His grand vision remains to leave Mastodon users in control of the social network, making their own decisions about what content is allowed or what appears in their timelines.

I don’t use Mastadon cause I don’t care for micro-blogging, but nevertheless, I like this.

204 points

While this is a good move, I don’t think John Mastodon was making anywhere near the kind of money to turn into the next Musk or Zuck to begin with.

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100 points

He’s no Tim Apple.

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55 points

Or Jennifer Facebook.

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33 points

Or Lenard TikTok III.

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58 points

You can see exactly what he made in 2023. The report is available here.

€60k

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41 points

I read that url as blog.johnmastodon.org and for a second I was seriously wondering if that name was real lol

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37 points

Not now, but in the future that was a possibility.

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2 points

I mean in the future it’s a possibility I’ll be fucking Zendaya but that doesn’t mean it’s reality now does it?

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8 points

Are you in a space/career where you could conceivably interact with Zendaya?

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15 points

mass market media can only understand the world through the lens of mass market media

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7 points
*

The point isnt money. The point is the “benevolent dictator” model, see Matt Mullenweg and the current WordPress controversy. The whole future of that software depends on this guy because he controls the most important assets (like the trademarks) personally.

Eugen and the whole Mastodon development team want to avoid a situation like that.

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134 points

I have recently been using it more to connect with others on a new subject, but now for the first time ever on the internet since early 00’s, we are all owners of it ourselves. All the great new stuff was always owned by others and frankly I’m sick of it.

I never even liked twitter. Then I followed #nature and #bloomscrolling on mastodon for a while and my home feed was a feast of beautiful pics. So now there’s one use for me for microblogging. Neat! Mastodon does what it says it does and even offers ‘default’ instances. I’d love for some GO’s to help reach that donation goal quicker, so we can all get with the program and ditch corpo social media. -Why doesn’t my library host it’s own peertube?? #MakeLibrariesGreatAgain

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7 points

we are all owners of it ourselves.

Not unless you run your own instance you aren’t.

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6 points

I couldn’t find any legalese on mastodon.social that my toots are somehow not my property. While it’s true that I no longer have total control over its distribution, that doesn’t mean I have somehow relinquished ownership.

You seem quite confident that that is incorrect , with your one line reply. Could you link or explain where you got this information?

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7 points

Could you link or explain where you got this information?

Common sense. The instance admin deletes the instance (or your posts) 'cos the coffee was bad this morning… there goes “your property”.
Obviously orders of magnitude better than commercial social media but it’s no silver bullet either.
There, 3 lines.

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115 points

Why is there this very loud chorus of people touting bluesky as alternative to twitter instead of the far superior Mastodon?

Bluesky you are basically swapping a tyrant against a benevolent dictator, that dictator can become corrupted or sell bluesky to Musk Elon later on… That is not a solution that is more like procrastination.

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77 points

Because BlueSky has designers and Mastodon is a nightmare for new users. Same reason a lot of “superior” open source apps never take off. Devs are rarely also good designers. Until we start caring about normal people it will stay that way.

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21 points

Is this actually true? The UIs don’t seem very different to me. What is it about mastodon’s design that’s bad?

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24 points

Just the UX rather than the UI. It’s also missing some features like quote tweets. But it can be confusing to onboard either your own instance and know that your discoverable or to join an instance and know how discoverable you are.

Like I am a career man in IT, servers, and networking. I have no idea if I were to run my own instance, who exactly on the network would be able to see my public posts

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8 points

As someone who had never used corporate social media like FB and Twitter (for my own reasons), when I found out about Mastodon back in 2017-18, I decided to join it because of its philosophy and it not being a corporate-owned walled garden. It has its flaws of course. But since I didn’t have any preconceptions, I mostly liked Mastodon as it was and didn’t find it confusing at all. That’s probably because I read up on Mastodon first to decide whether I’d want to try it, so I knew what to expect.

