5 ms·

I love the idea of Mastodon and I would love for things like that to take us back to the less centralized and less corporate internet of before, but I am pessim

by telmo 4y ago

I love the idea of Mastodon and I would love for things like that to take us back to the less centralized and less corporate internet of before, but I am pessimistic that it will happen anytime soon. The real reason why people are "migrating" to Mastodon right now (and can't seem to stop talking about it on Twitter) is one and one only: to signal their tribal affiliation. Twitter used to be controlled by the blue tribe and now it was bought by a member of the red tribe. That is all that is happening. Nothing more, nothing less. I don't know if Elon Musk will destroy Twitter or if it won't matter in the long term. I suspect the latter, but I'm close to 50/50 on that. What I am sure is that the average Twitter user will not actually stay and use Mastodon right now. Most people are on Twitter for the audience and/or to follow those with large audiences, and Mastodon does not have that not will it in the near future (which makes it sound like a really nice place to hang out now that I mention it :) I would also point out that, in my experience, internet communities are great until they get noticed by the mainstream. Once they become mainstream, they attract huge masses of users that want to fight for their political tribe with high hostility / low creativity content, and the eye of Sauron (politicians in general) falls upon it, and opinion piece writers start fanning the flames of moral panics, and the good times are over.

ignaloidas 4y ago
Oh, these tribal migrations have happened before. Most people indeed leave, but some do actually find that they like it more each time such a wave happens. Fediverse is in the best sense of the word, weird. You have to embrace the weirdness to understand it. Not everyone can, or will. It would take a lot of time for that weirdness to be ironed out so that most people would be comfortable using it, but I don't think many in the community developing it are interested in that.
- telmo 4y ago
  I agree. I like the weirdness, and I don't think it can survive mainstreaming. Mainstreaming always means blandness.
- cyber_kinetist 4y ago
  To be honest though, I’ve been in many weird enough places on Twitter that I can confidently say that Mastodon is really dull, quiet, and less diverse compared to there.
  - ignaloidas 4y ago
    Did you come to Mastodon over the last couple weeks? Because a lot of the signal from the more interesting parts of fedi got lost over the twitter newcomers yelling how it is much better. And like, from people I follow, most of the more interesting ones aren't even using Mastodon, but rather Pleroma, Miskkey, or some forks of those. It's a diverse network, not only in types of people, but also in types of software. I would suggest you explore it more after a month or so, after this twitter wave blows over and dies off once again, as there's certainly some very nice communities out there.
    - cyber_kinetist 4y ago
      No, I toured some servers around three years ago... and ultimately there wasn't really anyone who I was interested in. Unlike Twitter, which I have seen all kinds of interesting people and interesting discussions. (Maybe it's because Mastodon is a bit too much slanted in the tech space, and I really want to have some distance from it since I pretty much already fill all of my tech discussion quota here.)
      - ignaloidas 4y ago
        Ah, fair, a lot of discourse is centered around tech in many instances. There are some people that mostly talk about other things though, but there are indeed less of them, and they can be harder to find. You still can find them, but if you don't want to go through tech discourse to find them, it's understandable why you didn't.
blowski 4y ago
> The real reason why people are "migrating" to Mastodon right now is one and one only: to signal their tribal affiliation That's an assertion. I've moved because I genuinely want to own my network and not get suddenly blocked, losing access to everything. And I've moved because I want to encourage others to move. If everybody else moves, then it becomes easier for me to remain moved, and thus promoting it on Twitter is entirely consistent with that goal.
- telmo 4y ago
  Allow me to propose to you the following thought experiment: had Elon Musk not bought Twitter, what do you figure would be the probability that mainstream media would be talking about Mastodon right now?
  - blowski 4y ago
    Fairly low, I agree with you. And the chances of me having set up my own Mastodon account would also be fairly low. But that's not to say that my reasoning is to signal tribal affiliation. I haven't moved before because I didn't know anyone on Mastodon. I now know quite a few, so moving is more valuable. It could be the network effect happening in reverse, and that's interesting for the media to report on.
ElevenLathe 4y ago
> The real reason why people are "migrating" to Mastodon right now (and can't seem to stop talking about it on Twitter) is one and one only: to signal their tribal affiliation. Having a Twitter account is largely also about this. There is a "Twitter Tribe", and people feel it deeply as part of their identity. This is why there is so much emotion around the Musk acquisition.
- telmo 4y ago
  Tying one's personal identity to a private company that can be bought and sold always ends in heartache...
r00fus 4y ago
> Twitter used to be controlled by the blue tribe and now it was bought by a member of the red tribe. This is so reductionist. Elon advocating for team red is one thing, him introducing a rootkit into Twitter (blue/verification without any actual validation of identity) and laying off half the employees to defray Twitter's leveraged buyout fees incurred by the buyout is yet another. People are leaving because they're losing confidence he has a plan that isn't lighting the place on fire. In fact, DMs between Jack and Elon indicate that was entirely the plan - to promote Jack's BlueSky venture.
- pfraze 4y ago
  > In fact, DMs between Jack and Elon indicate that was entirely the plan - to promote Jack's BlueSky venture. That's not the impression I got from those texts.

