5 ms·

We May Be Approaching Critical Mastodon

33 points by jacooper 4y ago

jeffbee 4y ago
I don't really see how Mastodon will ever catch on outside the tiny circle of people who classify PGP key signing parties as a social activity. There's just so much friction around the federated model. In some contexts you need to cut and paste URLs to follow someone? If I view the profile of a follow on their home world, it doesn't know I follow them, so it offers the UX urging me to follow? There are different streams for "home" and "federated"??? It's basically just a huge collection of nerd UX mistakes.
- willio58 4y ago
  I agree. Mastadon is great in theory but when you actually use it you quickly understand why it will never gain traction beyond a certain crowd.
- trollied 4y ago
  Agree 100%. An average person that just knows how to send whatsapp/text/messenger messages & make calls will get put off by the high barrier to entry. Anything more complicated than a @handle and password (maybe phone number too) to sign up is just too much. Even then things like dealing with the concept of having different servers etc is just too much. It all needs to be abstracted away so that anybody can use it. Anyone that's ever worked on a helpdesk in a large business can spot these faults - you really have to cater for the lowest common denominator.
  - ctoth 4y ago
    This kind of sounds like a feature, not a bug.
- snapetom 4y ago
  Definitely agree with this. Just explaining the fediverse to the masses is a huge challenge. It's like when Diaspora launched. They publicly had lofty statements about returning data ownership to the masses, replacing Facebook, "run it yourself," etc. The majority of people even in technology don't want to bother with that. It would have been hilarious to hear a Diaspora evangelist try explaining to the grandma who just wants to post pictures of her grandkids the benefits of her own Diaspora instance. Relevant to today, you're going to try explaining to some guy who's only on Twitter to trash talk other sports fans, the benefits of sports.social or whatever? It's not going to happen.
  - jeffbee 4y ago
    "Run it yourself" is the worst possible model of social media network. It means I will be strictly incapable of sending a video to a billion people, because I could never afford the hosting bill. It also means that I could never use social media to do any kind of anti-government organizing (protests, revolutions, etc) because even the weakest, dumbest regime on the planet will be able to DoS me right off the air.
- Cyberdog 4y ago
  If these people find that their desire to leave Twitter to spite Musk does not outweigh the friction of learning how a new piece of software works - a piece of software for which there is bountiful explanatory documentation and hundreds of friendly people more than willing to help explain how it works - then I guess they just really don't hate Musk all that much.
- mattkevan 4y ago
  Yup. It feels like the design goal was purely to be federated, not to be a better version of Twitter that also happens to be federated. There’s so much UX friction that only people who happily use words like ‘Fediverse’ in a sentence would consider it worthwhile pushing through. Mind you, making things just arcane enough to keep out the n00bs is a pervasive if unspoken design goal of a lot of open source projects.
mmastrac 4y ago
I signed up for my first Mastodon account on a developer-focused server and I find the whole experience refreshing. The vibe is really small town, and there's a distinct lack of angry shouting back and forth.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
Lendal 4y ago
This article really had me excited. I really wanted to click the "Join Mastodon" button at the bottom of the article. But there isn't one.
- qznc 4y ago
  Here is one: https://hostux.social/about https://hostux.social/about
- Cyberdog 4y ago
  https://joinfediverse.wiki/Main_Page https://joinfediverse.wiki/Main_Page
  - Lendal 4y ago
    Guess I deserved that. See, my commentary is on the fact that other services have a zero-friction sign-in page that lets you join up very easily and quickly. This is what users expect in 2022. Mastodon doesn't have that. Instead, you have to read a wall of instructions and explanations about all the reasons one doesn't simply sign up for Mastodon. Next, you're asked to make a life-changing decision about a concept you just learned about for the first time, assuming you bothered to read that entire wall of previously-mentioned text. That is all friction. It's almost like Mastodon doesn't want any users. Not to mention that people are often (but not always) multifaceted. We like sports, but we also like gadgets. We like to participate but we also like to be entertained. We like music but we also like computer programming. We like video games, Broadway shows, going to the beach. We like both dogs and cats. But Mastodon wants us to choose one and only one thing. That's what's stopping the flow of more people to Mastodon. They need to fix this, and fast.
    - Cyberdog 4y ago
      "Life-changing decision?" My friend, you are signing up for an internet microblogging system, not getting married. I guess you're talking about what instance to create an account on, right? Well, you can create accounts on different instances if you want, and if you decide you don't like the instance your "main account" is on, you can migrate to a different one and all of your followers will still automatically follow you on the new one. Not even sure what you're talking about with the "multifaceted" bit. There's nothing stopping you from following people posting about all of those topics at once, just like you can on Twitter. Go right ahead. If you're thinking you're limited to just following people on the same single-topic instance as you, you have a fundamental misunderstanding of how the network works. As for "they need to fix this, and fast," presuming you actually do understand how federation works, then how do you propose it gets fixed without recentralizing everything?