So I can understand how people who had been using Twitter and had their expectations shaped by it would assume that Mastodon was just a Twitter clone, not having learned anything about it beforehand. That’s why they were confused and disappointed to find that it was its own thing with its own philosophy, and had existing communities aligned with that philosophy.

Some (not all) of those who saw the differences as flaws, complained that Mastodon was crap for not having certain Twitter features, and some (not all) existing communities didn’t take kindly to demands that Mastodon abandon its philosophy and transform itself into a Twitter clone, so there were conflicts as well, and those new people didn’t stick around.

OTOH, many other new people found that they liked the different philosophy and those people did stick around, so Mastodon has grown. But IMO since most people like the Twitter-style algorithms and “broadcast/consume” culture (as opposed to Mastodon’s more personal interaction culture), Mastodon will always be a much smaller thing. But its existence is an important and good thing, like the quiet room away from the riotous street party, where you can hear each other speak.

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4 points

More UX than UI. The entire on-boarding process is hard on Mastodon. Who is on there? How do we find them, etc. it’s all rather nebulous. BlueSky has been innovative with some of their ideas. Things like starter packs are simple but greatly help new users get going. It’s shocking other social networks have not thought of them.

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3 points

imho: UX-wise.
a: marketing, the name Mastodon is not in common usage, at all… it’s named after a (very cool) metal band… i love it, but your avg chap will hear “mastodon” and wrinkle their nose and move on in the sea of infinite new apps that are shinier… i think this hurt Diaspora a lot as well… at the end of the day, it’s a social network and people have to actually talk about it…
like, regular schmoe’s who don’t love new words have to drunkenly say at a bar “hey add me on ____” and bluesky is so so much better for that.
… remember, regular sports bar types need to say it to each other… grandma’s in nursing homes need to be comfortable with it.
“federated” is a big word and concept, but still the best word for it… after decentralized….
….
b: probably bigger but Jack Dorsey is kinda touted as this super moral tech luminary, even though he quit bluesky for centralizing, he still added a lot of weight to that critical mass a social network needs to achieve to be useful at all.
….
c. actual UI: trying to tag a username and instance is pretty cumbersome… on twitter or insta or most things, you can type @username and tag anyone, on lemmy it’s not as big of a deal because it’s little forums organized around posts, instead of posts organized around users… on a microblogging or friend-network thing like diaspora, it’s just not easy enough.
like, granny in the nursing home isn’t going to type !sonnyboy@dopemastonny.federaloo.org… or get all that….
if you don’t abstract all that away, regular users will be afraid and you’ll get mostly techies and people ideologically motivated to join….
and of course, most of the ideologically motivated ones will take bluesky as close enough… especially because it’s gotten big enough….

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16 points

Nightmare is massively overstating it. Mastodon’s UI/UX is neither a nightmare nor difficult to use. People who say this stuff leave me scratching my head.

In my view, the only legitimate criticism of Mastodon is about the lack of an algorithm that’s constantly bubbling content to the top, but that’s a valid design choice that many people prefer over the toxic algos over at X/Twitter.

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12 points

“Why can’t the algo find me better content?”

Motherfucker, it’s social media. You have to get social with people. Make a fucking friend, right?

Like, I fixed that shit by following George Takei and Mark Hamill and some reporters. The algo shouldn’t be finding things for you. You should be finding people.

Yeah, scratching my head just the same. My only problem with Mastodon is the same I had with StumbleUpon. It’s way too good about putting neat people and conversations in front of me and I feel bad not rising to the occasion more when I just want to deadbrain.

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8 points
*
Deleted by creator
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5 points

Bluesky has the USP of people being able to choose from multiple algorithms or even use multiple ones at the same time; and that certainly has resonated with a lot of people.

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3 points

Mastodon has an early days of Twitter feel to it.

