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Mastodon will fail simply because nobody is paid to work on the project and things the core team are not good at (like creating a good UI/UX) will never happen.

Mastodon will fail simply because nobody is paid to work on the project and things the core team are not good at (like creating a good UI/UX) will never happen. And that's going to continue to be the perpetual hurdle to user adoption or anyone taking it seriously outside of tech circles.

mattl 3y ago
People are being paid though. There are several Patreons and the core project runs one.
- mempko 3y ago
  It's peanuts compared to VC funded projects.
  - epidemian 3y ago
    Considering that VC funded projects tend to attract "career oriented" developers that have no incentive other than money or prestige, i'd say that could be a good thing.
naravara 3y ago
> (like creating a good UI/UX) will never happen. Ivory is a fantastic UI for Mastodon. Mastodon's only big hiccup really is the confusion around picking an instance. But that will go away once a few "normie" instances get a foothold and serve as a kind of "America Online" for the Fediverse. Secondarily the fact that it doesn't tune for engagement means casual users will tend to bounce off of it (since there is nothing to sink them in and keep them coming back). But to many that's a feature rather than a bug. Akin to losing smokers by banning smoking in bars.
- JohnFen 3y ago
  > But to many that's a feature rather than a bug. I don't use Mastodon (nor Twitter, nor Bluesky, etc.), but if that sort of thing did appeal to me, Mastodon would be the only one that would be acceptable precisely because it doesn't tune for engagement. "Tuning for engagement" and/or using the usual "stickiness" tricks is a huge red flag to me.
- matthewdgreen 3y ago
  Mastodon has hugely improved my user experience by being open to third-party apps like Ivory, which is amazing (and much better than Bluesky.) For people who want algorithmic content, presumably third party services could handle that problem as well… except that the Mastodon community has been pretty opinionated about not allowing content search an aggregation at a project and instance level. This sort of from-the-top hostility makes that kind of extension into a risky project.
- zimpenfish 3y ago
  > Ivory is a fantastic UI for Mastodon. for Mastodon being key here because they still haven't made it able to correctly talk to non-Mastodon instances (I'm convinced[1] this is because they've used `int64` for their status IDs despite the spec saying don't.) [1] My Akkoma instance shows no posts - status IDs are opaque, non-`atoi`-able strings. My GotoSocial instance shows many posts but they are all the same post - status IDs all currently being with `01` which would explain the presence of posts and all being the same. In summary, stupid.
renewedrebecca 3y ago
Mastodon can only “fail” at being what it’s not trying to be: a Twitter replacement. It has already succeeded at being a decent social network for people for whom Twitter was too toxic.
- Hamuko 3y ago
  Didn't Mastodon recently announce search improvements and quote posts, which were some of the Twitter features lauded on Mastodon as "toxic"?
  - renewedrebecca 3y ago
    Yes, but with some differences (opt-in, being one) that hopefully will prevent some of the abuses. Moderation is also way better on Mastodon, so even with those features, the impact should be lessened.
- riffic 3y ago
  plus you're not sticking the ActivityPub protocol genie back inside its bottle.
- haunter 3y ago
  >It has already succeeded at being a decent social network for people for whom Twitter was too toxic. I don't see Mastodon being less toxic, the whole mastodon.lol (~70k users) drama over a video game was a perfect example of that. On the other hand it also showed to me that single user self-hosting is the only way to go with Mastodon.
  - renewedrebecca 3y ago
    idk, I get way less abuse on the Fediverse than I ever did on Twitter. There is definitely drama out there, and the mastodon.lol debacle was well, ridiculous. (As Douglas Adams said, "People are a problem." -- that's not going away no matter what nifty new protocol you come up with, unless it exclusively routes to /dev/null.) My point was more that there's no real profit motive to Mastodon, so it can't fail in that sense, which is generally what we're talking about when we're talking about web services. If 75% of the new people on Mastodon eventually go to BlueSky, the people who remain will probably be perfectly happy to remain on Mastodon, and I don't know how one can call that a failure.
mempko 3y ago
Exactly, a lot of people expect VC funded output from Mastodon when Mastodon project only gets about $30k a month. Enough to pay for 1 developer, 1 designer, and not much else. Tech doesn't get funding because it's good, it gets good because it's funded. Blusky will be the Windows to Mastodon's linux.
whywhywhywhy 3y ago
> Mastodon will fail simply because nobody is paid to work on the project and things the core team are not good at That's not the reason, the reason it will fail is that although federation is a strength in some ways the other way is you're putting your faith in maybe just 1 person moderating and maintaining the instance you choose. If you build your audience at one address that place might disappear overnight if that persons life circumstances change and then (correct me if I'm wrong) you need that persons permission to move to another server.

