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>Bluesky it’s a major point, but not the entire point. And I'd say that was the right tradeoff to make. Mastodon is only marginally more useful than IRC at thi

>Bluesky it’s a major point, but not the entire point. And I'd say that was the right tradeoff to make. Mastodon is only marginally more useful than IRC at this point, and is completely useless to the average person. I as a developer have yet to even figure out how it's supposed to work. And no, I'm not going to spend hours digging through docs.

TaylorAlexander 2y ago
I mean you can just sign up and use it. No need to read docs. I have plenty of complaints, but it’s largely alright imo.
Barrin92 2y ago
>I as a developer have yet to even figure out how it's supposed to work You go to https://joinmastodon.org/ https://joinmastodon.org/, click on "join" (or pick another server if you are adventurous), fill in your username and email and you're good to go. Why do people invent fictional horror stories about a service that's at this point functionally as easy to use as any bog standard website?
- ramesh31 2y ago
  >You go to https://joinmastodon.org/ https://joinmastodon.org/, click on "join" (or pick another server if you are adventurous), fill in your username and email and you're good to go. And that gives me access to the entire service? Or just bits and pieces of it? And how do I find other services? Asking around? Who's seeing my data if I sign up on another server? What are the anonymous operators of said server doing with my password and email? How do I message someone from another server? Are those messages secure at all? Decentralized works for motivated parties. It does not work for the masses.
  - Barrin92 2y ago
    Yes, it gives you access to the entire service, you don't need to find anything. Messages and accounts in Mastodon are visible across the network. The operators of almost all instances aren't anonmyous, the address of the default server operators is literally listed on the about page. If you have zero knowledge and don't care Mastodon functions exactly like Twitter. If you care more, you can invest time, host your own server, do what you want, that's optional. If decentralized systems don't work it's amazing that my grandfather is able to send emails every day. Which is btw the exact equivalent to Mastodon. You don't care you sign up for Gmail, if you do, run a server out of your basement.
    - lxgr 2y ago
      > If you have zero knowledge and don't care Mastodon functions exactly like Twitter. That’s simply not true. Even as a technical user I sometimes stumble over things like not being able to follow an account after being linked to their servers web site. “Wait, why am I logged ou– oh, this isn’t my server.”
  - tedunangst 2y ago
    And you know the answer to all those questions for bluesky?
    - ramesh31 2y ago
      > And you know the answer to all those questions for bluesky? Nope. Just pointing out the downfalls of decentralized, and the fact that compromising with some centralization (as Bluesky is doing) is a better way for most people.
    - anigbrowl 2y ago
      Those questions aren't there, when you sign up it's just like any other service. If you want to do the decentralized thing or wonder 'why do some people have specific domain handles and the like, the information is easy to get, but you could also use it without ever knowing any of that. So very low friction for non-technical users.
  - fragmede 2y ago
    the masses don't ask questions at that granularity though, it either works or it doesn't.
- anigbrowl 2y ago
  You go to https://joinmastodon.org/ https://joinmastodon.org/, click on "join" (or pick another server if you are adventurous) Regular consumers hate this because they don't know what they're getting into, and it feels like the social media equivalent of a crypto scam where you're invited to buy a coin, any coin. It was probably intended to resemble arriving at college during rush week and pick a social/activity club to join, except you have to pick a server without any real way to browse around and understand what differentiates them.
  - monknomo 2y ago
    heck, I'm not a regular user, and I find it annoying to pick a server without knowing what the vibe is. I want to lurk without any transaction costs before I sign up for something
    - adparadox 2y ago
      You can see posts on any server to "find out what the vibe is" without registering. For example: https://fosstodon.org/public/local https://fosstodon.org/public/local. What are the transactional costs here?
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
krapp 2y ago
>Mastodon is only marginally more useful than IRC at this point, and is completely useless to the average person. I as a developer have yet to even figure out how it's supposed to work. I don't know how you define "average person" but plenty of people who aren't developers are on Mastodon. This argument that Mastodon is "too complicated" is perennial, despite the obvious evidence to the contrary in the growth of its adoption. It's particularly weird to keep seeing it on a forum full of people who think compiling software from source and working in arcane terminals is trivial. You can just sign up for an instance like any other website (or multiple.) Or you can pay any number of hosts for an instance of your own (I use masto.host, $9.00/mo.) Or just run the activitypub plugin in Wordpress and your Wordpress is now also a Mastodon node. If I can do it, it ain't that hard.
- Kye 2y ago
  It's been on a steady downward slide for the last year, from almost 2m during The Exodus to about 900k active users now. People sign up, but most don't stick around. I also can't help but notice my own timeline has slowed to a crawl, and it's mostly the same few people. It's not vibrant and busy like it used to be.
  - krapp 2y ago
    Aggressive growth and addictive velocity are cancerous, let it reach a healthy equilibrium. Slow can be good, too. I'm following ~500 people at the moment, and getting relays from a few instances. I see a constant flow of new stuff but I can also easily leave and do other things, because Mastodon isn't designed to maximize engagement and addiction. I don't feel a constant need to post or comment or chase endorphins. The scale is just fine for me.
    - Kye 2y ago
      I was on there when it was just Mastodon.social. It was more vibrant then, and it's been more vibrant in recent memory, before it rocketed to 2m users and started falling. Something is different, and it's not good. I think people who've been there are getting fed up with problems no one seems to care about years on (even people like me who kept giving it chances and pushing for change), and new people are going somewhere else instead of trying Mastodon. You can stick your head in the sand if you want and hope the year-long freefall stops rather than consider there might be a problem. It's what I've come to expect.