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29 points

I think it is because Bluesky is simpler and easier to understand, as well as more familiar to use than mastodon. My favorite streamer said he is reluctant to move to the fediverse because of how different it is and the learning curve it has to it. I’m also, like, EXTREMELY new here and understand but once you start to get used to it, its easy to see how the fediverse and this “New Social” wave is far superior; the only hard part is getting “normies” to try it long enough to build enough familiarity to see that.

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10 points

Is it just the choosing-a-home-server thing, or something else?

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4 points

That and finding relevant things or anything at all sometimes; also I hear that people want to see everything like a friendica environment but don’t like the differences from the social medias they know already. I’m not sure if it is all valid or relevant because I am extremely new to the fediverse in general myself.

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2 points

I can’t speak for others, but when I joined I was definitely confused by instances, federated internet, moderation variances, and how to operate the various ~ 4 beta apps I downloaded at the same time.

I’m definitely not a tech normie, but it was still unfamiliar and I would never have migrated if I hadn’t been fed up with Reddit.

Most people don’t want to have to look up guides to figure out how a system works, they just want to download an app that their friends all use and move on with their day. Blocking instances you don’t like? Doing research to find a “home” instance? Ain’t nobody got time for that.

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4 points

It’s absolutely insane to hear that a streamer, of all types of people, said there’s a learning curve to it. Twitch is/was bewildering to me, just as a user, much less a streamer who would need to learn to configure and use OBS, etc. SMH.

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2 points

Very valid! This guy is like 38 though so I think he has gotten to the age where he has streamed for so long that it’s second nature but using a new social media that isn’t familiar enough seems like a hassle I guess? I feel those closer to my age, people in their 20’s, are either a bit intimidated by it or feel that there is a lack of people and content because it’s hard to find relevant “tweets” (or whatever the equivalent is called). That was my biggest thing when I first tried it a few years ago. I had this “so… what now…?” Feeling. It felt like the social was missing from it. I’m a little bit better at finding things to engage with; such as now, but I can somewhat remember the feeling I had that originally deterred me till now.

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22 points

bluesky has more funding for self-promotion.

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21 points

Because Bluesky has a marketing budget.

“We need to get away from these billionaire-ran social media sites! Ooh, a new billionaire-ran social media site!”

Same with the people who fled reddit and set their communities up on Discord…

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16 points
*

It has more features, and most people don’t know why Mastadon might be better. The average person doesn’t even know what a server is.

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6 points

Mastodon has far more features. What it doesn’t have is centralization.

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5 points

What features?

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15 points
*

Someone (probably bluesky) almost definitely spent a large sum of money on marketing/astroturfing for Bluesky

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13 points

Why is there this very loud chorus of people touting bluesky as alternative to twitter instead of the far superior Mastodon?

What makes you assume Mastodon is superior as a solution for the people who are flocking to Bluesky in droves?

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10 points

Considering the people pushing bluesky are the same ones usually praising government surveillance, I don’t trust it for one second. Smells like a psyop honeypot.

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1 point

Can you show me an example of that? Of the people pushing Bluesky also praising government surveillance?

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2 points

The Washington Post published a guide encouraging and teaching users how to migrate to the platform.

But don’t take my word for it. Jump on and look around. It’s as crowded with neoliberals as Truth Social is with Red MAGAs.

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8 points

Bluesky has jack dorsey, Twitter founder, in its DNA. Dorsey cheered musk on and they call each other friends. Bluesky is not the win people want it to be, it’s just a bandaid for your conscience with the same infected wound under the surface.

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7 points

You can’t pry people away from their AI algorithms

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3 points

It just feels more like Classic Twitter, and I can imagine some users like that vibe, despite Mastodon perhaps having the better technicals to keep social media federated. I use both and they have their audience. There are services that allow crossposting too, so I’ve got a BlueSky instance out there copying my Mastodon into that feed. Just to reach out.

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3 points

You just got the answer in the headline and you answered yourself.

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2 points

At least this provides more time for mastodon to become better for even wider use. Hopefully bluesky wont go to shit too soon.

