I’ve been using fediverse stuff (Mastodon and, most recently, Calckey – I’m just going to use “Mastodon” as shorthand here, purists can bite me) for over a year now, a…
I’m not sure it failed.
I joined Mastodon in Apr 03, 2017 - but was never really very active because - well, there wasn’t really much to be active with. It was ghost town. But it grew slowly and organically. Which was OK.Then the big Twitter meltdown happened in Nov 22 and all of a sudden we got couple of million new users. There was a lot of adjustment, from new people and the old inhabitants. It wasn’t very pretty (the whole CW debacle).
Many of those millions left and (presumably) went back to Twitter. But many stayed. The twitter InfoSec community is (mostly) on Mastodon now. Quite a lot of science-twitter is as well. We’re far bigger place now than we were before 22.
Twitter didn’t crash and burn (yet). People went back. But I don’t think the migration failed. Some stayed and we’re richer place for it.
But I agree with lot of the things in the post. Dealing with federation, quirky UI’s, prototype services (hi kbin!) and other linuxesque peculiarities isn’t what mainstream is looking for. The whole “just spin up your own fedi-server” might not be very sustainable/environmentally friendly compared to centralized well maintained datacenter. There are lot of problems to solve before fediverse is “mainstream ready”.
But to be quite honest. I’m not sure it needs to be. Yes, I get that it’s hard to “build following” without mainstream, but to be honest, I actually prefer more signal and less noise. And lot of the “mainstream” is just noise who follow popular accounts because they’re popular.
Indeed - I think people seem to have this ill-conceived notion that Twitter has to fail for Mastodon to succeed.
From my perspective, both are doing just fine. Mastodon has developed a community with, in my opinion, much higher quality discussion, and well, Twitter can keep being twitter.
That said, what I do think helps here is that Kbin has a much lower barrier to entry. I find it much easier to sign up on here than trying to determine which Mastodon instance to use and I think that helps tremendously.
The thing that’s interesting to me is this:
That said, what I do think helps here is that Kbin has a much lower barrier to entry. I find it much easier to sign up on here than trying to determine which Mastodon instance to use and I think that helps tremendously.
Kbin is technically federated and Kbin.social is technically just an instance on a federated network, the federation is just broken right now. But the simple fact of that not being a consideration, and everyone signing up on Kbin.social, has led to comments like this where “it’s so much easier”.
It rather proves my point; putting decentralised whatever front and centre makes things pointlessly complex and offputting to end users. They don’t want to think about this shit, they just want to read stuff and post. The less they have to think about this shit, and/or the less this shit has an impact on their experience, the better for them.
I still don’t get why people wanna stay, all the toxic users get now top priority (a.k.a. people who pay for Twitter Blue) and they promote toxic tweets
Because all of the users they like and want to talk to stayed there too.
Network effects are a powerful driver. They can be overcome, but not easily.
I think a lot of it too is people don’t want to lean a new system. I’ve seen multiple big influencers on Twitter basically day they had no interest in using Mastodon because they didn’t want to learn a new platform and so instead the begrudgingly keep using Twitter. People don’t like change and will sometimes torture themselves to avoid it
To an extent, influencers wouldn’t get on with Mastodon anyway.
Looking at it charitably from their point of view, the discovery is so poor that actually building a following there is a huge amount of work they probably won’t see a return on. It’s a much smaller audience that in no small part resents even the idea of an “influencer” - someone who has that as their line of work is going to struggle and consider it not worth their time.
Looking at it less charitably, Mastodon does not reward activity on its own but instead things only get attention if they’re actually worth attention, so carpet-bombing fedi with posts most people don’t actually value is a waste of their time, and it’s a lot more effort than such people would typically be willing to expend.
Because their favourite politician is there, because their favourite singer is there, because their favourite football player is there…
I was just telling my wife this over coffee this morning. She had seen an article about reddit on BBC news and asked what the difference was between this move and twitter. And my response was exactly this.
I can understand these arguments, and yet…
I invested lots of time into Google+ and built up a following of 26,000 there. Then it closed down days before I started my Patreon campaign. Yes, I am still bitter about that.
Then I shifted my attention to Twitter. And then, last year, Elon Musk took it over.
I am done investing effort in corporate-owned social media sites that must inevitably follow the #Enshittification principle. No, Mastodon (and the Fediverse in general) did not absorb as many Twitter users as we hoped. Still, I think in the long run the Fediverse will grow, as corporate social media proves again and again that they cannot be trusted.
Being someone who is on Mastodon and also have to still be on Twitter for professional reasons, I consistently get way more engagement to my posts on Mastodon.
Plus, I have been able to build a larger following in Mastodon within a year than I was able to in Twitter in the eight years or so I have had an account there.