insane_dreamer 4y ago
I like Mastodon, and have been on for years, but I don't see it breaking out of a relatively small nerd-y social circle. The vast majority of users want convenience. And the majority of content creators (who use Twitter to broadcast info), want large audiences. Mastodon provides neither. It's cool, like IRC is cool.
- sylens 4y ago
  To be honest, a social network that remains relatively free of influencers and becomes effectively a nerd social circle (due to onboarding friction, lack of a global namespace, whatever) sounds…somewhat appealing to me after a decade and a half of Facebook and Twitter
  - insane_dreamer 4y ago
    me too, but we're a small minority of Twitter users
  - jeffbee 4y ago
    If you ever see "influencers" you do not follow on Twitter, you are using it wrong. Click the thing at the top of the feed and set it to "Latest Tweets". You will see only the things posted by those you follow, in the order they were posted, plus some ads.
    - Markoff 4y ago
      you can as well use Nitter or Fritter to improve your experience
      - insane_dreamer 4y ago
        Or Tweetbot
      - insane_dreamer 4y ago
        I wonder how long Elon will keep that Twitter API open
kzrdude 4y ago
Unfortunately I signed up to mastodon.online and due to current events, it's very slow to access.
- simongray 4y ago
  Migrate your account to another server. Your followers will also move along with it.
  - kzrdude 4y ago
    I see. A year ago it didn't look like it was fully supported
- riffic 4y ago
  big servers are being roasted by ahem, unusual traffic demands. use a smaller server and make a monetary contribution to your admin if you find value in their offerings, as a way of saying thanks. There are two servers run by the Mastodon gGmbh itself (m.s and m.o) and they've been taxed with the load of unexpected virality.
kazinator 4y ago
I'm finding the account-tied-to-instance approach a rather ham-fisted approach to distributed systems. You should be able to uniformly use the same identity on any server. (You know, the whole "location transparency" property of a distributed system.) IRC does this better. You connect to any server you want that is in the same federation. Then claim your nickname with the NickServ bot. Then, there you are.
- timbit42 4y ago
  It's decentralized, not distributed. This shows the difference: https://medium.com/nakamo-to/whats-the-difference-between-decentralized-and-distributed-1b8de5e7f5a4 https://medium.com/nakamo-to/whats-the-difference-between-de... It's decentralized like email, not distributed like peer-to-peer protocols such as bittorrent. You can't use the same identity on another email server either. That said, I would like to see a distributed email and Mastodon. And like email, you can't claim your nick on IRC if it is already in use on the same server.
shrubble 4y ago
Frankly this seems like wishful thinking at this point and is due to the recent changes at Twitter. While I have Signal installed, most of my contacts continue to use WhatsApp...
ars 4y ago
The same thing happened when WhatsApp added their new terms and conditions - everyone is like "Switch to Signal" (or Telegram), and they proudly reported their best days ever with the most installs. And where are we today? All those people who switched are back on WhatsApp. Twitter is very much in the news right now, lots of noise, everyone with their opinion on what he should do, and since he's not listening to them, they are all "I'm leaving!". Give it a month or two and it'll all go back the way it was.
brodouevencode 4y ago
> Musk has a lot of different and often contradictory ideas about how Twitter should be run, but they all share one thing in common: they’re hilariously bad. * Search overhaul * Long form text * Long form video * Better monetization for creators * Community content moderation instead of obviously conditioned moderators Yeah, sounds like he's going in the wrong direction.
- rimunroe 4y ago
  I don't have thoughts on the other points yet, but long form text and long form video are both the opposite of what I want from the platform. If I wanted either of those things I'd use Tumblr or Facebook. Similarly, I was very disappointed when TikTok started increasing the maximum length of videos from 15 seconds to 60 (and later increased it even further). I don't think longer videos are inherently bad, but they do seem to be easier to make bad or uninteresting. I have the same feelings about Twitter having increased the tweet length limit from 140 to 280 characters.
  - brodouevencode 4y ago
    Fair - at some point it does become a different product. And honestly I think that' is Musk's intentions. From what I can tell he wants Twitter to be a town square and not an echo chamber. Whether he actually turns it into a town square is one thing, but there's no denying that for the longest time it was definitely one-sided.
    - cactusplant7374 4y ago
      It’s a platform for groups of people that are in constant conflict to engage in battle. The idea that changes could make one or more groups happy seems to be anathema to the intended purpose.
- taylodl 4y ago
  I wonder if Musk is looking at tying Twitter in to Tesla's infotainment system? For some reason your list of features, notably long form video, made my think of that. I mean, Musk owns Twitter, Tesla, and Starlink. You'd think their engineers and product managers would be tasked looking for synergies.
rhn_mk1 4y ago
> If you want to come and follow me on Mastodon, I’m [email protected] That made me laugh :)
rektide 4y ago
the critical, negative-spun feedback breaking out already is overpowering. there is an incredibly willful act of disbelieving, in believing the only possibility is this thing doesn't/can't/won't/willn't be.

