Howard RheingoldNov 17, 2022
One of my favorite Engelbart sayings might relate to the "Mastodon is too confusing to learn" claim. Paraphrasing, he said that if ease of use was the ultimate aim for a tool, the bicycle would never have evolved beyond the tricycle. #technology
Show threadMarcia ConnerNov 17, 2022
@hrheingold
I'm one of the lucky souls who saw you on stage at Doug's big anniversary bash at Stanford. I was working on community (at PeopleSoft) so had read all you'd written by then & Doug's 1950s paper & thought it doesn't get much better than this. Simpler, though, let's hope so. Just not simpler than makes sense. Thanks for introducing a new crowd to the bicycle metaphor.
@harold
Show threadHoward RheingoldNov 17, 2022
@marciamarcia @harold Hi Marcia! The bicycle metaphor occurred to me as I saw people complain about the complexity of getting on board Mastodon
Show threadMarcia Conner
@hrheingold
This is where Facebook did do something useful, perhaps, convince people their mothers could join in the online conversation. There aren't enough baby pictures for my aging mom to have any interest here so that's ok, and Twitter was never the rage for people looking for ease. Over time there might be some parts of the Fediverse designed for an easy entry in.
@harold
Nov 18, 2022 at 12:01amWeb