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> For all that tools like PeerTube, Mastodon, etc are clunkier and more limited than things like YouTube, Bluesky, etc, I think that argument is increasingly go

> For all that tools like PeerTube, Mastodon, etc are clunkier and more limited than things like YouTube, Bluesky, etc, I think that argument is increasingly going to be irrelevant to their value Their value is going to stay limited if people don't want to actually use them. Technically proficient people may overlook something being clunky if it suits their needs in other ways, but it's a harder sell for the average user. And really, it shouldn't be an issue. Good UX isn't trivial, but it's not especially complicated or budget-busting either.

treyd 11mo ago
At least for Mastodon and the rest of the Fediverse ecosystem it does seem that people actually want to use them, and more people every day.
- jamesbelchamber 11mo ago
  People moved on from Mastodon to Bluesky because it was more responsive to user needs. I encouraged people to move to Mastodon but then watched them move on. It is what it is - but it's worth being clear-eyed about what it is.
  - jmcnulty 11mo ago
    It has actually improved a lot since then. The UI has had changes, search is better, it has quote posts now. More usability enhancements are under active development.
    - palata 11mo ago
      Once "normies" have tried and moved away, I think it's too late. Unfortunately such services don't get a second chance. It was probably hard enough to convince them to try once.
    - JoshTriplett 11mo ago
      > search is better Search is still awful, in part because a few people don't seem to want it. It needs substantial improvement.
  - 7moritz7 11mo ago
    FOSS just does not have the aggressive scaling mindset. Even success stories like Linux' game compatibility and Chromium can be traced to just regular tech companies, as opposed to non profits.
    - getpokedagain 11mo ago
      Maybe this is ok? Many non open source apps do get critical mass but they eventually go bust. Emacs, git, Linux and I think even Mastodon have a slower uptake but do not seem to have such a high risk of collapse. While YouTube and Facebook et al seem to have an insurmountable moat and collection of users the reality is recent history is littered with boom to bust failures: MySpace, Vine, Yahoo all the way back to GeoCities. I would be patient and only worry if mastodon is actively dying. For me it's the only social media app I have installed.
    - jahnu 11mo ago
      What is the aggressive mindeset of Bluesky? I have both Mastondon and Bluesky accounts and in my experience I find Bluesky is just simpler to use which attracted more of the types of accounts I wanted to follow. Nothing aggressive about that, just good UX resulting in a richer pool of accounts.
MangoToupe 11mo ago
> Their value is going to stay limited if people don't want to actually use them Nobody really wants to use instagram either—there's basically nothing positive to say about the app or service itself—it just has critical mass.
- warkdarrior 11mo ago
  Is this a "nobody goes there anymore, it's too crowded" moment?
  - 01HNNWZ0MV43FF 11mo ago
    More like texting, nobody likes the phone system, but everyone you know is on it
    - MiddleEndian 11mo ago
      When texting took off, it was the easiest (only) way to send instant text based messages between friends wherever you were, even if the phone system is now heavily used by spammers and there are better options. When Facebook took off, every Myspace page was so full of garbage that they barely loaded on most people's computers, and Facebook was slick and shiny and easy. The real name policy made it super easy to connect with people you met IRL. Even if it's now confusingly slow and FB Messenger can't display your recent chats in the correct order for some reason, it was the easiest most obvious option at the time. I don't really understand why people use Twitter (at its best it just seems like a worse version of RSS), but the site presumably loaded quickly at some point and was easy to use, even if it's presumably worse now. And so on. They persist through momentum. Some things continue to persist, some things get beat out and die. But if you start off more confusing than your alternatives, at least compared to when they started, you won't get picked up in the first place.
      - MSFT_Edging 11mo ago
        > I don't really understand why people use Twitter The honest answer is that it isn't the content(RSS feeds), but the combat sport nature of the platform. It's the only place where you can tell a billionaire any kind of awful thing you can think of. It's also the only social media that drives important people insane. The wealthier they are, the more insane they'll be driven. Facebook will drive your meemaw insane with AI generated ads of legless veterans being given a cake. Twitter will drive the richest man on earth insane. It will drive every journalist at any paper of merit insane by interacting with the insane billionaires. Nearly every journalist who uses twitter enough will develop delusions of grandeur that their brand of psychopathy is the solution to the nation's woes. Since their bosses have also been driven insane via twitter, it's the kind of writing that gets published. This writing will take the insane delusions of the insane billionaires at face value. It will go along with conspiracy and never beg any question that actually needs answering. It's truly a unique and addicting environment.
jszymborski 11mo ago