TaylorAlexander 2y ago

I mean you can just sign up and use it. No need to read docs. I have plenty of complaints, but it’s largely alright imo.

Barrin92 2y ago

>I as a developer have yet to even figure out how it's supposed to work You go to https://joinmastodon.org/ https://joinmastodon.org/, click on "join" (or pick another server if you are adventurous), fill in your username and email and you're good to go. Why do people invent fictional horror stories about a service that's at this point functionally as easy to use as any bog standard website?

ramesh31 2y ago
>You go to https://joinmastodon.org/ https://joinmastodon.org/, click on "join" (or pick another server if you are adventurous), fill in your username and email and you're good to go. And that gives me access to the entire service? Or just bits and pieces of it? And how do I find other services? Asking around? Who's seeing my data if I sign up on another server? What are the anonymous operators of said server doing with my password and email? How do I message someone from another server? Are those messages secure at all? Decentralized works for motivated parties. It does not work for the masses.
- Barrin92 2y ago
  Yes, it gives you access to the entire service, you don't need to find anything. Messages and accounts in Mastodon are visible across the network. The operators of almost all instances aren't anonmyous, the address of the default server operators is literally listed on the about page. If you have zero knowledge and don't care Mastodon functions exactly like Twitter. If you care more, you can invest time, host your own server, do what you want, that's optional. If decentralized systems don't work it's amazing that my grandfather is able to send emails every day. Which is btw the exact equivalent to Mastodon. You don't care you sign up for Gmail, if you do, run a server out of your basement.
  - lxgr 2y ago
    > If you have zero knowledge and don't care Mastodon functions exactly like Twitter. That’s simply not true. Even as a technical user I sometimes stumble over things like not being able to follow an account after being linked to their servers web site. “Wait, why am I logged ou– oh, this isn’t my server.”
- tedunangst 2y ago
  And you know the answer to all those questions for bluesky?
  - ramesh31 2y ago
    > And you know the answer to all those questions for bluesky? Nope. Just pointing out the downfalls of decentralized, and the fact that compromising with some centralization (as Bluesky is doing) is a better way for most people.
  - anigbrowl 2y ago
    Those questions aren't there, when you sign up it's just like any other service. If you want to do the decentralized thing or wonder 'why do some people have specific domain handles and the like, the information is easy to get, but you could also use it without ever knowing any of that. So very low friction for non-technical users.
- fragmede 2y ago
  the masses don't ask questions at that granularity though, it either works or it doesn't.
anigbrowl 2y ago
You go to https://joinmastodon.org/ https://joinmastodon.org/, click on "join" (or pick another server if you are adventurous) Regular consumers hate this because they don't know what they're getting into, and it feels like the social media equivalent of a crypto scam where you're invited to buy a coin, any coin. It was probably intended to resemble arriving at college during rush week and pick a social/activity club to join, except you have to pick a server without any real way to browse around and understand what differentiates them.
- monknomo 2y ago
  heck, I'm not a regular user, and I find it annoying to pick a server without knowing what the vibe is. I want to lurk without any transaction costs before I sign up for something
  - adparadox 2y ago
    You can see posts on any server to "find out what the vibe is" without registering. For example: https://fosstodon.org/public/local https://fosstodon.org/public/local. What are the transactional costs here?

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

krapp 2y ago

>Mastodon is only marginally more useful than IRC at this point, and is completely useless to the average person. I as a developer have yet to even figure out how it's supposed to work. I don't know how you define "average person" but plenty of people who aren't developers are on Mastodon. This argument that Mastodon is "too complicated" is perennial, despite the obvious evidence to the contrary in the growth of its adoption. It's particularly weird to keep seeing it on a forum full of people who think compiling software from source and working in arcane terminals is trivial. You can just sign up for an instance like any other website (or multiple.) Or you can pay any number of hosts for an instance of your own (I use masto.host, $9.00/mo.) Or just run the activitypub plugin in Wordpress and your Wordpress is now also a Mastodon node. If I can do it, it ain't that hard.

Kye 2y ago
It's been on a steady downward slide for the last year, from almost 2m during The Exodus to about 900k active users now. People sign up, but most don't stick around. I also can't help but notice my own timeline has slowed to a crawl, and it's mostly the same few people. It's not vibrant and busy like it used to be.
- krapp 2y ago
  Aggressive growth and addictive velocity are cancerous, let it reach a healthy equilibrium. Slow can be good, too. I'm following ~500 people at the moment, and getting relays from a few instances. I see a constant flow of new stuff but I can also easily leave and do other things, because Mastodon isn't designed to maximize engagement and addiction. I don't feel a constant need to post or comment or chase endorphins. The scale is just fine for me.
  - Kye 2y ago
    I was on there when it was just Mastodon.social. It was more vibrant then, and it's been more vibrant in recent memory, before it rocketed to 2m users and started falling. Something is different, and it's not good. I think people who've been there are getting fed up with problems no one seems to care about years on (even people like me who kept giving it chances and pushing for change), and new people are going somewhere else instead of trying Mastodon. You can stick your head in the sand if you want and hope the year-long freefall stops rather than consider there might be a problem. It's what I've come to expect.