Anybody who expected Mastodon to simply become Twitter minus Elon Musk, was being naive and that didn’t exactly happen. But as a platform on its own, Mastodon is a success. As a user, I consistently see more interesting content on Mastodon than Twitter or pretty much any other social media platform (except maybe Reddit till they decided to screw up).
Honestly, I would recommend everyone here who hasn’t already to sign up to a Mastodon server in addition to Kbin.
Honest question, why? If you’re already on kbin that is your account. What is the reason to have another separate account on mastodon?
I didn’t stick with Mastodon because it didn’t feel like you could interact with others; there was no quote “tweeting” and I’m not sure you could even like a post. Felt like everything posted just went into an empty abyss
It’s interesting that was your experience, because for me it’s the opposite. Twitter got so big that it kind of turned into an abyss for me, whereas I get way more engagement on Mastodon.
IMO having a good search function that searches across the ENTIRE fediverse would go a long way. Not having this good search function makes it hard to find content.
Really good article. I agree with most of your points. I am one of the few apparently that actually believes in not supporting fascist billionaires. Not sure what all those other “resisters” are doing on that site still. Drives me crazy.
Just wanted to note that the mastodon app now defaults to mastodon.social so people don’t have to pick a server. Picking a server was/is absolutely a barrier to entry, I don’t care how many people on Mastodon say it isn’t. So that will help going forward. They are also working on quote posts and search functionality. Hopefully these things are in place for the next potential wave when Meta/Instagram spin up their alternative. I think Tumblr is also planning on forking to the Fediverse so that will help. I don’t think it’s totally lost that Mastodon can overtake Twitter but agree they screwed up their big chance in November 2022 by being too insular for too long.
You didn’t call it out explicitly but I also wanted to mention that CW nonsense. That shit is whack but has really died down with more people joining. No one gives a shit about that crap.
I think the #1 problem is UI/UX. I think a Activity Pub based platform that gets its interface right allowing it to feel like one single coherent platform rather than a bunch of separate servers will win. So far I haven’t found a single platform that lets me browse to any other platform or user & feel integrated.
I agree with this. The first platform to get discoverability between servers right will likely lead the way. It doesn’t help that there’s a double @ system for both users and subreddit equivalents. I think eliminating the first @ for users and using a different character for topics would simplify the system. For example, a user could be user@dom.ain just as in email, and subreddit like forum could be /topic@dom.ain (or #topic@dom.ain but I’m not a fan of this one).
#kbin has managed to pike my interest.
It’s far from perfect and missing many features, but it does looks promising.
The biggest drawback is the lack of mobile app yet. The mobile browser experience ain’t bad though.Regarding the /topic@dom.ain example, it looks so much better than the bunch of @s we have now!
But the # symbol is already used for tags (as your message shows). So it becomes difficult to differentiate between tags & topics. Especially with platforms that use either/both for different things. kbin is pretty unique because it offers both microblogging & link aggregation which adds an additional layer of complexity.
You could classify hashtags on other fediverse platforms as a sort of topic which one could subscribe to but how does that work with actual hashtags on kbin’s microblogging. I think these kinds of decisions wont be made by a bunch of smart heads sitting together or chatting across fediverses platforms but rather some random developer that happens to be working on the one platform to get its UX down pat & break the mold.
I don’t think there was a failure, there’s like 10 million users more than there used to be in just a few months. The more these social media companies fuck over their users, we’ll keep seeing the waves come crashing in.
Active users are much lower. People made accounts then didn’t stick around.
IMO, on Mastodon for example, most people don’t understand federation and don’t care about it. It sounds scary and complicated to them. And also in Mastodon’s case at least, it’s still extremely difficult IMO, to find people/sites/etc. to follow about topics you care about. You still, AFAIK, can’t search by posts which is just dumb, IMO (at least on the instance/server) I’m on.
The whole pick an instance/server thing also confuses people. Most people don’t care about that and don’t even need to know TBH. Just auto-assign them to the most popular one and those who care about such things can manually pick their own.
You’re right, but it’s not just most people on Mastodon. Most people don’t understand or care about federation. I’m fairly tech savvy and I didn’t know that until 15 minutes ago I could see kbin microblogs on Mastodon if I wanted. It’s a feature that most tech-savvy users think is cool and 95% of normal people will find overly convoluted.
Most people just want to know where to follow Ariana Grande or Adam Schefter.
Great article. I skimmed some parts and close-read others and didn’t find anything to disagree with. “People are quite adept at making compromises on their beliefs for the sake of utility or pleasure” especially hit home. This is why my middle of the road and even progressive-minded friends continue to use Twitter: they can create a permission structure that allows it.
