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this doesn’t sound terribly likely to me, as an outcome. i am seeing a whole lot of criticisms of mastodon that, to me, sound like “social networking sites hav
by allenbrunson 4y ago
this doesn’t sound terribly likely to me, as an outcome.
i am seeing a whole lot of criticisms of mastodon that, to me, sound like “social networking sites have always been bad, therefore mastodon must also be bad.” surely we can muster a little more optimism than that.
i just posted my own “come to jesus” moment.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34079668 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34079668
- jjulius 4y ago>surely we can muster a little more optimism than that. Name one social media site and then explain how it was a net positive for society/outweighed all of it's toxic aspects.
- krapp 4y ago>Name one social media site and then explain how it was a net positive for society/outweighed all of it's toxic aspects. That isn't something one can objectively measure.
- jjulius 4y agoI have my own subjective opinions about social media, as does OP. OP suggested I inject positivity into mine, so I am curious to see what their subjective opinions are in an effort to perhaps shift my perspective.
- marmadukester39 4y agoThis one.
- allenbrunson 4y agoi think that's asking the wrong question. i think most or all of them started off pretty good. where we went wrong is creating a system where social media sites are paid for with ads, which gives warped incentives to the owners of those sites. in that respect, federation is the answer. take the power away from anybody who could screw it all up for us.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- doublerabbit 4y agoMySpace. No dark-cryptic algorithms, promoted creativity in coding, design and music. You knew the people you added. Made socialising easier.
- jtr1 4y agoGuilty of mainstreaming social media as an idea /s
- AstixAndBelix 4y agoA few generalist instances dominating the fediverse and dictating its policy doesn't sound likely? It's slowly happening right now and will only make Mastodon a slightly less centralized Facebook. Most people don't want to link their online persona to instances with stupid names and very strange rules. So they all flock to the more generalist ones which are few and far between and have an established user base and reputation. Since generalist instances are not "cool" to administer, only a few dedicated people maintain them and they will keep being few and grow larger and larger
- allenbrunson 4y agothat sounds to me like growing pains. i happened to find a “generalist” mastodon instance without really trying. i just read a few twitter ex-pats for awhile, to get the lay of the land, and picked one. i sent an email to the administrator, offering to donate some money, because i couldn’t find a donation link. if this one doesn’t work out, i’ll pick a different one. or run one myself! again: your criticism sounds to me like “social media has never worked, therefore mastodon also can’t work.” i choose to believe that there is something beyond the status quo.
- AstixAndBelix 4y agoI didn't say generalist instances are difficult to find, on the contrary they are the most popular. What I'm saying is that there's too few of them. > your criticism sounds to me like “social media has never worked" There is an entire paragraph where I explain exactly what functionality could be added to Mastodon to at least make it possible to be better. In its current state I believe it's bound to develop this behavior with no way to fix it
- allenbrunson 4y agoi guess we will have to agree to disagree. i think it’s way to early to assume that. also, you titled your post “mastodon is not a good social network.” that is the very definition of pessimism, versus optimism.
- Gigachad 4y agoIt's more like "Twitter is bad for these reasons; and mastodon copied almost all of the design that makes twitter bad"