Mastodawn

Chris Trottier Dec 2, 2022

There's misinformation floating around about Mastodon. Clarifying things:

1. Mastodon doesn't rely on volunteers. It's a registered non-profit that employs people. Kind of like how Wikipedia and Mozilla are non-profits that employs people.
2. Many instances are run by volunteers but not all.
3. Mastodon is just one part of the Fediverse. Benefits of decentralization is that anyone can build on open protocols.
4. Mastodon is big, but Flickr and Tumbler are bigger -- they're joining the Fediverse

hopeless wanderer Dec 3, 2022

@atomicpoet tumblr is adding mastodon interoperability?

Holy shit, that might be a straight up turning point for this network

Chris Trottier Dec 3, 2022

@revolcom Correction: Tumblr is adding support for ActivityPub, which presumably will interoperate with Mastodon.

Mastodon is one part of the Fediverse.

hopeless wanderer Dec 3, 2022

@atomicpoet well yeah, was simply using shorthands.

But would that make tumblr one giant "corporate" mastodon server? Because if mastodon wants to thrive it will need a big ass server that could handle all the normies

Chris Trottier Dec 3, 2022

@revolcom Who knows! Automattic owns Tumblr, and they're well known for WordPress -- which is usually self-hosted.

So perhaps this means in the future: Tumblr will be federated with many self-hosted instances.

hopeless wanderer Dec 3, 2022

@atomicpoet damn i'm so out of the loop, didn't know the WordPress guys had bought tumblr. But considering automatic themselves host WordPress blogs as well i'm guessing they'll probably host tumblr as well which could bring a large enough instance that could host millions, and make it user friendly enough to make mastodon competitive with Twitter

Chris Trottier Dec 3, 2022

@revolcom I'll let you in on something. When it comes to persistence and longevity, Mastodon already outcompetes Twitter.

hopeless wanderer Dec 3, 2022

@atomicpoet yeah but hosting capacity and user friendliness? You're gonna need a server that can host at least 300 million users

Chris Trottier Dec 3, 2022

@revolcom Oh, so you're a recentralist. Do you realize that just recreates tech monopolies?

hopeless wanderer Dec 3, 2022

@atomicpoet i just think its inevitable tbh. For us techies and weirdos this kind of decentralization is fun and good. But for most normies they just want a quick and easy gmail account

Chris Trottier Dec 3, 2022

@revolcom Then why are you literally here?

hopeless wanderer Dec 3, 2022

@atomicpoet because i am a weirdo, lol

And also elon just banned me because i said someone aught to slap kanye, lol

Chris Trottier Dec 3, 2022

@revolcom Then you probably understand the problems with centralization. Ergo, we need to do the opposite and decentralize.

Some things shouldn't be quick and easy.

hopeless wanderer

@atomicpoet i completely understand it, which is why i support mastodon.
But i just think that in the end there will come some sort of major mastodon instance, commercially owned, used for hosting the majority of not tech savy users. For the normies.

We'll still have our own independent instances though, obviously

Chris Trottier Dec 3, 2022

@revolcom Okay, I'm going to be real here.

I think referring to folks as "normies" demonstrates contempt.

So-called "normies" do not exist.

Instead, everyone has a pain point and needs a solution to alleviate it.

I do not believe "scale" addresses a pain point.

Scale only solves one problem: ROI for VCs.

Because ActivityPub is an open protocol, this is not a problem.

Because the Fediverse is *many* protocols, not even ActivityPub can centralize.

By the way, P2P CDNs are coming!

Steve White Dec 3, 2022

@revolcom @atomicpoet

For me, "Normies" only means "people who have better things to do with their time than follow ever internet meme and "war". It's more critical of us highly online types than "Normies".

hopeless wanderer Dec 3, 2022

@stwhite @atomicpoet
Exactly, i am envious of them often, considering they don't have the same anxieties that i do, lol

Steve White Dec 3, 2022

@revolcom @atomicpoet
if they don't know the latest internet insanity they are making good choices.

hopeless wanderer Dec 3, 2022

@stwhite @atomicpoet
Yeah i don't think i'll explain the latest kanye madness to my mom, lol

Chris Trottier Dec 3, 2022

@stwhite @revolcom I personally put "normie" in the same category as "average user".

There is no "average user".

Even someone who has "better things" to do probably has specific pains that are not average.

Steve White Dec 3, 2022

@atomicpoet @revolcom

I suppose I could see why you'd consider that negative. Certainly not what I mean by it, though.

LinaB Dec 3, 2022

@atomicpoet @revolcom thank you for saying that. I was going to protest as a senior/old lady
This shows how underestimated we are.

Groschi Dec 3, 2022

@revolcom @atomicpoet Well i don't see a major problem either way, wether tumblr will become a giant instance or not... Like, gmail is probably the largest email provider but i still have the choice to use a different service or run my own server.

Regarding Automattic and whatever model tumblr will run on in the future: Possibly both as an ad-supported or freemium service and as a self-hosted solution, although i don't really see much of a point in the latter option as there's already plenty of choice out there.

They've done both things already with wordpress though. There's both the Wordpress CMS for folks who like to self-host and the freemium wordpress[dot]com service for those who prefer not to. These things can coexist perfectly fine.

Chris Trottier Dec 3, 2022

@groschi @revolcom I definitely have a problem with Gmail, and there's a reason I'm looking at self-hosting options.

Groschi Dec 3, 2022

@atomicpoet @revolcom Yeah but i don't have to use it. If i have concerns "federating" with them (e.g. for data privacy reasons), i can still choose to "defederate" them, at least if i'm running my own email server.

Groschi Dec 3, 2022

@atomicpoet @revolcom Like who i'm federating with on the fediverse, this will always involve some kind of risk/reward assessment.

hopeless wanderer Dec 3, 2022

@groschi @atomicpoet exactly i don't fear that this service will become "recentralized", but i do think one commercial instance will become the largest

tsadilas Dec 3, 2022

@groschi @revolcom @atomicpoet well gmail is a problem cause if you self host email they usually send you to spam. The parallel is tumbrl silencing mastodon serves.