There are some technical barriers to approaching fediverse platforms, but I personally see the main barriers being cultural. I'm a big proponent of Mastodon and still love using it, but the culture (especially early on) was exceptionally protectionist and lots of people got bullied off for very silly reasons. I think the attitude is less like a children's secret club and more chill generally. All this to say, I think this is will get better, but the best way to help the fediverse is to join it, be active, and be chill.
- zenmac 11mo ago
  >but the culture (especially early on) was exceptionally protectionist and lots of people got bullied off for very silly reasons. Had no idea that was happening. What makes your say that?
  - danielheath 11mo ago
    I was there in the early days, loads of folk joined and their first posts got replies like * stop posting photos without a text description * stop posting like that without a CW * don't spell your hashtags that way Because you couldn't see replies from other servers, they'd get quite a few of these.
- Timwi 11mo ago
  I joined Mastodon, was active, and was chill. I was talking into the void. I gave up after 6 months of getting no reaction and finding nobody of interest to follow. (Worse, half of what I wrote is now gone because my instance shut down and Mastodon doesn't even have a feature to migrate any content to a new instance.)
- ErroneousBosh 11mo ago
  I joined Mastodon early on and stuck around for a few weeks, before I got tired of constantly being messaged by neonazi gay furries who were very keen to show me how excited they were to talk to me.
api 11mo ago
To me a fatal flaw in ActivityPub systems is that your identity is tied to a server. Yes you can port it, but it’s a hassle. That means the server ops become these little lords over little fiefdoms and a server just dying takes your identity with it. This also means your reach and what you see depends on your choice of server. I very much don’t want that. It’s also confusing to non-technical people. Join Mastodon! But which one? How do I pick one? Technically speaking, Nostr is better. Your identity is a key. Servers are just dumb relays. Unfortunately it seems to be nothing but crypto bros talking about crypto, or was last time I checked. Nobody uses it.
- ezst 11mo ago
  > That means the server ops become these little lords over little fiefdoms and a server just dying takes your identity with it. Or that means that everyone can be their own little lord reigning over their own little server, to the point that it doesn't matter, because effectively, network nodes don't need to be "big" to be relevant in a federated ecosystem. I'm not so much into ActivityPub, but I run an XMPP server for my family. I'm not saying that this is for everyone, but close-enough.
  - RobotToaster 11mo ago
    >everyone can be their own little lord reigning over their own little serve Only if it's simple for the average person And only until an admin of a big sever dislikes something you say and adds your server to the censorship list on fediseer.
- __MatrixMan__ 11mo ago
  Agreed, nostr makes a lot of sense when you read about it and then you go there... Once.
- nunobrito 11mo ago
  Just to say that I'm using NOSTR on my apps, most people using those apps don't even know about NOSTR at all but they all enjoy the quick login procedure without emails nor phones.
petterroea 11mo ago
Users are also happy with clunkiness if it gives them other things they value. Ask any Windows user. Also, video game modding. My general experience is that clunky software is what made people tech literate, and now that everything has safety barriers and protects the user from everything tech literacy has fallen.
- cons0le 11mo ago
  Windows is also just convenience. Most use it because it comes with the computer
  - moebrowne 11mo ago
    Or because don't know (or care) that they have a choice. Same with browsers. Most users will click the 'internet button' to get online
  - dmix 11mo ago
    The main reason is the better alternative costs twice as much.
    - voakbasda 11mo ago
      Wow. I didn’t know Linux cost that much! /s
      - bluGill 11mo ago
        Cost isn't only money. In the case of linux it is time to learn to use it (which is a sunk cost on windows: already paid it). Then you need to download and install it - again windows comes by default so a sunk cost.
        ErroneousBosh 11mo ago
        > In the case of linux it is time to learn to use it How much time do you need to take to learn "click on the swirly orange thing for Internet"? It looks just the same as it does in every other OS. > (which is a sunk cost on windows: already paid it) This is actually something I'm coping with at the moment, because I have to learn how to use Windows and it's the most backwards thing ever to use.
astrobe_ 11mo ago
> Their value is going to stay limited if people don't want to actually use them. Namely, in the case of PeerTube, content creators. Youtube is convenient because it comes with builtin monetization. You can probably expect loud objections (rightfully so) from some of them if you download their stuff from Youtube to upload it to PeerTube. If you don't have the content creators, you don't have content consumers and you cannot bootstrap a network effect (some services did bootstrap a network effect with plain and simple piracy, though). I believe the UX is secondary to available content. People do make the necessary efforts if they think the benefit is worth it.
mbrochh 11mo ago
Is the UX even the issue with these competitors? The cost for bandwidth and storage and having fast enough servers is the real issue here.

