4 ms·

The pessimism of the comments here confuses me. In fact, Mastodon has handled this extraordinarily well, as I see it. I'm very much in the "median Twitter use

by ajross 4y ago

The pessimism of the comments here confuses me. In fact, Mastodon has handled this extraordinarily well, as I see it. I'm very much in the "median Twitter user" bucket: I don't post much, I have a feed of a few hundred accounts that I follow because I want to hear what they have to say, and I browse the feed once or twice on most days to catch up, with occasionally binges during newsworthy events. And... I've done all that on Mastodon, successfully, over the past few weeks. And it's been Just Fine! No outages, no weirdness. Big chunks of the accounts I'm following have moved over and/or started mirroring their tweets. I see maybe 30% of the volume of "readworthy Toots" that I do on Twitter. It's really extremely usable. I hasn't replaced Twitter yet for me. But... it certainly could.

spaceribs 4y ago
It also ignores the hilariously terrible time Twitter had scaling up in the first few years of it's life.
- nerdawson 4y ago
  Is that relevant though? Twitter is stable (enough) now. It's competing against present day Twitter, not the Twitter of years past.
  - zimpenfish 4y ago
    > It's competing against present day Twitter Sure but that has the caveat that 75% of the staff were recently let go, the owner is an attention-deficit "BREAK THINGS AND BREAK FAST" lunatic whiplashing back and forth over policy changes and bans, and as such, people using the Fediverse have a certain tolerance for glitchiness because it's better than the alternative right now.
standardUser 4y ago
How could it replace Twitter? Even the Mastodon devotees admit it can't scale to that level and the sign-up process will turn off most users before they even get started.
- spaceribs 4y ago
  Maybe I could pose this question another way, what does Twitter do that Mastodon can't?
  - deltarholamda 4y ago
    If you want to give somebody your handle, you say "@elonmusk," instead of saying "@elonmusk@mast.don.vanity.tld". (I didn't think Horseshoe Theory would bring back bangpaths, but here we are.) Personally I believe a big central silo for so-called public discussions is a terrible idea, but I do understand there is some value to it. However, there will always be a problem with this sort of thing because a very large number of people are morons and/or scolds, and they seem to have a lot of free time.
    - xigoi 4y ago
      > If you want to give somebody your handle, you say "@elonmusk," instead of saying "@elonmusk@mast.don.vanity.tld". People seem to be using e-mail just fine…
      - TheHappyOddish 4y ago
        Do they? I regularly have people think I work at their company when I tell them my email is <theircompanyname>@<mydomain.tld>. People try an add a ".com" to my 5 letter gTLD, and try and add a ".au" to any "@gmail.com" address. Normal people struggle pretty hard with email. Or at least a fairly significant portion of them. Giving them something that looks like an email, doesn't work as one, and includes an additional @ sounds like a tech support nightmare.
    - OctopusLupid 4y ago
      On the other hand, your per-server handles can be much shorter. For example, @tim@apple.com vs @TimCook. This also comes with built-in verification; @TimCook@freerobux.com is probably fake.
    - mindslight 4y ago
Kye 4y ago
People will still say the same thing at 80 million accounts that they say at 8. It's easy to be reflexively pessimistic. It's hard to try and see the potential, or even admit the last thousand predictions of doom all the way back to when Mastodon was one server were wrong.
thejohnconway 4y ago
Yeah, I run a Mastodon server, registrations are open, and it's never gone down. What I see mostly are people coming over from Twitter and making a go of it. Some bounce, most stay, and some vastly prefer it. Part of the trick is moving over communities. You don't need the world and its dog. It's working already. It's replaced Twitter for me, and then some. The pessimism here on HN is bizarre! Isn't this what so many people wanted?
- drewzero1 4y ago
  > The pessimism here on HN is bizarre! This has been my experience on HN in general, though I recognize I've been part of the problem. It's really easy to dump on things and feel smart.
  - guerrilla 4y ago
    Remember how pessimistic they were about Reddit? And some other successful startups? Someone made a full list of the predictions that were completely off once... No idea how to find that but it's out there.
    - yborg 4y ago
      HN has become The Establishment, it skews older, and thus is extremely skeptical of any change to the comfortable status quo. It's of course supremely ironic in a community that (originally) represented the Silicon Valley startup culture of Disrupt Everything.
      - thejohnconway 4y ago
        > Silicon Valley startup culture The answer might lay in that, I guess. Mastodon isn't much of a venture capital opportunity. No startup in the space is likely to return billions.
        drewzero1 4y ago

by ajross 4y ago

spaceribs 4y ago

It also ignores the hilariously terrible time Twitter had scaling up in the first few years of it's life.

