When you refer to Musk's site, you should call it "Saudi-funded Twitter" just for the sake of consistency. Bonus: You'd be 4x more accurate than his claim that NPR, which gets about 1% of its money from taxpayers (well, their grandchildren), is "government funded".
(Corrected to fix Saudi ratio; Qatar also owns a chunk of Twitter, so Middle Eastern oil sellers hold about 5% of the shares together.)
@bmaz Surprised to hear you say that when, from my experience, that's not correct.
I have (had) 3x the followers there and 10x the engagement -- real, valuable engagement -- here.
@bmaz There are or will be client software that does what you want -- and there's a fair amount of pressure building on the "overlords" to accommodate more functionality.
To compare these people to Musk is way, way, way over the top.
@dangillmor @bmaz I think the original decision not to have quote tweets was an arrogant one but it also sounds like one that may soon be reversed.
The rest is just the growing pains of a system suddenly handling a lot of growth, plus the time it takes to iterate new features. Not arrogance.
I also disagree that it's too underdeveloped to be used. The core functionality is there and probably more robust than Twitter now is. Plus with a lot more potential than a proprietary platform would have.
@bmaz Every word of that last sentence applies to Twitter, not Mastodon.
Mastodon, and the protocols it uses, are open source. Anyone can create client software that'll do whatever you want. If that isn't happening fast enough for you, so be it.
But I'm truly baffled at your anger toward people who have been doing this mostly as volunteers, not profiteers, nor with political motives other than offering an alternative to corporate centralization. @cathygellis
@bmaz @dangillmor It isn't a shit "site"'; it is a community of interested people helping others communicate with each other. THAT'S what gets the reverence.
And that's why it sounds absolutely shocking to Dan and me to hear such abuse heaped upon it. It's EXACTLY what we need more of in this world, not less. And already pretty amazing, especially as a community effort but even objectively.
@bmaz @dangillmor We're getting a ton of value from the labor and subsidization provided by a whole bunch of strangers. And not paying a CENT for it.
Who the fuck are we to gripe that it isn't more perfect yet? It is STILL incredibly valuable, and, yes, increasingly competitive with if not even more valuable than Musk's site, which he keeps steadily ruining.
@cathygellis @dangillmor @bmaz
It feels like some of the issues (other than quote tweet) are the apps people use, rather than the service itself.
Tapbots’ Ivory feels more like a proper native client with all the things I’d expect and a handful of small, welcome surprises I didn’t.
@bmaz @cathygellis @dangillmor
Tapbots is the name of one of the more well-known independent iOS app studios.
Ivory is their new app for Mastadon.
I’m sorry Google is hard for you.
@bmaz @alttag @cathygellis @dangillmor
bmaz, if you hate it here so much then it begs the question: Why are you here?
I could no longer stand Musk's ego and slow demolition of Twitter so I left. I don't post there anymore nor visit it, to the point where if a link is to Twitter I simply don't click on it.
Dan Gillmor
bmaz
Cathy Gellis
Tom
Air_Cooled_Nut