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2 points

The sad fact is that I will follow the writers and creatives where they migrate to. William Gibson moved to Bluesky so did I.

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2 points

Chris Titus on YouTube had a decent break down of some the technical points he liked more about it.

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1 point

Your u/n pretty much sums up the delivery of your comment

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0 points

Mastodon’s interface creates a self-selection bias of more technically inclined people, and is too dissimilar to twitter for the average user to want to invest time in learning it.

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-3 points

Russian talking points already filtering down to the average user.

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-8 points

I keep hammering this point every time this is brought up, PR and NAMES matter! BlueSky is a nice non threatening name, Mastadon is an awful name for an app. It sounds way too close to mastrubate.

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3 points

Lol, I guess we all make different connections, but to me “mastodon” doesn’t sound like “masterbate” any more than “blue sky” sounds like “blue balls” ¯⁠\⁠_⁠(⁠ツ⁠)⁠_⁠/⁠¯

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67 points

Even having ceded control, they will go down in history as a legend. More positively viewed then the likes of… other social media founders.

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48 points

Will anyone be better than Tom?

Became everyone’s friend, became a millionaire, retired, (so far?) avoided falling off the right wing conspiracy cliff. Kind of just a quiet dude.

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9 points

Goals, for sure. The guy just does whatever he wants at this point. I think he’s doing photography now?

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4 points

I read this as pornography, and was like I can believe that, this is the type of thing super rich bastards do. But then I googled it and realized that I got it wrong.

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8 points

The foil of Notch?

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7 points

Notch was primed for that shit long before Minecraft took off. He posted early builds to 4chan, and was an active shitposter there.

The money just made him stop paying attention to anything else.

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6 points

Lmaooo. I forgot about Tom. Which shows how good of a tech founder he was. Memorable, but not in the headlines every other day.

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4 points
2 points

Weird man, had no idea that rupert murdock bought MySpace?

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1 point

Ja der Typ.

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0 points

(so far?) avoided falling off the right wing conspiracy cliff

People’s views typically tend to move slowly but what’s the current progressive position tends to move much faster, so if he’s young enough he’ll probably eventually fall off the progressive treadmill.

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63 points

Copy-pasting a comment from Aurich (Ars Staffer):

I set up the Ars Mastodon instance, and speaking as a relatively educated and technically savvy person I found it extremely confusing. And the more I learned later the more I don’t feel remotely bad about being confused, it’s honestly pretty messy.

I put Ars on the main instance, and I think it was the right call. We’re not going to maintain our own, at least at this time, and trusting a random instance that’s very difficult to vet is kinda sketchy.

We ran a guest editorial a while back that I think really clearly outlines the various issues:

https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2023/06/op-ed-why-the-great-twittermigration-didnt-quite-pan-out/

But you know, it’s really okay. It doesn’t have to be big, or popular or mainstream. As long as it survives and people like it? That’s good enough.

I think going into an era of balkanization of social isn’t the worst thing.

One of my complaints with Mastodon and similars is that you can’t search only for posts of a specific instance, or temporarily mute a single instance from your feed. There’s also some sort of “invisible wall” for Pleroma users (niche of a niche), as their public posts simply don’t show up in public Mastodon searches, though I don’t know whether that’s a problem with Mastodon or Pleroma.

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18 points

The Mastodon devs have received a grant to work on a search/visibility tool in 2025, so I definitely expect developments there

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17 points

Now I am wondering if there is a way to blast a message out to various micro blog platforms at once. Kind of like Ryan’s Woof idea from the office

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9 points

The app openvibe does that for Mastodon and Bluesky. You have to have an account on both, though. I think they’re adding in other services eventually.

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4 points

From my limited knowledge, you’d need one account on each instance and have all of them boosting the original post, which would make them more visible in their local instances.

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1 point

Wuphf!

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1 point

You can write a script to hit the API of multiple sites.

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