Garbage article from MOU (makeuseof.com).
Too many media outlets dogpile on existing narratives, and opt for "think pieces" instead of actual reporting of facts.
Here's the FACTS about Mastodon:
1. In Sept 2022, only ~11,000 accounts were registered on Mastodon
2. In January 2023, ~180,000 accounts were registered
3. This week, ~120,000 accounts were registered
But let's also consider the matter of "active users"...
What is an "active" user, specifically "monthly active user" (a.k.a., MAUs).
It's anyone who a service can perceive as interacting with an account.
Sign-ups make a user "active". Logins likewise make a user "active".
No website ever has a 100% retention in activity after sign-ups.
Between Oct-Dec 2022, ~4 million people signed up for Mastodon. It was an exceptional moment.
How many accounts RETAINED their activity?
~2.7 million accounts
@atomicpoet
Isn't MAU a vanity metric?
I could see value in it if I had a positive attitude to behaviour based advertising (I don't).
But other than that it's not of much use.
Rather interesting to compare profiles with the share of bots on an instance.
Or looking into inboxes and outboxes to get a sense of interaction. Because that's where human reactions happen.
@RyunoKi @fediversenews It is! And yet, this is the number that the Guardian and others keep talking about whenever they say people are "fleeing" Mastodon.
Most people don't look at the actual numbers, just the media narrative.
Chris Trottier
Ryuno-Ki