by telmo 4y ago

ignaloidas 4y ago

Oh, these tribal migrations have happened before. Most people indeed leave, but some do actually find that they like it more each time such a wave happens. Fediverse is in the best sense of the word, weird. You have to embrace the weirdness to understand it. Not everyone can, or will. It would take a lot of time for that weirdness to be ironed out so that most people would be comfortable using it, but I don't think many in the community developing it are interested in that.

telmo 4y ago
I agree. I like the weirdness, and I don't think it can survive mainstreaming. Mainstreaming always means blandness.
cyber_kinetist 4y ago
To be honest though, I’ve been in many weird enough places on Twitter that I can confidently say that Mastodon is really dull, quiet, and less diverse compared to there.
- ignaloidas 4y ago
  Did you come to Mastodon over the last couple weeks? Because a lot of the signal from the more interesting parts of fedi got lost over the twitter newcomers yelling how it is much better. And like, from people I follow, most of the more interesting ones aren't even using Mastodon, but rather Pleroma, Miskkey, or some forks of those. It's a diverse network, not only in types of people, but also in types of software. I would suggest you explore it more after a month or so, after this twitter wave blows over and dies off once again, as there's certainly some very nice communities out there.
  - cyber_kinetist 4y ago
    No, I toured some servers around three years ago... and ultimately there wasn't really anyone who I was interested in. Unlike Twitter, which I have seen all kinds of interesting people and interesting discussions. (Maybe it's because Mastodon is a bit too much slanted in the tech space, and I really want to have some distance from it since I pretty much already fill all of my tech discussion quota here.)
    - ignaloidas 4y ago
      Ah, fair, a lot of discourse is centered around tech in many instances. There are some people that mostly talk about other things though, but there are indeed less of them, and they can be harder to find. You still can find them, but if you don't want to go through tech discourse to find them, it's understandable why you didn't.

blowski 4y ago

> The real reason why people are "migrating" to Mastodon right now is one and one only: to signal their tribal affiliation That's an assertion. I've moved because I genuinely want to own my network and not get suddenly blocked, losing access to everything. And I've moved because I want to encourage others to move. If everybody else moves, then it becomes easier for me to remain moved, and thus promoting it on Twitter is entirely consistent with that goal.

telmo 4y ago
Allow me to propose to you the following thought experiment: had Elon Musk not bought Twitter, what do you figure would be the probability that mainstream media would be talking about Mastodon right now?
- blowski 4y ago
  Fairly low, I agree with you. And the chances of me having set up my own Mastodon account would also be fairly low. But that's not to say that my reasoning is to signal tribal affiliation. I haven't moved before because I didn't know anyone on Mastodon. I now know quite a few, so moving is more valuable. It could be the network effect happening in reverse, and that's interesting for the media to report on.

ElevenLathe 4y ago

> The real reason why people are "migrating" to Mastodon right now (and can't seem to stop talking about it on Twitter) is one and one only: to signal their tribal affiliation. Having a Twitter account is largely also about this. There is a "Twitter Tribe", and people feel it deeply as part of their identity. This is why there is so much emotion around the Musk acquisition.

telmo 4y ago
Tying one's personal identity to a private company that can be bought and sold always ends in heartache...

r00fus 4y ago

> Twitter used to be controlled by the blue tribe and now it was bought by a member of the red tribe. This is so reductionist. Elon advocating for team red is one thing, him introducing a rootkit into Twitter (blue/verification without any actual validation of identity) and laying off half the employees to defray Twitter's leveraged buyout fees incurred by the buyout is yet another. People are leaving because they're losing confidence he has a plan that isn't lighting the place on fire. In fact, DMs between Jack and Elon indicate that was entirely the plan - to promote Jack's BlueSky venture.

pfraze 4y ago
> In fact, DMs between Jack and Elon indicate that was entirely the plan - to promote Jack's BlueSky venture. That's not the impression I got from those texts.