin 4y ago
    Then don't use free instances? There's a bunch of companies that would run a dedicated instance for you for a couple dozen $/mo.
    - Zak 4y ago
      Less than that. Weingärtner is 4€/month for an instance they say is suitable for up to 5 users. Masto.host is $6 for the same. This is a major advantage over centralized social media in terms of platform risk.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
fulafel 4y ago
It's actually much closer to the email system than this analogy. Some dude in rural Canada can run a email server in their spare time and nobody thinks the email system is any worse for it.

imhoguy 4y ago

As with email hosting, what stops you to choose instance served by a company? Let's imagine Google Fedi+, MS Fedilook or Proton Fedi hosted from some bunker in Switzerland.

beardedman 4y ago
> what stops you to choose instance served by a company That when the goodwill of said company runs out, there is very little incentive for them to maintain the service (other than trying to monetize it).
- imhoguy 4y ago
  There is no free lunch. Somebody has to pay electricity bills and spend resources (time) on administration. But you have a choice: so you trust the dude in rural Canada who pays the server bills with his harvest earnings, or you agree with monetization T&C by giving up your privacy to ads corporation, or you pay a hosting company who manages your instance on VPS, or you setup your own instance, or you participate in coop scheme where you share instance with some common interest group, or you find some rich and trusted philanthropist. Otherwise the owner can't sustain the operations and may need to shut down one day (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33120136 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33120136)
  - beardedman 4y ago
    I think I will trust/use/invest in the company whose business model depends on me using the platform.
    - mmplxx 4y ago
      I'm still trying to make up my mind about all this, but it's likely that the fact that many servers are running subject to the same set of rules may increase competition since servers are highly substitutable, so a paid server business model may actually be more customer oriented because of the "Mastodon market" pressure it faces, isn't it?

bombcar 4y ago

Handling it less like email and more like a “well if it blows up ah well” is part of the featureset in my opinion.

beardedman 4y ago
Social accounts are monetizable & part of peoples brands now - “well if it blows up ah well” might be fine for you or for me, but might not be for others.
- bombcar 4y ago
  Arguably we’re seeing the beginning of Twitter blowing up and if that falls to Digg-like irrelevance they face a similar issue.
- notpushkin 4y ago
  Then don't use free instances? There's a bunch of companies that would run a dedicated instance for you for a couple dozen $/mo.
  - Zak 4y ago
    Less than that. Weingärtner is 4€/month for an instance they say is suitable for up to 5 users. Masto.host is $6 for the same. This is a major advantage over centralized social media in terms of platform risk.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

fulafel 4y ago

It's actually much closer to the email system than this analogy. Some dude in rural Canada can run a email server in their spare time and nobody thinks the email system is any worse for it.