For Mastodon to 'work' in a way I'd enjoy, it would need a culture that it just does not have, and that has never emerged from any microblogging platform. The Fediverse as a whole is filled with enraged culture warriors, going out of their own way to be upset and exclude others.
I don't buy into the "Well, you can just grow YOUR OWN island!" spiel. I don't want to make an echo chamber, I want a healthy environment where people from disparate backgrounds can discuss a topic without "AS AN XYZ THIS IS BAD AND EVIL" being the key point of discussion. And I know for a fact that the large instances that operate in that way would immediately defederate for wrongthink.
> I want a healthy environment where people from disparate backgrounds can discuss a topic without "AS AN XYZ THIS IS BAD AND EVIL" being the key point of discussion.
I'm pretty sure that this qualifies as an "island" - one that you would need pretty harsh moderation to maintain too, not unlike HN itself. And of course you'd likely want to defederate from the largest instances, to get away from their toxic attitudes.
Just wait until people start realizing the privacy problems that Mastodon have unless you make your own instance.
You don't like the new twitter moderation? oh wellcome to Mastodon where a 12 year old can be a moderator of a instance. Global guidelines for moderation? No in Mastodon since each instance can have their own rules, 10/10 if you love being in echo chambers.
Created your account in a random instance? oh well maybe all your messages end in doxbin because the 14 year old who made the instance have access to all your messages.
I just can't get myself to see this as a genuine disadvantage.
On Mastodon you can choose the server to use (and thus the moderation). Sure, this means you can choose a server run by a 12-year-old who moderates poorly. But if you don't want that... don't pick that server!
The problem (no, ONE of the many problems) with creating good moderation is that different people have different definitions of what constitutes "good" moderation so it's impossible to satisfy all of them. If Mastodon allows the user to choose, that seems inherently better.
So let's say a lot of people think in that way and avoid instances managed by nameless accounts. Where does that leave us?
Well, maybe people will flock to the few instances ran by transparent, accountable and competent people. Maybe some apolitical non-profit? Maybe a group of passionate engineers with spare change?
In any case those instances would become pretty massive and the costs would skyrocket and......
well, we're at square one: few instances will have total control over your data, they will either inject ads or require payment to keep the servers running and nothing will have changed
.....or they would find an equilibrium that doesn't require massive centralization. Your analogy gets from point A to point be with a lot of empty speculation and hand waving.
My only assumption is that most people will choose an instance based on its reputation and that reputable instances will be far fewer than amateurish and unreliable ones. This is a very generous assumption and if we suppose people will choose even more randomly then the situation can only get bleaker.
On the other hand you hand waved everything I said without specifically refuting any points, so what does that make your reply?
You're making assumptions about collective behavior leading to a runaway process. Your second sentence isn't coherent "hand waved everything [you] said", but I'm guessing you mean to suggest I'm handwaving away what you said. I am not doing that. I am saying I see no reason to assume one possibility over an equally plausible alternative, especially just reasoning from speculation.
AFAIK fosstodon.org, social.librem.one and mastodon.technology (and likely more) have more or less similar reputation, so your argument is purely theoretical, not supported by the reality. They all have a reasonable number of interesting posts (i.e., users) if you look at some common tags.
It can totally not be a disadvantage for you, I'm not debating that, I even encourage others to explore Mastodon, there is probable a market for a product like Mastodon for a small subset of individuals. But that doesn't mean it isn't a disadvantage for most people.
In the context of this thread, the blog starts by justifying the authors choice by citing the laid off of the accessibility team, the alternative for the author is Mastodon which brings the complexity of selecting which instances you trust, even when you find a good instance, at some point the owners can shutdown it and you will need to migrate to another instance. If a rogue employee sent your messages to another person, they can be prosecuted, have fun trying to do that to the owner of the instance, yes, you can have your own instance which have a monetary/time cost. Using a commercial product? Oh I really hope you instance never angry the mob or they may go to your commercial provider to demand they drop you. Obviously this doesn't make the accessibility any worse /sarcasm.
Popular Mastodon instance?
* Moderation takes time, who is going to do that for free, everyday?
* Who is paying the infrastructure cost?
Mastodon
* Daily active users is 655k spread in multiples instances 1º
* Private owned instances, self moderate.
* User base of the extremes of the gaussian distribution, the extreme privacy oriented and the politically motivated.
* User base is a subset that will split into another few subsets, high tendency to form echo chambers.
* Difficult to scale, closed system with rapidly increasing entropy (no accountability, highly susceptible to the instance owner desires (affected by time))
* Hard to attract people with a big following social media since the user base is small and the opportunity to grow is very small but the leak of followers to other users with small following base is high. (High cost/Low return)
I love that Mastodon exist, that it brings to the market different types of social media experiences, at the end, the market (people) will choose what is the more efficient version.
I personally doesn't use Twitter or Mastodon, I use rss with a CA instance of nitter in a RSS reader to check what a few people in the data science space tweet and my personal opinion is that the author is motivated by his political beliefs instead of the accessibility or quality of the product Twitter.
I don't buy into the "Well, you can just grow YOUR OWN island!" spiel. I don't want to make an echo chamber, I want a healthy environment where people from disparate backgrounds can discuss a topic without "AS AN XYZ THIS IS BAD AND EVIL" being the key point of discussion. And I know for a fact that the large instances that operate in that way would immediately defederate for wrongthink.