Justin Searls

I've been jokingly calling Mastodon "Nicorette for Twitter". It looks and feels like Twitter except it's designed to be unengaging and not very interesting so within a few months most users fall off and stop using it.

It's a social media cessation tool.

May 26, 2023 at 4:11pmWeb
Show threadJesseMay 26, 2023
@searls I wish
Show threadlj·rkMay 27, 2023

@misc @searls Same. I'm totally spending too much time here, more than ever on Birdsite.

I don't think the original statement can be said in that broad way. Idk why it doesn't work for some, maybe it's a different crows, different engagement, idk. But it ain't generally "less fun" or engaging

Show threadolivierlacanMay 26, 2023

@searls or maybe you’re not be following (enough) people that engage *you*?

Twitter hid a lot of that.

My time here has been relaxing, engaging on my terms, at first limited, but now very reminiscent of Twitter before the trending topics and algo-timeline-gaming ruled all.

Took effort and patience for sure, just like it did then. And clearly, most people don’t care enough to seek out and assemble a timeline worth checking. It’s slow, like RSS. That’s obviously why Twitter went mainstream.

Show threadNoah GibbsMay 26, 2023

@olivierlacan @searls I've been calling it Twitter Methadone, for pretty much the same reason.

There's conversation, sure, but it's definitely not the same in terms of engagement.

I don't think it's that my timeline is bad. I think that literally *is* the feature. Certainly it is for me.

Show threadJustin SearlsMay 26, 2023
@olivierlacan yeah, I just don't think it's particularly good software. I'd honestly rather just RSS subscribe to the handful of accounts I care about than use a Twitter clone that's intentionally bad at all the the things that made Twitter fun and addictive to use. I am glad to have quit Twitter for my own sake, but that doesn't mean I need a Diet Twitter in my life either
Show threadDave Copeland May 26, 2023
@searls @olivierlacan I feel like you must use twitter in a much different way then I have. Ivory + Mastodon has been so much like early twitter. I do miss quote tweets, but I never ever searched for anything on twitter ( can't really think of a reason to even now ) and mostly consumed it as a stream of random thoughts from people I was interested in hear from that I could interact with / share my own thoughts in a low-friction environment. That's what Mastodon is for me at least
Show threadJustin SearlsMay 26, 2023

@davetron5000 @olivierlacan my Twitter usage from 2009-2022:

70% - checking notifications
29% - search (for various projects, companies/accounts, URLs to recent work).
1% - home timeline before clicking one of the above

ActivityPub as implemented means a huge chunk of engagement *never* surfaces to me in any view and engagement from other instances is often hours-delayed. Search is of course also functionally impossible.

Twitter was only ever useful for being real-time, and Mastodon isn't

Show threadDave Copeland May 26, 2023

@searls @olivierlacan I didn't realize notifications were so delayed - maybe I don't get enough to notice, but they seem real-enough-time for (though probably all from my home host?). Twitter DMs were super flaky for me - I'd get an email that I had one and then days would go by before it would be on the website. But I never used the twitter app so maybe that was it?

But yeah, you use it much different so I can imagine it's not great for your use case

Show threadJustin SearlsMay 26, 2023
@davetron5000 @olivierlacan yes, the fact that Mastodon isn't appropriate for real-time coverage is why sports Twitter, horserace politics Twitter, and reality TV Twitter have not found a reason to move here
Show threadKris NuttycombeMay 26, 2023

@searls That's fascinating as a usage pattern. I suppose that makes sense if you have a high level of interaction / large follower count. Totally unlike how I used Twitter though - I chose my follows really carefully to get an digestibly-sized stream of high-quality content and would unfollow ruthlessly to keep it that way. I always hated the way the algorithmic timeline polluted my high quality stream, and turned it off over and over and over again. I could tell instantly when I'd been switched to it without my consent.

So for me, the experience here on Mastodon is a lot like my *best* experience on Twitter.

Show threadCaleb Hearth May 27, 2023
@olivierlacan @searls I can hardly keep up with my timeline. Strange that we have such different experiences.
Show threadolivierlacanMay 27, 2023
@caleb @searls Same. I don’t even try.
Show threadJustin SearlsMay 27, 2023
@olivierlacan @caleb I didn't say it's hard to keep up with my timeline, though. My point has always been that I don't want to. I used Twitter to share my work and promote it, and generally not to consume other people's content
Show threadCaleb Hearth May 27, 2023
@searls @olivierlacan gotcha, misunderstood
Show threadJustin SearlsMay 27, 2023

@caleb @olivierlacan right, the value I derive from social platforms is *other people's* engagement, not my own. Platform features that spread content people find engaging is how my work has been discovered since 2009, and Mastodon has so far proven to be very very bad at it.

As a result of tech's Twitter exodus, I'm left without a great place to share my work where it'll actually be seen nearly as widely as it has been in the past, and so my job has become a lot harder since November.

Show threadCaleb Hearth May 27, 2023
@searls @olivierlacan I can see how the fediverse would not work well for that use case.
Show threadDamaxMay 27, 2023
@searls @caleb @olivierlacan mastodon doesn’t force content to us and I would prefer to keep it this way. Sharing toots helps a lot to discover new people. Being on the ruby.social instance, I can look at all toots of the instance that is more likely to share Ruby related content.
Show threadSteven HarmanMay 27, 2023
@searls as @laribee said many years ago, Twitter is a write only medium.
Show threadClaudio Zizza 🦜May 26, 2023
@searls Or it depends how many of the Twitter people you'd followed or where they followed you also switched to Mastodon. Starting from zero isn't very motivating, but everyone started with no followers at one time.
Show threadNoah GibbsMay 26, 2023
@SenseException @searls He's at 3K followers at this point. If he needs more than that, that's a problem with the platform.
Show threadClaudio Zizza 🦜May 26, 2023
@codefolio @searls Not the number itself, but the people who always make you come back to the social media platform of choice.
Show threadJeff RamesMay 28, 2023
@searls definitely checks out for me.