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The world, it turns out, contains more than just hammers. The fediverse, it turns out, isn't primarily a messaging service. So yes, if you define X as "a mess

The world, it turns out, contains more than just hammers. The fediverse, it turns out, isn't primarily a messaging service. So yes, if you define X as "a messaging service that intends to connect people across the world," then X must support as many people as possible. But if you don't define X that way, then not supporting 100 million people isn't such a big deal. Millions of people are already happily on fediverse servers despite the lack of any current or former presidents there. People who want to follow whatever Obama wants to say can do so in any number of ways. The Fediverse might be one of those ways, or not, and it wouldn't really detract from the Fediverse if it weren't. I mean, I see stuff from the most recent former president all the time, and he's on neither twitter nor the fediverse.

crazygringo 4y ago
I'm sorry, but just a million times no. If Mastodon isn't "a messaging service that intends to connect people across the world", then I can't even imagine what it's supposed to be. Because that is exactly what it is. And if it somehow hit a limit at 10 million total users, then it would be a complete failure. And to say that "it wouldn't really detract from the Fediverse" if you couldn't follow popular people because some limit were hit, you couldn't be more wrong. It would detract from it entirely and totally. It would defeat the entire purpose. And just because you don't want to follow popular people doesn't mean other people don't. Precisely because the entire point of federation is that you're not stuck with separate forums, each on their own server, that don't talk to each other. The entire point is that they communicate in order to connect as many people across the world as users desire. Again, how is this any different from if e-mail were capped at 10 million users total? Since you didn't answer the question.
- lapcat 4y ago
  I think you're missing the point of a social network. Barack Obama is not social on Twitter. You can't talk to him. You can't have a conversation. Look at his Twitter feed: when's the last time he's replied to anyone? He issues mini press releases, that's all. You can't email Barack Obama either, by the way. I mean, you can try, but good luck with that. You talk about a messaging service, but it's entirely one-way messaging between famous people and non-famous people. Mastodon users aren't looking to follow famous people and be passive recipients of press releases from famous people. They're looking to have conversations with each other. In this respect, Obama is irrelevant.
  - crazygringo 4y ago
    You're missing the point that Obama was just an example, to use the most followed person on Twitter. There are tons of people on Twitter with over 10 million followers who interact with Twitter a ton. They're very "social". If a social network can't handle people who are popular, then that's a real problem. And remember, people's accounts can start unpopular, and then they gain millions of followers over years. So what do you do, boot them off for the sin of saying things lots of people want to listen to and interact with?
    - lapcat 4y ago
      > There are tons of people on Twitter with over 10 million followers who interact with Twitter a ton. They certainly don't interact with 10 million people. That's impossible. They only interact with a tiny subset of their followers. > If a social network can't handle people who are popular, then that's a real problem. And remember, people's accounts can start unpopular, and then they gain millions of followers over years. I disagree. The most popular person I followed on Twitter had 300K followers and had been on Twitter since 2006. It's really not a big deal if there are no celebrities. The celebrities can post wherever else on the web they like. Don't need them. Let them continue on Twitter, whatever. Not a problem. I've spent literally decades on the internet, on countless forums, never interacting with celebrities. It's fine. It's great!
      - crazygringo 4y ago
        You're completely missing the point, again. This isn't about "celebrities" (a word I never used), it's about popular people all around, like authors, journalists, and so on. And sure nobody is personally replying to all of their 10 million+ followers, but those 10 million+ followers do want to follow! And popular figures absolutely interact with and reply to tons of their followers quite frequently, that's the whole point. Frankly, nobody cares if you "don't need" anybody popular. But to argue that a place like Mastodon should make it impossible for anybody to be popular, is ludicrous. If Mastodon wanted to stay tiny for people like you, separated into little popular-people-not-supported bubbles with a some hard max limit on followers, then why would it even have been built on federation in the first place...? The idea that an author with only a few followers could have a best-selling book, and then at some point enthusiastic readers try to follow them only to get "error: max follow limit reached", would be a total and utter failure. A bug, not a feature.

crazygringo 4y ago

I'm sorry, but just a million times no. If Mastodon isn't "a messaging service that intends to connect people across the world", then I can't even imagine what it's supposed to be. Because that is exactly what it is. And if it somehow hit a limit at 10 million total users, then it would be a complete failure. And to say that "it wouldn't really detract from the Fediverse" if you couldn't follow popular people because some limit were hit, you couldn't be more wrong. It would detract from it entirely and totally. It would defeat the entire purpose. And just because you don't want to follow popular people doesn't mean other people don't. Precisely because the entire point of federation is that you're not stuck with separate forums, each on their own server, that don't talk to each other. The entire point is that they communicate in order to connect as many people across the world as users desire. Again, how is this any different from if e-mail were capped at 10 million users total? Since you didn't answer the question.

lapcat 4y ago
I think you're missing the point of a social network. Barack Obama is not social on Twitter. You can't talk to him. You can't have a conversation. Look at his Twitter feed: when's the last time he's replied to anyone? He issues mini press releases, that's all. You can't email Barack Obama either, by the way. I mean, you can try, but good luck with that. You talk about a messaging service, but it's entirely one-way messaging between famous people and non-famous people. Mastodon users aren't looking to follow famous people and be passive recipients of press releases from famous people. They're looking to have conversations with each other. In this respect, Obama is irrelevant.
- crazygringo 4y ago
  You're missing the point that Obama was just an example, to use the most followed person on Twitter. There are tons of people on Twitter with over 10 million followers who interact with Twitter a ton. They're very "social". If a social network can't handle people who are popular, then that's a real problem. And remember, people's accounts can start unpopular, and then they gain millions of followers over years. So what do you do, boot them off for the sin of saying things lots of people want to listen to and interact with?
  - lapcat 4y ago
    > There are tons of people on Twitter with over 10 million followers who interact with Twitter a ton. They certainly don't interact with 10 million people. That's impossible. They only interact with a tiny subset of their followers. > If a social network can't handle people who are popular, then that's a real problem. And remember, people's accounts can start unpopular, and then they gain millions of followers over years. I disagree. The most popular person I followed on Twitter had 300K followers and had been on Twitter since 2006. It's really not a big deal if there are no celebrities. The celebrities can post wherever else on the web they like. Don't need them. Let them continue on Twitter, whatever. Not a problem. I've spent literally decades on the internet, on countless forums, never interacting with celebrities. It's fine. It's great!
    - crazygringo 4y ago
      You're completely missing the point, again. This isn't about "celebrities" (a word I never used), it's about popular people all around, like authors, journalists, and so on. And sure nobody is personally replying to all of their 10 million+ followers, but those 10 million+ followers do want to follow! And popular figures absolutely interact with and reply to tons of their followers quite frequently, that's the whole point. Frankly, nobody cares if you "don't need" anybody popular. But to argue that a place like Mastodon should make it impossible for anybody to be popular, is ludicrous. If Mastodon wanted to stay tiny for people like you, separated into little popular-people-not-supported bubbles with a some hard max limit on followers, then why would it even have been built on federation in the first place...? The idea that an author with only a few followers could have a best-selling book, and then at some point enthusiastic readers try to follow them only to get "error: max follow limit reached", would be a total and utter failure. A bug, not a feature.