UX, UX, UX. When a massive group of people wants to leave a platform, there must be an intuitive, thoughtfully designed, reasonably available alternative available that moment. Platforms like Mastodon make users feel full of questions. They feel lost. They go back where they came from because at least things made sense there, even if the guy running it is a proudly heartless lunatic.
The Digg migration — no hashtag back then — succeeded because there was such an alternative: Reddit. I agree with you that the closed source nature of the software didn’t factor and won’t factor for 99% of users. We just want a place where the product decisions are made differently.
So far I think Kbin is okay. I came here, I joined, and I never think about other servers or instances. It looks and feels a lot like Reddit. I don’t care about followers, so there isn’t some count to give me anxiety about having something mid-configured.
So how is Kbin going to cover its operating costs? If a fediverse server must survive on donations, it seems like donating should be built into the user experience. For example, there could be a Kbin Gold similar to Reddit Gold.
I remember years ago when Reddit Gold first became a thing there was a progress bar on the site indicating how much of their daily server costs had been covered by Reddit Gold. Something like that might be useful.
You misunderstand what kbin is, if you think there’s A server that has to cover operating costs. kbin isn’t a site, it’s just server software, it’s meant to be run in many many places, and those individual servers talk to each other.
I thought that kbin was a website in Poland that implements the ActivityPub protocol and so it’s able to talk to and share posts with other websites in the “fediverse” such as: Lemmy, kilioa.org, fedia.io, ect… because they implement the same protocol. But I’m very new here so I’m not really sure!
Who’s going to be paid for the ongoing maintenance of the software? Who’s going to pay for the servers the software’s run on? A decentralized architecture doesn’t remove the operating costs of a large scale social media site. As the article alludes to, it might even increase operating costs.
To be honest, I’m not interested in small, niche communities. I want the fediverse to grow into something that can rival social media giants like Reddit, and Twitter. How a site is monetized is as key of a feature as anything else, because without monetization, a site is doomed.
Who’s going to be paid for the ongoing maintenance of the software?
I’d imagine no one in particular. It’s donations and open-source model. Eventually (if it gets popular) it might get some other business model or grants from FOSS funds. Remains to be seen.
Who’s going to pay for the servers the software’s run on?
Same here. Donations and/or whoever hosts the servers. Instances should grow to whatever their maintainer can afford/has planned. Then they should close signups. Other instances might pop up. There are currently a lot of Lemmy instances and some people are starting to spin up new kbin instances.
How a site is monetized
Eventually someone is probably going to try ads for their site.
But fediverse is not just “a site”. It’s many. They all have their own rules, plans and ambitions.I never thought of how capping sign ups doesn’t affect you in the fediverse… you can just sign up on a different instance! Very cool to think that server hosts can stay within their own limitations.
People don’t care about decentralisation, but one of selling points of the Fediverse may be pretty similar to that: interoperability.
IMHO, some separate but federated servers make sense for a newcomer more, than other. They are:-
Flagship Mastodon server (for the “official blessing”),
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Several very large Mastodon servers for niches - Infosec, FOSS and Gamedev communities already have got these (for best discovery of that niche communities and still good discovery of out-niche content - thanks to size),
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At least one national Mastodon server in your language - of course open to registration - Japanese, British, German, Italian, French, Dutch, Canadian, Australian, Chinese are the largest, but any language-specific will satisfy the user (for best discovery of content in their languages or from regions - helped by language barreer),
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Some largeish Mastodon instances with specific political leanings - anarchist, far-right and libertarian ones are the largest (for better-tailored moderation, and also for discovery),
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Flagship/largest instances of other Fediverse software, such as Akkoma, Lemmy, /kbin, Bookwyrm, Misskey, Calckey, Pixelfed (for features of their software, being their advantages over Mastodon)
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Some national instances of Lemmy, /kbin, Bookwyrm, Misskey, Calckey, Pixelfed in your language (combined language and feature reasons),
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Few Lemmy instances with specific political leanings - communist and far-right ones (combined moderation and feature reasons).
We do not have to talk about “decentralised” insert app name here network, but we can rather promote “Large Infosec-oriented microblog which interoperates with entire of rest of Mastodon”, “German Reddit-alternative aggregator which interoperates with fedi”, “A combined aggregator and microblog instance, compatible both with Lemmy and Mastodon”, “Anarchist social network with access to much of fedi”, “Mastodon-compatible microblog with fancy formatting”, or “Instagram-equivalent with access to Mastodon but larger photo limits per post, and filtres”, etc.
This interoperability means, that any new and sufficiently promoted (or simply receiving another Great Migration) server can claim over 1 million Mastodon&co users as the potential audience.
If you were already present on both Reddit and e.g. Facebook, and recent events forced you to switch from Reddit to /kbin or Lemmy, then you started to be on the Fediverse. And any your friend from Facebook started to be able to contact with you on the Fediverse, should they switch.