treyd 11mo ago

At least for Mastodon and the rest of the Fediverse ecosystem it does seem that people actually want to use them, and more people every day.

jamesbelchamber 11mo ago
People moved on from Mastodon to Bluesky because it was more responsive to user needs. I encouraged people to move to Mastodon but then watched them move on. It is what it is - but it's worth being clear-eyed about what it is.
- jmcnulty 11mo ago
  It has actually improved a lot since then. The UI has had changes, search is better, it has quote posts now. More usability enhancements are under active development.
  - palata 11mo ago
    Once "normies" have tried and moved away, I think it's too late. Unfortunately such services don't get a second chance. It was probably hard enough to convince them to try once.
  - JoshTriplett 11mo ago
    > search is better Search is still awful, in part because a few people don't seem to want it. It needs substantial improvement.
- 7moritz7 11mo ago
  FOSS just does not have the aggressive scaling mindset. Even success stories like Linux' game compatibility and Chromium can be traced to just regular tech companies, as opposed to non profits.
  - getpokedagain 11mo ago
    Maybe this is ok? Many non open source apps do get critical mass but they eventually go bust. Emacs, git, Linux and I think even Mastodon have a slower uptake but do not seem to have such a high risk of collapse. While YouTube and Facebook et al seem to have an insurmountable moat and collection of users the reality is recent history is littered with boom to bust failures: MySpace, Vine, Yahoo all the way back to GeoCities. I would be patient and only worry if mastodon is actively dying. For me it's the only social media app I have installed.
  - jahnu 11mo ago
    What is the aggressive mindeset of Bluesky? I have both Mastondon and Bluesky accounts and in my experience I find Bluesky is just simpler to use which attracted more of the types of accounts I wanted to follow. Nothing aggressive about that, just good UX resulting in a richer pool of accounts.

MangoToupe 11mo ago

> Their value is going to stay limited if people don't want to actually use them Nobody really wants to use instagram either—there's basically nothing positive to say about the app or service itself—it just has critical mass.

warkdarrior 11mo ago
Is this a "nobody goes there anymore, it's too crowded" moment?
- 01HNNWZ0MV43FF 11mo ago
  More like texting, nobody likes the phone system, but everyone you know is on it
  - MiddleEndian 11mo ago
    When texting took off, it was the easiest (only) way to send instant text based messages between friends wherever you were, even if the phone system is now heavily used by spammers and there are better options. When Facebook took off, every Myspace page was so full of garbage that they barely loaded on most people's computers, and Facebook was slick and shiny and easy. The real name policy made it super easy to connect with people you met IRL. Even if it's now confusingly slow and FB Messenger can't display your recent chats in the correct order for some reason, it was the easiest most obvious option at the time. I don't really understand why people use Twitter (at its best it just seems like a worse version of RSS), but the site presumably loaded quickly at some point and was easy to use, even if it's presumably worse now. And so on. They persist through momentum. Some things continue to persist, some things get beat out and die. But if you start off more confusing than your alternatives, at least compared to when they started, you won't get picked up in the first place.
    - MSFT_Edging 11mo ago
      > I don't really understand why people use Twitter The honest answer is that it isn't the content(RSS feeds), but the combat sport nature of the platform. It's the only place where you can tell a billionaire any kind of awful thing you can think of. It's also the only social media that drives important people insane. The wealthier they are, the more insane they'll be driven. Facebook will drive your meemaw insane with AI generated ads of legless veterans being given a cake. Twitter will drive the richest man on earth insane. It will drive every journalist at any paper of merit insane by interacting with the insane billionaires. Nearly every journalist who uses twitter enough will develop delusions of grandeur that their brand of psychopathy is the solution to the nation's woes. Since their bosses have also been driven insane via twitter, it's the kind of writing that gets published. This writing will take the insane delusions of the insane billionaires at face value. It will go along with conspiracy and never beg any question that actually needs answering. It's truly a unique and addicting environment.

jszymborski 11mo ago

There are some technical barriers to approaching fediverse platforms, but I personally see the main barriers being cultural. I'm a big proponent of Mastodon and still love using it, but the culture (especially early on) was exceptionally protectionist and lots of people got bullied off for very silly reasons. I think the attitude is less like a children's secret club and more chill generally. All this to say, I think this is will get better, but the best way to help the fediverse is to join it, be active, and be chill.

