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A significant number of the people I follow on Twitter set up mastodon accounts but that kind of ran out of steam within a few months and I rarely see Mastodon

A significant number of the people I follow on Twitter set up mastodon accounts but that kind of ran out of steam within a few months and I rarely see Mastodon mentioned anymore. A much larger number have set up Threads accounts and either posting on Twitter less or are gone entirely. It's anecdotal, but I think Mastodon missed the boat, in large part because of the pretty terrible sign up experience. Most people noped out at "First, pick a server, but don't worry, this list only includes the ones who promise to be safe!", most of the rest when they hit "The server suggested by the person you want to follow is not taking new signups".

NoraCodes 3y ago
> It's anecdotal, but I think Mastodon missed the boat, in large part because of the pretty terrible sign up experience. The Fediverse missed the boat of becoming the next public square because it was never sailing that route to begin with, if you'll pardon the slightly twisted metaphor. ActivityPub, and by extension Mastodon, are not community spaces; they are tools for building community spaces. There are at least three major spaces currently: the heavily-moderated, mostly lefty area, the barely-moderated, heavily alt-right area, and the area dominated by Pawoo and defined primarily by Japan's legal jurisdiction regarding image media. There are some interfaces between these broad areas, and some sub-divisions within them, as well as some smaller, mutually allowlisted islands that don't federate outside at all. Building a new public square may be Eugen Rochko's goal, but it's not what most instance admins and moderators want. Joining the Fediverse looking for a new Twitter is and always has been a mistake.
- Ensorceled 3y ago
  > The Fediverse missed the boat of becoming the next public square because it was never sailing that route to begin with, if you'll pardon the slightly twisted metaphor. I agree entirely. There were a lot of people saying that the Fediverse was the next Twitter but that fell flat due, in part, because a lot of Mastodon communities weren't interested.
- vidarh 3y ago
  And there are even more when you factor in the many other services speaking ActivityPub.
- michaelmrose 3y ago
  The right now defines itself in terms of the extremists who are the largest minority of that population who are pretty open about being fascists in all but label wherein center right is redefined as those who would tolerate fascists in service of dubious values. Prior center right from decades past is finding their positions redefined as "woke" or "liberal". In the current context of defining the right in terms of extremism there is no value in a public square including more extremists or their apologists. They have nothing to say worth hearing because the nuggets of wisdom would be embedded in an ocean of bullshit. Incidentally this is essentially a heavily moderated mostly lefty area by most current right wingers definition. Because of this its filled with actual discussion.
unpopularopp 3y ago
>Most people noped out at "First, pick a server, but don't worry, this list only includes the ones who promise to be safe!", I always laugh when I see that "furry" is a category too choose server from on the official page. Sums up Mastodon perfectly. Too bad there is no "hentai" that would be the cherry on the cake.
- SketchySeaBeast 3y ago
  Well, there's no "hentai" because you can't be a hentai or take part in the hentai lifestyle. Regardless, it makes sense that platforms promising openness would attract groups that aren't in the mainstream.
  - civilitty 3y ago
    > Well, there's no "hentai" because you can't be a hentai or take part in the hentai lifestyle. You’ve clearly never lived on an octopus farm!
    - yamazakiwi 3y ago
      I was thinking Genshin Cosplayers /s
- soatok 3y ago
  > I always laugh when I see that "furry" is a category too choose server from on the official page. > Too bad there is no "hentai" that would be the cherry on the cake. It sounds like you think "furry" and "hentai" are congruent categories. My understanding is that hentai is pornographic. Furry, conversely, is not. More information: https://soatok.blog/2021/04/02/the-furry-sexuality-blog-post https://soatok.blog/2021/04/02/the-furry-sexuality-blog-post
  - presbyterian 3y ago
    Not all furry content is, but all furry communities (or at least, enough that it rounds up to 100%) contain it.
rsynnott 3y ago
Define "missed the boat". If you mean "missed the boat to be a new Twitter", then, er, sure, though I'm not sure people necessarily wanted that. However, it went from being _just way too quiet_ when I joined last April to "feels like a better Twitter" by December, and has largely stayed that way. It's certainly not perfect, but it's a better experience than Twitter for many of us.
- Ensorceled 3y ago
  I think the Mastodon has (at least) two major factions. I get that a lot of Mastodon users are like you are happy with where Mastodon is. I'm not even mad. But a lot of people ARE looking for Twitter 2.0 and a lot in the Mastodon Community WERE saying "we are it"
  - rsynnott 3y ago
    Eh, I think if an individual wants a replacement for Twitter, Mastodon is certainly one legitimate option. However, it is probably not a plausible replacement for Twitter writ large; if a single consensus replacement does rise out of the bird's funeral pyre, it probably won't be Mastodon (it might be Threads, tho).
    - Ensorceled 3y ago
      > However, it is probably not a plausible replacement for Twitter writ large; Yeah, I figured out pretty early that it wasn't going to be what I used Twitter for. Threads, as much as I hate Meta, might just be what kills Twitter.
    - flkiwi 3y ago
      I'm not questioning what you're saying here, but I'm in a state of near-constant confusion about what "a replacement for Twitter" means and how it apparently means so many different things to different people. For me, I use mastodon exactly the same way I used twitter. I talk with interesting people, I post random thoughts, and generally look for discussions about topics I find interesting. It is a substantially better experience than twitter because there's no algorithm messing with what (and who) I can see. There seem to be two primary post-twitter constituencies that do not see the world the way I do: 1. People who want to see what Brands and celebrities (or their PR team) are talking about and consume their content 2. People who want to fight with others or consume current events news (overlapping circles in a venn diagram) Honorable mention to identity-based communities that need to pick up and move to ONE place to save their community. I'm none of those things. Threads coming closest to replicating the vibe of twitter is a massive turn-off for me. And given I don't really want to be in the halo of either group 1 or 2 above, I'm ok with social media fragmenting like this. (I do miss seeing the identity-based communities well-represented... there's some of that on mastodon but not enough.)
AJ007 3y ago
The problem is users are addicted to vanity metrics. For this sole reason, Threads will probably beat the shit out of both Twitter and Mastodon. There is good reason to suspect Tiktok faking views (viewcount is only people who were shown the video, including those that skipped it) played a major role in getting users to create so much content for nothing. It would be a lot harder to fake those vanity metrics on a more open platform. The people you followed on Twitter who faded away from Mastodon after an early signup, those are the ones who are there for the vanity metrics (which at some scale do translate in to commercial value but for the vast majority do not.) I believed the opinions of how bad Mastodon was from a user experience standpoint, and a sign up process, until I signed up last year. It's all bullshit. My feed has multiple people I followed on Twitter, it's cleaner, and the people who just posted for engagement are gone. The signup process was painless. It's arguably easier to use than Twitter.
paulddraper 3y ago
> It's anecdotal, but I think Mastodon missed the boat, in large part because of the pretty terrible sign up experience. It "missed the boat" by not predating Twitter. Why did Google+ fail? Bad sign-up experience? Incomplete features? Buggy? No, of course not. It failed because it didn't predate Facebook.
- Ensorceled 3y ago
  > It "missed the boat" by not predating Twitter. Threads predated Twitter? > Why did Google+ fail? It was a bad copy of Facebook where the product was designed to herd/drive people to Google services and not actually provide a usable social network.
  - paulddraper 3y ago
    Threads is an experience offered by an existing social platform. Obviously different. (And yes, you could argue Youtube -> Google+, but no.)
tjpnz 3y ago
>Most people noped out at "First, pick a server, but don't worry, this list only includes the ones who promise to be safe!", most of the rest when they hit "The server suggested by the person you want to follow is not taking new signups". Basically the same experience but rather than being told they weren't accepting new signups I got a page about how they wouldn't accept racists or transphobes. I only heard about the signup situation when I wrote a similar comment to this one here on HN. With that kind of UX the whole product is basically dead on arrival. It almost feels criminal for such an opportunity to have been mindlessly squandered.

