There's a narrative that Mastodon is "losing users". Okay, what do the actual numbers say?
According to this MAU chart, active users has been consistent -- albeit volatile.
Activity is based on how foolish Elon Musk is being at any given moment.
Mastodon usage spikes whenever people perceive Twitter as dying.
Prior to November, there's been spikes. You can actually see this in April/May.
What's different this time is that people are staying.
What people don't talk about *enough* is local posts.
For months, this was consistent with a slight incline upwards.
Then at the tail end of December, there's been a big increase.
This implies that while MAU has taken a dip, more users are posting than in November.
In reality, this is more encouraging to me than MAU because it means more people are *posting* instead of merely *lurking*.
But wait! There's more!
Back in November, there were 3,644 Mastodon nodes.
Right now in January, there are 11,732 nodes.
That means Mastodon has grown 3.22x since November when we consider nodes.
By the way, data on the-federation.info is quite conservative.
Other sites, like fediverse.observer, show that MAU continues to rise.
Two other charts from fediverse.observer showing Average Mastodon Posts Per Month and Average Mastodon Comments Per Month.
Again, it's an upward trajectory.
Now some people might say, "So what about these stats? Social media is not about metrics!"
And they're right.
However, what's important to me is the *truth*.
Right now, the media is spreading a narrative about Mastodon losing momentum.
The more suitable narrative is that Elon Musk hasn't recently done anything stupid to spur Mastodon sign-ups.
But there's many things that can change: outages, high-profile hacks, mass bannings, etc.
To me, what's more interesting about Mastodon sign-ups is how many people *this time* have decided to stay and make the Fediverse their home.
As I've said, there's been spikes in sign-ups before.
Most of the time, people don't stay -- they head back to Twitter.
This time, many of them aren't heading back.
@atomicpoet I'm disappointed more folks I really like cannot kick the habit at the bird site but hopefully over time that changes.
It's people like you that make people like me stay 🍺
I'm one of them.
I keep checking the bird site but am gradually checking it less. I much prefer this one. One thing that keeps me going back is the sense the I am more likely to find breaking news faster and from a larger number of sources over there.
@morganalafee @nastynana16 @atomicpoet need an “over there” recruiting campaign…with a catchy tune…
Let’s see…
Over there…over there…
Over there, over there
Send the word, send the word over there
That the Yanks are coming
The Yanks are coming
The drums rum tumming everywhere
So prepare, say a prayer
Send the word, send the word to beware
We'll be over, we're coming over
And we won't come back till it's over, over there
…and without a swear word…
@morganalafee @andymatisz @atomicpoet
At the period of the song, WWI, the English referred to Americans as "Yanks." Also during WWII. Not sure if they call us that any more.
@nastynana16 @morganalafee @atomicpoet that song gives chills
A warning
Resolve
A real “fix it” attitude!
It's interesting how different people view social media.
I was moving away from twitter early last year, and looking for alternatives that didn't have advertising, or forced "promoted" posts.
The advertising was getting to the point of being obnoxious, on every thread etc, block one and 3 more pop up.
It had become like a lot of games, (I get that ads pay the bills for game devs etc), ads have become so obnoxious the games become unplayable, and most of the time it's just greed, not necessity. Same with SM platforms like twitter, it was just greed in the end.
@atomicpoet ah found it. It’s incremented at login
@atomicpoet One of the things that strikes me that people overlook is that it's perfectly normal for people to bounce between social networks and may not spent equal amounts of time on each of them, and with people join a new network it takes time to adjust to it and figure out how to make it work for you.
I joined in May, but my behavior here was pretty intermittent with my posting and checking in because I only knew one person regularly posting here. It took time to feel comfortable and connect with other people. I didn't really start posting regularly til late October/early November.
It's way too soon to say that it's losing momentum.
I came here to drop this link with a nice graph
https://infosec.exchange/@mastodonuser[email protected]/109701603086879601
Attached: 1 image 9,172,978 accounts +712 in the last hour +10,256 in the last day +79,548 in the last week
@AlexGizis @atomicpoet I think we all did. I created a bump of 6 or so when I joined (back in 2017) which then settled to 1.
I think there is an entire science of Fediverse statistics that hasn't actually been properly figured out at this point.
@atomicpoet The active community is definitely much larger than before November!
On the other hand, MAUs HAVE steadily declined since early December. Interested to see where things bottom out. https://mastodon.matthauger.com/@mastodonActiveUsers/109705634893541939
Attached: 2 images Active Mastodon user count for Tuesday, January 17, 2023: 1,616,402 (down 28,074 since yesterday). #statistics #mastodon
@matt That's because Mastodon counts you as an active user the moment you create an account.
And of course, there was a big spike in sign-ups during December.
What's more important is posts and comments. That has gone up since December.
Chris Trottier
Dave
Looking for explanations…
Focally Unhinged
Andy Teaszer Fella
MoveFastAndFixThings
Sir Rochard 'Dock' Bunson
0ddfactory
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🏳️🌈 Lucy Wildboots 
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I use 
Army Girl
nikkiana
𝔻𝕠𝕞𝕚𝕟𝕚𝕔.𝕥𝕖𝕔𝕙
@infosec_jcp 🐈🃏 done differently
tsadilas
Comrade Pangloss 🫖🥃
Michał "rysiek" Woźniak · 🇺🇦
Alex Gizis
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Deus
don Elías (como los buses) 🥨
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JustSaying