33 points by jacooper 4y ago

I don't really see how Mastodon will ever catch on outside the tiny circle of people who classify PGP key signing parties as a social activity. There's just so much friction around the federated model. In some contexts you need to cut and paste URLs to follow someone? If I view the profile of a follow on their home world, it doesn't know I follow them, so it offers the UX urging me to follow? There are different streams for "home" and "federated"??? It's basically just a huge collection of nerd UX mistakes.

willio58 4y ago
I agree. Mastadon is great in theory but when you actually use it you quickly understand why it will never gain traction beyond a certain crowd.
trollied 4y ago
Agree 100%. An average person that just knows how to send whatsapp/text/messenger messages & make calls will get put off by the high barrier to entry. Anything more complicated than a @handle and password (maybe phone number too) to sign up is just too much. Even then things like dealing with the concept of having different servers etc is just too much. It all needs to be abstracted away so that anybody can use it. Anyone that's ever worked on a helpdesk in a large business can spot these faults - you really have to cater for the lowest common denominator.
- ctoth 4y ago
  This kind of sounds like a feature, not a bug.
snapetom 4y ago
Definitely agree with this. Just explaining the fediverse to the masses is a huge challenge. It's like when Diaspora launched. They publicly had lofty statements about returning data ownership to the masses, replacing Facebook, "run it yourself," etc. The majority of people even in technology don't want to bother with that. It would have been hilarious to hear a Diaspora evangelist try explaining to the grandma who just wants to post pictures of her grandkids the benefits of her own Diaspora instance. Relevant to today, you're going to try explaining to some guy who's only on Twitter to trash talk other sports fans, the benefits of sports.social or whatever? It's not going to happen.
- jeffbee 4y ago
  "Run it yourself" is the worst possible model of social media network. It means I will be strictly incapable of sending a video to a billion people, because I could never afford the hosting bill. It also means that I could never use social media to do any kind of anti-government organizing (protests, revolutions, etc) because even the weakest, dumbest regime on the planet will be able to DoS me right off the air.
Cyberdog 4y ago
If these people find that their desire to leave Twitter to spite Musk does not outweigh the friction of learning how a new piece of software works - a piece of software for which there is bountiful explanatory documentation and hundreds of friendly people more than willing to help explain how it works - then I guess they just really don't hate Musk all that much.
mattkevan 4y ago
Yup. It feels like the design goal was purely to be federated, not to be a better version of Twitter that also happens to be federated. There’s so much UX friction that only people who happily use words like ‘Fediverse’ in a sentence would consider it worthwhile pushing through. Mind you, making things just arcane enough to keep out the n00bs is a pervasive if unspoken design goal of a lot of open source projects.