NoraCodes 3y ago

> It's anecdotal, but I think Mastodon missed the boat, in large part because of the pretty terrible sign up experience. The Fediverse missed the boat of becoming the next public square because it was never sailing that route to begin with, if you'll pardon the slightly twisted metaphor. ActivityPub, and by extension Mastodon, are not community spaces; they are tools for building community spaces. There are at least three major spaces currently: the heavily-moderated, mostly lefty area, the barely-moderated, heavily alt-right area, and the area dominated by Pawoo and defined primarily by Japan's legal jurisdiction regarding image media. There are some interfaces between these broad areas, and some sub-divisions within them, as well as some smaller, mutually allowlisted islands that don't federate outside at all. Building a new public square may be Eugen Rochko's goal, but it's not what most instance admins and moderators want. Joining the Fediverse looking for a new Twitter is and always has been a mistake.

Ensorceled 3y ago
> The Fediverse missed the boat of becoming the next public square because it was never sailing that route to begin with, if you'll pardon the slightly twisted metaphor. I agree entirely. There were a lot of people saying that the Fediverse was the next Twitter but that fell flat due, in part, because a lot of Mastodon communities weren't interested.
vidarh 3y ago
And there are even more when you factor in the many other services speaking ActivityPub.
michaelmrose 3y ago
The right now defines itself in terms of the extremists who are the largest minority of that population who are pretty open about being fascists in all but label wherein center right is redefined as those who would tolerate fascists in service of dubious values. Prior center right from decades past is finding their positions redefined as "woke" or "liberal". In the current context of defining the right in terms of extremism there is no value in a public square including more extremists or their apologists. They have nothing to say worth hearing because the nuggets of wisdom would be embedded in an ocean of bullshit. Incidentally this is essentially a heavily moderated mostly lefty area by most current right wingers definition. Because of this its filled with actual discussion.

unpopularopp 3y ago

>Most people noped out at "First, pick a server, but don't worry, this list only includes the ones who promise to be safe!", I always laugh when I see that "furry" is a category too choose server from on the official page. Sums up Mastodon perfectly. Too bad there is no "hentai" that would be the cherry on the cake.

