Fediverse

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This magazine is dedicated to discussions on the federated social networking ecosystem, which includes decentralized and open-source social media platforms. Whether you are a user, developer, or simply interested in the concept of decentralized social media, this is the place for you. Here you can share your knowledge, ask questions, and engage in discussions on topics such as the benefits and challenges of decentralized social media, new and existing federated platforms, and more. From the latest developments and trends to ethical considerations and the future of federated social media, this category covers a wide range of topics related to the Fediverse.

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Six reasons Mastodon won't survive (mashable.com)

submitted 1 year ago by realcaseyrollins@kbin.projectsegfau.lt to c/fediverse@kbin.social

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The hot new thing in social media has some big problems.

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[–] soyagi@yiffit.net 2 points 1 year ago

This is a clickbait headline. I think we should try to avoid these here. At the very least give the main points of the article to avoid giving unnecessary traffic to potentially meaningless articles.

For everyone's benefit, and for the help of discussion (which is what we want here) here are the main six points from the article:

Let's look at everything Mastodon gets wrong.

1) Terrible name

Mastodon implies large, slow, frozen, and dead for thousands of years. The logo is cute, but the service right now stinks almost as badly as a thawing woolly mammoth.

2) There is no single Mastodon

In trying to satisfy a spike of new users, Mastodon broke the cardinal rule of social media: it separated them into silos and made it hard if not impossible for them to all socialize. This unfortunate design makes Mastodon feel more like a bunch of chat rooms rather than a cohesive, growing social network. The Federated Timeline helps, but it's not the default view.

And I get that having a decentralized social media platform, Mastodon creator Eugen Rochko's big idea, helps create safe zones from groups and topics, but it's really a terrible approach that will lead to a stagnant growth and way more opinion bubbles, which is the last thing we need.

3) Toots

In trying to be the anti-twitter, Mastodon's Rochko chose the dumbest and most ridiculous post name possible: Toots. This too-cute take-off on Tweets literally hurts me every time I say and do it on Mastodon.

4) Handles are meaningless

User handles do show up in Toots (blech!) but not in the URLs for users' Mastodon homepages. Giving users numbers (mine is 995) instead of identifiable website addresses makes Mastodon feel amateurish.

5) Where is everyone?

If you can't find people by name, then how can you follow them on Mastodon? Someone in one local Mastodon timeline may not appear in another (Sorry, Mr. Shatner). To see everyone (at least I think you see everyone), you have to troll the Federated timeline, open a Toot (blech!) and add them there. Twitter and other social networks already have this stuff figured out. Why is Mastodon better? It's not!

6) Apps feel like a science project

I started using Mastodon in Safari. It was not a good experience. At least there's an app...or apps.

There is no one app called Mastodon. Instead, you can find a Github list of apps for the open-source project. Apps like the iOS-based Amaroq let you log into any of the many Mastodon "instances" by typing in the name. Nope, there's no list of instances because I don't think anyone knows just how many Mastodon instances are out there.