mmastrac 4y ago

I signed up for my first Mastodon account on a developer-focused server and I find the whole experience refreshing. The vibe is really small town, and there's a distinct lack of angry shouting back and forth.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

Lendal 4y ago

This article really had me excited. I really wanted to click the "Join Mastodon" button at the bottom of the article. But there isn't one.

qznc 4y ago
Here is one: https://hostux.social/about https://hostux.social/about
Cyberdog 4y ago
https://joinfediverse.wiki/Main_Page https://joinfediverse.wiki/Main_Page
- Lendal 4y ago
  Guess I deserved that. See, my commentary is on the fact that other services have a zero-friction sign-in page that lets you join up very easily and quickly. This is what users expect in 2022. Mastodon doesn't have that. Instead, you have to read a wall of instructions and explanations about all the reasons one doesn't simply sign up for Mastodon. Next, you're asked to make a life-changing decision about a concept you just learned about for the first time, assuming you bothered to read that entire wall of previously-mentioned text. That is all friction. It's almost like Mastodon doesn't want any users. Not to mention that people are often (but not always) multifaceted. We like sports, but we also like gadgets. We like to participate but we also like to be entertained. We like music but we also like computer programming. We like video games, Broadway shows, going to the beach. We like both dogs and cats. But Mastodon wants us to choose one and only one thing. That's what's stopping the flow of more people to Mastodon. They need to fix this, and fast.
  - Cyberdog 4y ago
    "Life-changing decision?" My friend, you are signing up for an internet microblogging system, not getting married. I guess you're talking about what instance to create an account on, right? Well, you can create accounts on different instances if you want, and if you decide you don't like the instance your "main account" is on, you can migrate to a different one and all of your followers will still automatically follow you on the new one. Not even sure what you're talking about with the "multifaceted" bit. There's nothing stopping you from following people posting about all of those topics at once, just like you can on Twitter. Go right ahead. If you're thinking you're limited to just following people on the same single-topic instance as you, you have a fundamental misunderstanding of how the network works. As for "they need to fix this, and fast," presuming you actually do understand how federation works, then how do you propose it gets fixed without recentralizing everything?

insane_dreamer 4y ago

I like Mastodon, and have been on for years, but I don't see it breaking out of a relatively small nerd-y social circle. The vast majority of users want convenience. And the majority of content creators (who use Twitter to broadcast info), want large audiences. Mastodon provides neither. It's cool, like IRC is cool.

sylens 4y ago
To be honest, a social network that remains relatively free of influencers and becomes effectively a nerd social circle (due to onboarding friction, lack of a global namespace, whatever) sounds…somewhat appealing to me after a decade and a half of Facebook and Twitter
- insane_dreamer 4y ago
  me too, but we're a small minority of Twitter users
- jeffbee 4y ago
  If you ever see "influencers" you do not follow on Twitter, you are using it wrong. Click the thing at the top of the feed and set it to "Latest Tweets". You will see only the things posted by those you follow, in the order they were posted, plus some ads.
  - Markoff 4y ago
    you can as well use Nitter or Fritter to improve your experience
    - insane_dreamer 4y ago
      Or Tweetbot
    - insane_dreamer 4y ago
      I wonder how long Elon will keep that Twitter API open

kzrdude 4y ago

Unfortunately I signed up to mastodon.online and due to current events, it's very slow to access.

