With respect to @gruber, the best Mastodon app is on Android.
That app is Fedilab.
That's because Fedlab is not a mere Mastodon app but a Fediverse app.
Why is this important?
Because a basic premise of the Fediverse is that apps should talk to each other.
And thus, a *great* client should be able to talk, not just to Mastodon servers, but Pleroma, Pixelfed, Peertube, and Friendica too.
Just like web browsers interact with diverse websites, a Mastodon client should talk to diverse servers.
Now @gruber may say, "Mastodon is the 800 lb. gorilla in the Fediverse ecosystem."
Maybe, but it's nowhere near as dominant as many believe.
According to fediverse.oberserver, there are 21,723 Fediverse instances -- of which there are 11,944 instances.
That means there are 9,779 instances that are *not* Mastodon.
By ignoring all those non-Mastodon instances, 3rd party client devs are ignoring a huge amount of potential in the Fediverse.
Further, devs like @gruber over-estimate the dominance of Mastodon.
Certainly, in terms of the Fediverse, Mastodon is huge.
But PeerTube and Pixelfed are nothing to sneeze at either.
PeerTube has 306,337 users. That's not as many as Mastodon.
But PeerTube's userbase isn't anything to sneeze at either.
What's more, just like Mastodon, PeerTube could grow. Especially if a black swan event happens with YouTube -- which is feasible!
Another thing @gruber perhaps doesn't consider is that Mastodon isn't the only Fediverse platform that's growing.
Pixelfed more than doubled it's userbase during the past year.
* Feb 2022: 73,100 users
* Feb 2023: 153,486 users
This is despite the fact that there was no Instagram migration!
So why are so many mobile devs just ignoring Pixelfed?
Here's a chart that shows the growth of Pixelfed over the past year.
A further consideration for @gruber: Mastodon's dominance of the Fediverse is unlikely to last forever.
Tumblr is joining. So is Flickr. Post even said they will be integrating ActivityPub.
How well will these apps be playing with the rest of the Fediverse? I don't know.
But the argument that Mastodon should be the primary consideration because it is the largest won't even be true in 2023.
Here's a dose of sobriety for everyone who thinks "Fediverse = Mastodon".
Last I checked 44% of the web runs on WordPress.
What happens if even a fraction of these websites install the ActivityPub plug-in?
Suddenly, WordPress becomes the dominant Fediverse platform.
People aren't even considering future black swan events with Big Social.
What if TikTok gets banned? What if Google shuts down YouTube? What if Meta so royally screws up Instagram that users suddenly leave?
I hesitate to even call these "black swan" events because they're actually more likely than not.
Well, if these events happen, more people will migrate to the Fediverse.
But this time, they probably won't be using Mastodon.
@abid A YouTube user will probably migrate to PeerTube.
An Instagram user will probably migrate to Pixelfed.
A Reddit user will probably migrate to Lemmy.
So on and so forth.
As for your last question, it is exceedingly unlikely that Big Social will implement ActivityPub because their reason to exist is to control the network effect.
Chris Trottier
Abid Nevesinjac