Mike Masnick ✅Dec 21, 2022
I wrote about how I cannot understand why anyone is interested in joining a new centralized social media platform when we now have a great opportunity to move to protocols instead of platforms. https://www.techdirt.com/2022/12/21/why-would-anyone-use-another-centralized-social-media-service-after-this/
Why Would Anyone Use Another Centralized Social Media Service After This?

So, it’s been quite a year for legacy, centralized social media — and all without any really big change to the laws that govern it (yet — the EU’s are coming into force shortly, but pos…

Techdirt
Show threadOfficer-involved poopingDec 21, 2022

@mmasnick I firmly believe the answer is in the acculturation that massive platforms have fostered. Many people join services not to slowly and carefully cultivate a highly relevant and informative content stream - they want a quickly assembled deluge of distracting and emotionally engaging crap. The blog and RSS paradigm is not the dominant platform.

To that end IMHO, for mastodon or similar to challenge the big players, discovery needs to be optimized in ways we haven't seen before.

Show threadKenobitDec 21, 2022
@AKPAB @mmasnick I think taking back the discovery of content is crucial and I don't think it's an impossible cultural battle, seeing how many people are realizing the damage of instagram/tiktok feeds.
Show threadMero DavisDec 22, 2022

@kenobit @AKPAB @mmasnick but better discovery would mean algorithmic recommendations, something that Mastodon doesn't do

From mastodon.help:

> On every timeline the posts are shown in chronological order. This means that no algorythm, number of stars or other factors will influence the number of times you will see a post. A post can be boosted (“retweeted”) but that’s it.

Show threadOfficer-involved pooping

@ormax3 I think "better discovery" can mean a lot more than algorithms. Follow fridays were a discovery tool, as are the current massive follow lists I'm seeing some places. Given the open API nature of mastodon, it means there's opportunities for people to make outside tools as well, that can function however their creator or community desires.

I only mentioned this because I do think that it can feel lonely and dry joining mastodon, if you don't have any reference points.

Dec 22, 2022 at 10:01pmWeb