simongray 4y ago
Migrate your account to another server. Your followers will also move along with it.
- kzrdude 4y ago
  I see. A year ago it didn't look like it was fully supported
riffic 4y ago
big servers are being roasted by ahem, unusual traffic demands. use a smaller server and make a monetary contribution to your admin if you find value in their offerings, as a way of saying thanks. There are two servers run by the Mastodon gGmbh itself (m.s and m.o) and they've been taxed with the load of unexpected virality.

kazinator 4y ago

I'm finding the account-tied-to-instance approach a rather ham-fisted approach to distributed systems. You should be able to uniformly use the same identity on any server. (You know, the whole "location transparency" property of a distributed system.) IRC does this better. You connect to any server you want that is in the same federation. Then claim your nickname with the NickServ bot. Then, there you are.

timbit42 4y ago
It's decentralized, not distributed. This shows the difference: https://medium.com/nakamo-to/whats-the-difference-between-decentralized-and-distributed-1b8de5e7f5a4 https://medium.com/nakamo-to/whats-the-difference-between-de... It's decentralized like email, not distributed like peer-to-peer protocols such as bittorrent. You can't use the same identity on another email server either. That said, I would like to see a distributed email and Mastodon. And like email, you can't claim your nick on IRC if it is already in use on the same server.

shrubble 4y ago

Frankly this seems like wishful thinking at this point and is due to the recent changes at Twitter. While I have Signal installed, most of my contacts continue to use WhatsApp...

ars 4y ago

The same thing happened when WhatsApp added their new terms and conditions - everyone is like "Switch to Signal" (or Telegram), and they proudly reported their best days ever with the most installs. And where are we today? All those people who switched are back on WhatsApp. Twitter is very much in the news right now, lots of noise, everyone with their opinion on what he should do, and since he's not listening to them, they are all "I'm leaving!". Give it a month or two and it'll all go back the way it was.

brodouevencode 4y ago

> Musk has a lot of different and often contradictory ideas about how Twitter should be run, but they all share one thing in common: they’re hilariously bad. * Search overhaul * Long form text * Long form video * Better monetization for creators * Community content moderation instead of obviously conditioned moderators Yeah, sounds like he's going in the wrong direction.

rimunroe 4y ago
I don't have thoughts on the other points yet, but long form text and long form video are both the opposite of what I want from the platform. If I wanted either of those things I'd use Tumblr or Facebook. Similarly, I was very disappointed when TikTok started increasing the maximum length of videos from 15 seconds to 60 (and later increased it even further). I don't think longer videos are inherently bad, but they do seem to be easier to make bad or uninteresting. I have the same feelings about Twitter having increased the tweet length limit from 140 to 280 characters.
- brodouevencode 4y ago
  Fair - at some point it does become a different product. And honestly I think that' is Musk's intentions. From what I can tell he wants Twitter to be a town square and not an echo chamber. Whether he actually turns it into a town square is one thing, but there's no denying that for the longest time it was definitely one-sided.
  - cactusplant7374 4y ago
    It’s a platform for groups of people that are in constant conflict to engage in battle. The idea that changes could make one or more groups happy seems to be anathema to the intended purpose.
taylodl 4y ago
I wonder if Musk is looking at tying Twitter in to Tesla's infotainment system? For some reason your list of features, notably long form video, made my think of that. I mean, Musk owns Twitter, Tesla, and Starlink. You'd think their engineers and product managers would be tasked looking for synergies.

rhn_mk1 4y ago

> If you want to come and follow me on Mastodon, I’m [email protected] That made me laugh :)

rektide 4y ago

the critical, negative-spun feedback breaking out already is overpowering. there is an incredibly willful act of disbelieving, in believing the only possibility is this thing doesn't/can't/won't/willn't be.