SketchySeaBeast 3y ago
Well, there's no "hentai" because you can't be a hentai or take part in the hentai lifestyle. Regardless, it makes sense that platforms promising openness would attract groups that aren't in the mainstream.
- civilitty 3y ago
  > Well, there's no "hentai" because you can't be a hentai or take part in the hentai lifestyle. You’ve clearly never lived on an octopus farm!
  - yamazakiwi 3y ago
    I was thinking Genshin Cosplayers /s
soatok 3y ago
> I always laugh when I see that "furry" is a category too choose server from on the official page. > Too bad there is no "hentai" that would be the cherry on the cake. It sounds like you think "furry" and "hentai" are congruent categories. My understanding is that hentai is pornographic. Furry, conversely, is not. More information: https://soatok.blog/2021/04/02/the-furry-sexuality-blog-post https://soatok.blog/2021/04/02/the-furry-sexuality-blog-post
- presbyterian 3y ago
  Not all furry content is, but all furry communities (or at least, enough that it rounds up to 100%) contain it.

rsynnott 3y ago

Define "missed the boat". If you mean "missed the boat to be a new Twitter", then, er, sure, though I'm not sure people necessarily wanted that. However, it went from being _just way too quiet_ when I joined last April to "feels like a better Twitter" by December, and has largely stayed that way. It's certainly not perfect, but it's a better experience than Twitter for many of us.

Ensorceled 3y ago
I think the Mastodon has (at least) two major factions. I get that a lot of Mastodon users are like you are happy with where Mastodon is. I'm not even mad. But a lot of people ARE looking for Twitter 2.0 and a lot in the Mastodon Community WERE saying "we are it"
- rsynnott 3y ago
  Eh, I think if an individual wants a replacement for Twitter, Mastodon is certainly one legitimate option. However, it is probably not a plausible replacement for Twitter writ large; if a single consensus replacement does rise out of the bird's funeral pyre, it probably won't be Mastodon (it might be Threads, tho).
  - Ensorceled 3y ago
    > However, it is probably not a plausible replacement for Twitter writ large; Yeah, I figured out pretty early that it wasn't going to be what I used Twitter for. Threads, as much as I hate Meta, might just be what kills Twitter.
  - flkiwi 3y ago
    I'm not questioning what you're saying here, but I'm in a state of near-constant confusion about what "a replacement for Twitter" means and how it apparently means so many different things to different people. For me, I use mastodon exactly the same way I used twitter. I talk with interesting people, I post random thoughts, and generally look for discussions about topics I find interesting. It is a substantially better experience than twitter because there's no algorithm messing with what (and who) I can see. There seem to be two primary post-twitter constituencies that do not see the world the way I do: 1. People who want to see what Brands and celebrities (or their PR team) are talking about and consume their content 2. People who want to fight with others or consume current events news (overlapping circles in a venn diagram) Honorable mention to identity-based communities that need to pick up and move to ONE place to save their community. I'm none of those things. Threads coming closest to replicating the vibe of twitter is a massive turn-off for me. And given I don't really want to be in the halo of either group 1 or 2 above, I'm ok with social media fragmenting like this. (I do miss seeing the identity-based communities well-represented... there's some of that on mastodon but not enough.)

AJ007 3y ago

The problem is users are addicted to vanity metrics. For this sole reason, Threads will probably beat the shit out of both Twitter and Mastodon. There is good reason to suspect Tiktok faking views (viewcount is only people who were shown the video, including those that skipped it) played a major role in getting users to create so much content for nothing. It would be a lot harder to fake those vanity metrics on a more open platform. The people you followed on Twitter who faded away from Mastodon after an early signup, those are the ones who are there for the vanity metrics (which at some scale do translate in to commercial value but for the vast majority do not.) I believed the opinions of how bad Mastodon was from a user experience standpoint, and a sign up process, until I signed up last year. It's all bullshit. My feed has multiple people I followed on Twitter, it's cleaner, and the people who just posted for engagement are gone. The signup process was painless. It's arguably easier to use than Twitter.

paulddraper 3y ago

> It's anecdotal, but I think Mastodon missed the boat, in large part because of the pretty terrible sign up experience. It "missed the boat" by not predating Twitter. Why did Google+ fail? Bad sign-up experience? Incomplete features? Buggy? No, of course not. It failed because it didn't predate Facebook.

Ensorceled 3y ago
> It "missed the boat" by not predating Twitter. Threads predated Twitter? > Why did Google+ fail? It was a bad copy of Facebook where the product was designed to herd/drive people to Google services and not actually provide a usable social network.
- paulddraper 3y ago
  Threads is an experience offered by an existing social platform. Obviously different. (And yes, you could argue Youtube -> Google+, but no.)

tjpnz 3y ago

>Most people noped out at "First, pick a server, but don't worry, this list only includes the ones who promise to be safe!", most of the rest when they hit "The server suggested by the person you want to follow is not taking new signups". Basically the same experience but rather than being told they weren't accepting new signups I got a page about how they wouldn't accept racists or transphobes. I only heard about the signup situation when I wrote a similar comment to this one here on HN. With that kind of UX the whole product is basically dead on arrival. It almost feels criminal for such an opportunity to have been mindlessly squandered.