4 ms·

I gotta say, I am disappointed so far at both bluesky amd mastodon. They both have interesting ideas to solve problems with technical means but mastodon wants t

by _8j50 3y ago

I gotta say, I am disappointed so far at both bluesky amd mastodon. They both have interesting ideas to solve problems with technical means but mastodon wants to transfer a lot of problems to whoever runs the server and to the user and bluesky sounds like it might get popular a bit but I have yet to see something about it that makes regular people care about it. Both platforms are nice for people that care about elon musk and his twitter or fediverse stuff but they are just not cool yet. I mean, clubhouse and tiktok are cool for example. What really cool stuff can I do on them that isn't a rehash of something on some other platform? What is the revolutionary thing here? If it is just an alternative then good luck being mediocre. Here is what I think would be cool (just my view): Do something like yik yak, location centric social media but also like next-door except better but not as a substitute but an improvement over twitter. Do livestreaming but in a way that is easily monetized, think cable subscription but for social media personalities, kind of like podcasts except live is paid but select recordings are free. And you know what else would be cool? What if there was a tiktok/vine like feature except! It was like reddit. I am just spitballing here not to say my ideas are great but this sort of a new and interesting experience is what makes it stand out not being able to take your accounts or have some guy on a vps control your entire social media life. I feel like they are trying to do the same thing differently instead of doing something new and exciting. Even the UI of these sites is frustrating to me. Honestly, I am sick of the web's UI entirely, this is like the future and shit! Where is the cool futuristic UX? I am still clicking on buttons and typing in the same kinds of text boxes and all that as I wad 10-15 years ago. I am just saying, let's not be complacent with even basic things like html, js and css. I look forward to new tech not just v1000.0.99 of stuff. But I admit, these last two paragraphs are just me ranting about UX in general.

CSSer 3y ago
Thoughts on custom feeds?
- _8j50 3y ago
  Not sure what that is. Like a news+activity feed? I think outsourcing recommendation engines to 3rd parties and letting users subscribe to the recommendation engine (which might include ads for incentive) of their choice would be neat. People want stuff recommended to them. For example, I would want to subscribe to good news sources that are both global and US centric and any infosec related recommendation sources. Others might want content recommended to them if it is shared by people with creds/reputation in other platforms or if they are their friends. I can imagine a "friends and family" recommender that connects to all other social media and recommends events from their in one feed.
  - CSSer 3y ago
    Yep, Bluesky has that. You can even make your own!
Angostura 3y ago
> but mastodon wants to transfer a lot of problems to whoever runs the server and to the user I'm not quite sure what you are getting at here - could you unpack it a bit?
- _8j50 3y ago
  Moderation, hosting fees, legal liability, responsibility for accounts (people invest a lot of time in creating content tied to your instance), security,etc... it is federated but all the legal,security, infra,moderation,etc... people across the world that support twitter and the like are no longer there for your mastodon instance but the only thing there that scales down/up with respect to the number of active users is infra support staffing/costs. Everything else is "decentralized" but since it isn't a technical problem, much like most things foss, the responsibility is transfered to whomever runs a mastodon instance assuming they have taken all the neccesary steps to be responsible and reliable in every regard. But in reality, the user is expected to find out through trial and error and word of mouth, which instance is being operated properly. Matrix and other decentralized systems have the same problem.
  - Angostura 3y ago
    But you're just saying that the people who run the servers have to run the servers. You don't have to run your own instance - just join one you fancy. So yes, the difficulty then becomes "is this instance being properly run?" but thats not unique to Mastodon, it also applies to things like Twitter - as we've seen. Just without the option to jump to a better Twitter instance - because there is only one.
    - _8j50 3y ago
      I agree with that, except Twitter is one, mastodon is many. For example, my first attempt to use mastodon failed because all the instances wanted an email address and just giving that alone or using temp email was not worth it for me. With twitter, it is one "instance" and I don't have to sample a dozen to figure out which one is right so because it is just one, I setup an email and even a temp burner phone for it in the past. But the risk of having to move to another mastodon is weighty.

by _8j50 3y ago

CSSer 3y ago

Thoughts on custom feeds?

_8j50 3y ago
Not sure what that is. Like a news+activity feed? I think outsourcing recommendation engines to 3rd parties and letting users subscribe to the recommendation engine (which might include ads for incentive) of their choice would be neat. People want stuff recommended to them. For example, I would want to subscribe to good news sources that are both global and US centric and any infosec related recommendation sources. Others might want content recommended to them if it is shared by people with creds/reputation in other platforms or if they are their friends. I can imagine a "friends and family" recommender that connects to all other social media and recommends events from their in one feed.
- CSSer 3y ago
  Yep, Bluesky has that. You can even make your own!

Angostura 3y ago

> but mastodon wants to transfer a lot of problems to whoever runs the server and to the user I'm not quite sure what you are getting at here - could you unpack it a bit?

_8j50 3y ago
Moderation, hosting fees, legal liability, responsibility for accounts (people invest a lot of time in creating content tied to your instance), security,etc... it is federated but all the legal,security, infra,moderation,etc... people across the world that support twitter and the like are no longer there for your mastodon instance but the only thing there that scales down/up with respect to the number of active users is infra support staffing/costs. Everything else is "decentralized" but since it isn't a technical problem, much like most things foss, the responsibility is transfered to whomever runs a mastodon instance assuming they have taken all the neccesary steps to be responsible and reliable in every regard. But in reality, the user is expected to find out through trial and error and word of mouth, which instance is being operated properly. Matrix and other decentralized systems have the same problem.
- Angostura 3y ago
  But you're just saying that the people who run the servers have to run the servers. You don't have to run your own instance - just join one you fancy. So yes, the difficulty then becomes "is this instance being properly run?" but thats not unique to Mastodon, it also applies to things like Twitter - as we've seen. Just without the option to jump to a better Twitter instance - because there is only one.
  - _8j50 3y ago
    I agree with that, except Twitter is one, mastodon is many. For example, my first attempt to use mastodon failed because all the instances wanted an email address and just giving that alone or using temp email was not worth it for me. With twitter, it is one "instance" and I don't have to sample a dozen to figure out which one is right so because it is just one, I setup an email and even a temp burner phone for it in the past. But the risk of having to move to another mastodon is weighty.