zenmac 11mo ago
>but the culture (especially early on) was exceptionally protectionist and lots of people got bullied off for very silly reasons. Had no idea that was happening. What makes your say that?
- danielheath 11mo ago
  I was there in the early days, loads of folk joined and their first posts got replies like * stop posting photos without a text description * stop posting like that without a CW * don't spell your hashtags that way Because you couldn't see replies from other servers, they'd get quite a few of these.
Timwi 11mo ago
I joined Mastodon, was active, and was chill. I was talking into the void. I gave up after 6 months of getting no reaction and finding nobody of interest to follow. (Worse, half of what I wrote is now gone because my instance shut down and Mastodon doesn't even have a feature to migrate any content to a new instance.)
ErroneousBosh 11mo ago
I joined Mastodon early on and stuck around for a few weeks, before I got tired of constantly being messaged by neonazi gay furries who were very keen to show me how excited they were to talk to me.

api 11mo ago

To me a fatal flaw in ActivityPub systems is that your identity is tied to a server. Yes you can port it, but it’s a hassle. That means the server ops become these little lords over little fiefdoms and a server just dying takes your identity with it. This also means your reach and what you see depends on your choice of server. I very much don’t want that. It’s also confusing to non-technical people. Join Mastodon! But which one? How do I pick one? Technically speaking, Nostr is better. Your identity is a key. Servers are just dumb relays. Unfortunately it seems to be nothing but crypto bros talking about crypto, or was last time I checked. Nobody uses it.

ezst 11mo ago
> That means the server ops become these little lords over little fiefdoms and a server just dying takes your identity with it. Or that means that everyone can be their own little lord reigning over their own little server, to the point that it doesn't matter, because effectively, network nodes don't need to be "big" to be relevant in a federated ecosystem. I'm not so much into ActivityPub, but I run an XMPP server for my family. I'm not saying that this is for everyone, but close-enough.
- RobotToaster 11mo ago
  >everyone can be their own little lord reigning over their own little serve Only if it's simple for the average person And only until an admin of a big sever dislikes something you say and adds your server to the censorship list on fediseer.
__MatrixMan__ 11mo ago
Agreed, nostr makes a lot of sense when you read about it and then you go there... Once.
nunobrito 11mo ago
Just to say that I'm using NOSTR on my apps, most people using those apps don't even know about NOSTR at all but they all enjoy the quick login procedure without emails nor phones.

petterroea 11mo ago

Users are also happy with clunkiness if it gives them other things they value. Ask any Windows user. Also, video game modding. My general experience is that clunky software is what made people tech literate, and now that everything has safety barriers and protects the user from everything tech literacy has fallen.

cons0le 11mo ago
Windows is also just convenience. Most use it because it comes with the computer
- moebrowne 11mo ago
  Or because don't know (or care) that they have a choice. Same with browsers. Most users will click the 'internet button' to get online
- dmix 11mo ago
  The main reason is the better alternative costs twice as much.
  - voakbasda 11mo ago
    Wow. I didn’t know Linux cost that much! /s
    - bluGill 11mo ago
      Cost isn't only money. In the case of linux it is time to learn to use it (which is a sunk cost on windows: already paid it). Then you need to download and install it - again windows comes by default so a sunk cost.
      - ErroneousBosh 11mo ago
        > In the case of linux it is time to learn to use it How much time do you need to take to learn "click on the swirly orange thing for Internet"? It looks just the same as it does in every other OS. > (which is a sunk cost on windows: already paid it) This is actually something I'm coping with at the moment, because I have to learn how to use Windows and it's the most backwards thing ever to use.

astrobe_ 11mo ago

> Their value is going to stay limited if people don't want to actually use them. Namely, in the case of PeerTube, content creators. Youtube is convenient because it comes with builtin monetization. You can probably expect loud objections (rightfully so) from some of them if you download their stuff from Youtube to upload it to PeerTube. If you don't have the content creators, you don't have content consumers and you cannot bootstrap a network effect (some services did bootstrap a network effect with plain and simple piracy, though). I believe the UX is secondary to available content. People do make the necessary efforts if they think the benefit is worth it.

mbrochh 11mo ago

Is the UX even the issue with these competitors? The cost for bandwidth and storage and having fast enough servers is the real issue here.