mattl 3y ago

People are being paid though. There are several Patreons and the core project runs one.

mempko 3y ago
It's peanuts compared to VC funded projects.
- epidemian 3y ago
  Considering that VC funded projects tend to attract "career oriented" developers that have no incentive other than money or prestige, i'd say that could be a good thing.

naravara 3y ago

> (like creating a good UI/UX) will never happen. Ivory is a fantastic UI for Mastodon. Mastodon's only big hiccup really is the confusion around picking an instance. But that will go away once a few "normie" instances get a foothold and serve as a kind of "America Online" for the Fediverse. Secondarily the fact that it doesn't tune for engagement means casual users will tend to bounce off of it (since there is nothing to sink them in and keep them coming back). But to many that's a feature rather than a bug. Akin to losing smokers by banning smoking in bars.

JohnFen 3y ago
> But to many that's a feature rather than a bug. I don't use Mastodon (nor Twitter, nor Bluesky, etc.), but if that sort of thing did appeal to me, Mastodon would be the only one that would be acceptable precisely because it doesn't tune for engagement. "Tuning for engagement" and/or using the usual "stickiness" tricks is a huge red flag to me.
matthewdgreen 3y ago
Mastodon has hugely improved my user experience by being open to third-party apps like Ivory, which is amazing (and much better than Bluesky.) For people who want algorithmic content, presumably third party services could handle that problem as well… except that the Mastodon community has been pretty opinionated about not allowing content search an aggregation at a project and instance level. This sort of from-the-top hostility makes that kind of extension into a risky project.
zimpenfish 3y ago
> Ivory is a fantastic UI for Mastodon. for Mastodon being key here because they still haven't made it able to correctly talk to non-Mastodon instances (I'm convinced[1] this is because they've used `int64` for their status IDs despite the spec saying don't.) [1] My Akkoma instance shows no posts - status IDs are opaque, non-`atoi`-able strings. My GotoSocial instance shows many posts but they are all the same post - status IDs all currently being with `01` which would explain the presence of posts and all being the same. In summary, stupid.

renewedrebecca 3y ago

Mastodon can only “fail” at being what it’s not trying to be: a Twitter replacement. It has already succeeded at being a decent social network for people for whom Twitter was too toxic.

Hamuko 3y ago
Didn't Mastodon recently announce search improvements and quote posts, which were some of the Twitter features lauded on Mastodon as "toxic"?
- renewedrebecca 3y ago
  Yes, but with some differences (opt-in, being one) that hopefully will prevent some of the abuses. Moderation is also way better on Mastodon, so even with those features, the impact should be lessened.
riffic 3y ago
plus you're not sticking the ActivityPub protocol genie back inside its bottle.
haunter 3y ago
>It has already succeeded at being a decent social network for people for whom Twitter was too toxic. I don't see Mastodon being less toxic, the whole mastodon.lol (~70k users) drama over a video game was a perfect example of that. On the other hand it also showed to me that single user self-hosting is the only way to go with Mastodon.
- renewedrebecca 3y ago
  idk, I get way less abuse on the Fediverse than I ever did on Twitter. There is definitely drama out there, and the mastodon.lol debacle was well, ridiculous. (As Douglas Adams said, "People are a problem." -- that's not going away no matter what nifty new protocol you come up with, unless it exclusively routes to /dev/null.) My point was more that there's no real profit motive to Mastodon, so it can't fail in that sense, which is generally what we're talking about when we're talking about web services. If 75% of the new people on Mastodon eventually go to BlueSky, the people who remain will probably be perfectly happy to remain on Mastodon, and I don't know how one can call that a failure.

mempko 3y ago

Exactly, a lot of people expect VC funded output from Mastodon when Mastodon project only gets about $30k a month. Enough to pay for 1 developer, 1 designer, and not much else. Tech doesn't get funding because it's good, it gets good because it's funded. Blusky will be the Windows to Mastodon's linux.

whywhywhywhy 3y ago

> Mastodon will fail simply because nobody is paid to work on the project and things the core team are not good at That's not the reason, the reason it will fail is that although federation is a strength in some ways the other way is you're putting your faith in maybe just 1 person moderating and maintaining the instance you choose. If you build your audience at one address that place might disappear overnight if that persons life circumstances change and then (correct me if I'm wrong) you need that persons permission to move to another server.