It's not that people aren't sticking around Mastodon.
There's more active users now than there were in September. Back then, there were only ~50,000 active users per month on mastodon.social.
It's that a certain segment of registrations were done either in protest, or as a Plan "B" if the Plan "A" (Twitter continues to be a going concern) fails.
That said, if Mastodon is seen merely as a Twitter alternative it will fail.
It's not a Twitter alternative.
I do believe Twitter is dying.
It's just that it takes a long time for social networks to die.
The first step in killing a social network is killing the culture around it.
Twitter's culture is still alive, but it has cancer.
Since October, the most exciting thing about Mastodon is that the tech has now been validated.
App developers are now actively developing apps for Mastodon and the Fediverse.
Better apps are coming. And more too.
Even designers are getting excited about custom CSS themes.
Mastodon is currently adding ~1 million new users per month.
Sign ups might slow down.
But that means by end of 2023, there will likely be 15-20 million Mastodon users.
This isn't even counting the rest of the Fediverse.
Social networks are not just about how many people use it, but *who* uses it.
Part of Twitter's appeal was that you could directly talk to CEOs, politicians, and celebrities.
Twitter has always been smaller than Facebook, but it was more impactful on a per capita basis because of this.
What I'm noticing is that people who actively build technology have moved en masse to the Fediverse—that has repercussions.
@atomicpoet my worry is that every time a new social network appears it fractures our online society into more and more isolated echo chambers
By that I mean we lose more and more borderline racist/fascist/nationalist people who could possibly be steered away from that bullshit because they're following a group they kind of identify with
I've used overlapping interest in video games or sports to find common ground and maybe change a mind - but it gets harder and harder with each migration
@atomicpoet I wouldn't say Nazis are taking over the platform - unless you know the ideology of some significant majority of twitter developers.
Their voice has been amplified and supported by new management, however with as shocking as it is, I would not be surprised to see it diminish as the bottom line becomes more of a motivator (pure speculation by me).
All that said, my point was speaking to the cost of moving on from the status quo social media platform to a potential next
@atomicpoet sure, I can concede that - it really wasn't a big part of my point
I was more interested as to whether Mastodon might serve as a "next social media platform" that could prove to be fragment-proof.
Instead of users splintering into 10 difference platforms, I could see the nature of this Fediverse allowing for local echo chambers that are united through the Federated timeline.
And with mastodon being API first and dev friendly, we could see some incredible paths of communication
@atomicpoet I understand, I didn't mean to be such an abrasive jerk there so my apologies, I'm just fairly new to mastodon's platform (despite my create date), and don't know *why* having de-centralization would help prevent my concerns.
I think ultimately I'd have to leave mastodon.social and find another smaller more flexible home, or spin up my own instance to truly be able to communicate with all other instances (eg. could Eugen block an entire instance so I couldn't @ them from .social)?
@Smokinjoe De-centralization won't prevent echo chambers. But it will deny them oxygen.
And yes, Eugen does block entire instances.
Having your own instance may help you communicate with more instances but it will also force you to moderate against bad actors.
> De-centralization won't prevent echo chambers. But it will deny them oxygen.
That makes sense, and I guess that's kinda what I'd be hoping for.
I guess the issue is that - could these extreme instances form their own Federated feed?
Chris Trottier
joe