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Mastodon is quite different. It really filters a lot of noise away (e.g. Xwitter always has ~20 pointless meme gif comments below every viral post) and it self-

Mastodon is quite different. It really filters a lot of noise away (e.g. Xwitter always has ~20 pointless meme gif comments below every viral post) and it self-selects what I would consider interesting people. The algorithm-centred platforms tend to congregate around celebrities/influencers over time, while Mastodon is much more egalitarian and people-focused.

cheschire 3y ago
With some amount of curation, sure. I’ve recently started getting into mastodon and all I’ve seen across the dozens of sites are way more related to current political events than anything else.
- simongray 3y ago
  I recommend installing the extension Streetpass for Mastodon to build up your followed accounts organically across time. A surprising number of interesting articles submitted to HN link back to the author's Mastodon account. (Graze for Mastodon is another useful extension)
  - cheschire 3y ago
    First off, thank you. Secondly, it feels like in a federate network of any type that growing the network should be top priority, even over the user experience. Put another way, it seems to me as a newbie that Mastodon's growth effort itself has been federated, which is probably not ideal for the growth necessary to really challenge the walled gardens.
    - simongray 3y ago
      I happen to think Mastodon is good enough as it is. To me it doesn't really need faster growth. It won me over and it won over the hundreds of people I'm following. I get a lot of value from it that I never got on Twitter, despite Mastodon's flaws. The service itself is improving slowly and quite conservatively which is a really nice change of pace from the warp speed enshittification I have been used to for years now. On the other hand, there is also a wide range of high-quality third apps for it which Twitter now completely lacks (and basically every other walled garden platform, e.g. Reddit was the latest casualty) of you need a different experience.

cheschire 3y ago

With some amount of curation, sure. I’ve recently started getting into mastodon and all I’ve seen across the dozens of sites are way more related to current political events than anything else.

simongray 3y ago
I recommend installing the extension Streetpass for Mastodon to build up your followed accounts organically across time. A surprising number of interesting articles submitted to HN link back to the author's Mastodon account. (Graze for Mastodon is another useful extension)
- cheschire 3y ago
  First off, thank you. Secondly, it feels like in a federate network of any type that growing the network should be top priority, even over the user experience. Put another way, it seems to me as a newbie that Mastodon's growth effort itself has been federated, which is probably not ideal for the growth necessary to really challenge the walled gardens.
  - simongray 3y ago
    I happen to think Mastodon is good enough as it is. To me it doesn't really need faster growth. It won me over and it won over the hundreds of people I'm following. I get a lot of value from it that I never got on Twitter, despite Mastodon's flaws. The service itself is improving slowly and quite conservatively which is a really nice change of pace from the warp speed enshittification I have been used to for years now. On the other hand, there is also a wide range of high-quality third apps for it which Twitter now completely lacks (and basically every other walled garden platform, e.g. Reddit was the latest casualty) of you need a different experience.