Mastodon was originally built to be a tool for conversations, not a broadcasting tool.
Twitter mostly is a broadcasting tool (build your own audience/echo chamber) and it looks like people are now missing some of these features in Mastodon.
What are your thoughts?
@bitbraindev Moving here is like re-creating an actual social network of people. I'm not "posting" into a blank void. I'm writing words to people, and for the most part they respond rather than just third-party commenters. So yeah... it works!
I think some of the people moving over are trying to figure out what the fediverse is good for. The only thing I really "miss" so far is the lack of freeform searching (I'll cope), and I haven't figured out how to read a federated site's local timeline (pretty sure it's possible).
@bitbraindev After finding a cosy instance and settling in I myself never want to sign up for a centralised/commercial social network ever again.
That aspect of Twitter breeds a lot of what made it toxic. Clout chasing culture, engagement farm, ragebaiting, monetisation of attention and dissent...
I think we need to keep that sort of mindset away from Mastodon if we want to keep the healthier environment we have
@VileLasagna one could even argue that the concept of "favourites" is not really needed.
"As an artist - how am I supposed to know people like my work?"
People will follow you if they like your stuff. Removing favourites would completely eliminate that Clout chasing aspect from Mastodon, too (although, it is not as easy to 'farm' likes on here)
@bitbraindev The numbers being private negate a lot of that, and there being no algorithmically propelled content does the rest.
I DO like the feature for both its uses though, saving it to a personal list which you may want to revisit later as well as a "read receipt". Sometimes you just want to digitally "nod in response" without having anything else to add and this does the trick of bridging the asynchronous void
@bitbraindev I don't want broadcast features or the culture/behaviors they incentivize. If I follow someone it's because I want to see their stuff. If I don't I trust the people I follow to boost cool stuff.
I'm way more afraid of being inundated with garbage than I am of missing cool stuff. There is already too much cool stuff. What I want is less garbage.
@bitbraindev
Regardless what it's meant for, I like this better.
A downside to Twitter's model is that those with little reach are drowned out by the snowball effect of those who do, unless they suddenly go viral. I don't want to go viral, and I don't want to be an e-celeb. But I DO want my posts to be seen by people who'd find them interesting.
More people have found me in about three days of earnestly using Mastodon than in years of posting on Twitter combined.
@bitbraindev I definitely get a message board vibe from Mastodon which isn't a bad thing.
But it does feel like it would be harder to get eyes on projects you'd like to share or promote to an "audience". Not sure if that's a good or bad thing. Probably depends on what someone is trying to use Mastodon for.
@bitbraindev literally going to pitch a Twitter replacement to VCs cause, why not? I like broadcast stuff, I like seeing tons of different people's stuff, I like having a discovery algorithm to find me stuff. All the things these "Twitter replacements" claim are bad are why people used Twitter, they'll all fail to replace it.
I may as well try it myself.
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