nerdawson 4y ago
Is that relevant though? Twitter is stable (enough) now. It's competing against present day Twitter, not the Twitter of years past.
- zimpenfish 4y ago
  > It's competing against present day Twitter Sure but that has the caveat that 75% of the staff were recently let go, the owner is an attention-deficit "BREAK THINGS AND BREAK FAST" lunatic whiplashing back and forth over policy changes and bans, and as such, people using the Fediverse have a certain tolerance for glitchiness because it's better than the alternative right now.

standardUser 4y ago

How could it replace Twitter? Even the Mastodon devotees admit it can't scale to that level and the sign-up process will turn off most users before they even get started.

spaceribs 4y ago
Maybe I could pose this question another way, what does Twitter do that Mastodon can't?
- deltarholamda 4y ago
  If you want to give somebody your handle, you say "@elonmusk," instead of saying "@elonmusk@mast.don.vanity.tld". (I didn't think Horseshoe Theory would bring back bangpaths, but here we are.) Personally I believe a big central silo for so-called public discussions is a terrible idea, but I do understand there is some value to it. However, there will always be a problem with this sort of thing because a very large number of people are morons and/or scolds, and they seem to have a lot of free time.
  - xigoi 4y ago
    > If you want to give somebody your handle, you say "@elonmusk," instead of saying "@elonmusk@mast.don.vanity.tld". People seem to be using e-mail just fine…
    - TheHappyOddish 4y ago
      Do they? I regularly have people think I work at their company when I tell them my email is <theircompanyname>@<mydomain.tld>. People try an add a ".com" to my 5 letter gTLD, and try and add a ".au" to any "@gmail.com" address. Normal people struggle pretty hard with email. Or at least a fairly significant portion of them. Giving them something that looks like an email, doesn't work as one, and includes an additional @ sounds like a tech support nightmare.
  - OctopusLupid 4y ago
    On the other hand, your per-server handles can be much shorter. For example, @tim@apple.com vs @TimCook. This also comes with built-in verification; @TimCook@freerobux.com is probably fake.
  - mindslight 4y ago

Kye 4y ago

People will still say the same thing at 80 million accounts that they say at 8. It's easy to be reflexively pessimistic. It's hard to try and see the potential, or even admit the last thousand predictions of doom all the way back to when Mastodon was one server were wrong.

thejohnconway 4y ago

Yeah, I run a Mastodon server, registrations are open, and it's never gone down. What I see mostly are people coming over from Twitter and making a go of it. Some bounce, most stay, and some vastly prefer it. Part of the trick is moving over communities. You don't need the world and its dog. It's working already. It's replaced Twitter for me, and then some. The pessimism here on HN is bizarre! Isn't this what so many people wanted?

drewzero1 4y ago
> The pessimism here on HN is bizarre! This has been my experience on HN in general, though I recognize I've been part of the problem. It's really easy to dump on things and feel smart.
- guerrilla 4y ago
  Remember how pessimistic they were about Reddit? And some other successful startups? Someone made a full list of the predictions that were completely off once... No idea how to find that but it's out there.
  - yborg 4y ago
    HN has become The Establishment, it skews older, and thus is extremely skeptical of any change to the comfortable status quo. It's of course supremely ironic in a community that (originally) represented the Silicon Valley startup culture of Disrupt Everything.
    - thejohnconway 4y ago
      > Silicon Valley startup culture The answer might lay in that, I guess. Mastodon isn't much of a venture capital opportunity. No startup in the space is likely to return billions.
      - drewzero1 4y ago