If you were present previously only on Facebook and Twitter, and you friend was only on Facebook and Reddit, then, after Twitter and Reddit Migrations, both of you began to be able to talk to each other, without the need of Facebook!
Every great migration to the Fediverse sows the seed. Sooner or earlier, all your friends will be present on fedi, and the network effects will begin to work to the advantage of fedi, not against it.-
I’ve checked out mastodon and other federated twitter clones quite a few times, and never felt the need to migrate. Twitter has always been more active, and felt more polished and solid. In comparison the federated sites felt small and restricted. Since musk took over, twitter has been even better than it was before, so again no pressure felt to move. I still use twitter.
In comparison, reddit has been my home for like 12 years and this blackout has really fucked up my usage of reddit. Kbin feels nearly identical to reddit, even if it’s a bit smaller. I still find myself clicking onto reddit, only to realize that my subs are missing, so then I move back over here to kbin.
Kbin is cozy. I like how I can see other federated sites’ content easily, I like how kbin magazines and fediverse microblog are both clearly distinguished. It feels like I’m on a new reddit, but with the ability to see the fediverse as well. it’s cozy. Provided there’s still content, there’s a solid chance I’ll stick around.
The only thing I’d like to see is if I could do twitter/mastodon style self-posts for microblog. Right now it seems I have to select a specific magazine? But it feels weird selecting a magazine/community for just my own rambles/musings? I ended up making a magazine matching my kbin name for this purpose, but idk what the proper way to do things is…
@Otome-chan@kbin.social I think there is a magazine called “random”.
Mastadon is not a good Twitter replacement. It lacks discoverability and ease of use. I think Bluesky has potential to succeed where it failed.
I’m not sure kbin or Lemmy can truly replace Reddit overnight either. They aren’t as easy to use. More importantly, they have no good mobile apps, which is the whole reason people are looking for a Reddit alternative to begin with.
Yeah. I’m not sure why most people would want to use frankly any of these alternatives beyond a blackout period when they’re all mostly worse than Reddit’s mobile app anyway. The only things they do better IMO are ads (the official Reddit ads can be really bad) and simply that desire to not give money to Reddit when they’re acting like they’re currently acting. Neither which are frankly going to convince the average person.
But I mean, the site doesn’t have much content nor an app (or comparable quality mobile site). These sites aren’t without merit, but to actually stand a chance of actually replacing reddit takes a lot.
To each their own, but I vastly prefer kbin’s mobile site to the default reddit mobile app. Kbin doesn’t have gesture controls / swiping, but I’ll accept that sacrifice for better readability and space usage.
For me is the fact that if I use the mobile app I feel like I’m being scammed by Reddit whereas if I use Kbin I feel like I’m collaborating to something that could be awesome and better than what came before
For me it’s because it’s become very obvious to me that social media and corporations aren’t a good mix. The fediverse harkens back to the old internet, which I for one very much miss.
Yep. Just joined kbin today and it already very much feels like the reddit from 8-10 years ago. And mastodon feels similar to early twitter. I forgot how much better it is. Sure they lack some polish at this point, but not being subjected to an algorithm trying to manipulate me into addiction in order to drive ad revenue is incredibly refreshing. Kind of reminds me that not all social media has to be inherently horrible for my mental health – most of it has just been systematically engineered to be that way.
Fuck yes. Well said. I’ve been really enjoying this. Everyone is so nice here. The mood feels good. I hope a good chuck of people stick around.
Agree with @Burp @Overcast and @BedSharkPal
Caveat: I’m an artist; I build ice cream castles
But
Humans are feelings creatures not rational ones. Everyone can relate to bad feelings using the corporate platforms. That’s the hook imo. To offer more respect, more honesty, and just better feelings here in the Fediverse. I think it feels good here but there’s room for improvement.Now, I did read the entire blog editorial. I have been guilty of some of the issues identified in it. I joined Mastodon in October and quickly became an evangelist (I only use that word negatively lol). I’ve also lost some enthusiasm. I’ve struggled to figure it all out. I’m changing my habits. Etc. I still don’t know what will work best for me but I know it won’t be any of my existing accounts on Twitter, or Meta. It will more likely be something within the fediverse because it feels better.
A lot of the points in the editorial & a lot of the criticisms in these comments I agree with. (A lot, not all. Some people complain illogically & there’s no point in answering. They’re just going to be sad/mad until they aren’t.) It’s all good food for thought. I don’t see any reason in denying or arguing when someone has a bad experience here. Holding hands and making it better together is my preferred way forward. Oh yeah, I’m not just an artist. I’m a gay artist. Despite all the shit I still believe in spreading love. Ok gonna go barf now.
