Fred
Ars TechnicaOp-ed: Why the great #TwitterMigration didn’t quite pan out
The flight from Musk's Twitter to the "free" fediverse never really took off.
Sachin Ganpat@arstechnica This is really meta posting on @Mastodon
ferricoxide@essgee @arstechnica @Mastodon
Joys of open APIs is that it makes it trivially to dupe-post into any given service that has open APIs (part of why Twitter and Reddit were moving to restrict their APIs: makes it harder for content-authors to multi-post and, at least notionally, forces them to choose the one site they want to post on).
Joys of open APIs is that it makes it trivially to dupe-post into any given service that has open APIs (part of why Twitter and Reddit were moving to restrict their APIs: makes it harder for content-authors to multi-post and, at least notionally, forces them to choose the one site they want to post on).
BoneHouseWasps🔶🇬🇧🇪🇺@arstechnica I cgaf. Migrated and happy.
Robert Petersen 
0xC0DEC0DE07EA@Sonikku @arstechnica yup, missing some tweeps, but it’s still just better here.
Jesse
addie@arstechnica lots of valid points
Chris FergusonI think the biggest thing to me is that the fediverse is like the normal web. Islands. Websites. Each with their own sizes, costs, and communities. Sometimes people go to similar websites and belong to multiple different communities. That's the way the web has always worked. So, I don't think mass adoption should be the goal. The lack of anything besides "charity" funding is stopping instances from growing too big and becoming big business. I think that's okay too.
@ChrisFerguson @arstechnica I agree with this. But for “social media” the critical mass doesn’t expect nor want that anymore
dr.nixon@ChrisFerguson @EposVox @arstechnica good point, the web has been condensed into major silos for so long that many people never experienced it when it was wide open, everyone had their own site, and you actually had to poke around to see what was there. It wasn’t efficient, or even very user friendly, but it also wasn’t controlled by opinionated billionaires.
Pink Pants@EposVox @arstechnica yep, it’s a really good article! Hope people read it with open minds
billothekid2@PinkPants
While I agree on some points, the whole thing seems a bit too sensationalist and angry IMHO.
@EposVox @arstechnica
While I agree on some points, the whole thing seems a bit too sensationalist and angry IMHO.
@EposVox @arstechnica
@billothekid2 @PinkPants @arstechnica the more the federation falls apart with everyone defederating each other and trying to all stop Meta (which would mean more fedi users/connectivity) the more I’m angry about the things that are bad about it too tbh
@billothekid2 @PinkPants @arstechnica I believed in the tech but it fell apart in predictable ways because of the people
@EposVox
I agree 100% on this, actually. I just think declaring the Fediverse at large a failure is a bit premature. Incidentally, I've been enjoying Kbin for the last week or so, and feel like it might be a better format overall for decentralized internet.
@PinkPants @arstechnica
I agree 100% on this, actually. I just think declaring the Fediverse at large a failure is a bit premature. Incidentally, I've been enjoying Kbin for the last week or so, and feel like it might be a better format overall for decentralized internet.
@PinkPants @arstechnica
v̾i̾t̾r̾i̾o̾l̾i̾x̾@arstechnica the reports of mastodons demise are greatly exaggerated
René Fouquet@arstechnica Kind of ironic posting this on the very same Fediverse that “didn’t take off”.
Etua@rene @arstechnica Do you expect them to delete their account to make a point? Either way, the article concerns mostly the "general audience". I'd expect them to have disproportionally many readers on Mastodon.
@etua_en @arstechnica I would have expected a more nuanced headline. This reads like clickbait, especially when posting it here.
Michael Labowicz@arstechnica i'm still here!
@arstechnica
Down side: Not everyone moved
Up side: Not everyone moved
Honestly, just the reduction in RWNJ cult noise by moving is an immediate win.
Down side: Not everyone moved
Up side: Not everyone moved
Honestly, just the reduction in RWNJ cult noise by moving is an immediate win.
Shadow Heart@arstechnica gaslight much?
Phil Haigh@arstechnica this refugee is quite happy that the trolls who make Twitter the unpleasant place it is, are nowhere to be seen over here.
@arstechnica Did anyone even proof read this article? It talks about Mastodon instances rather than actual users or posts, and doesn't have any real statistics, just opinions. According to my first Google search, it looks like Mastodon grew 4x in 4 months. https://www.statista.com/statistics/1376022/global-registered-mastodon-users/
@lunarnexus @arstechnica
If it wasn't at least 2/3 of users wholly quitting Twitter and in favor of fediverse alternatives, then the fediverse is a failure?
If it wasn't at least 2/3 of users wholly quitting Twitter and in favor of fediverse alternatives, then the fediverse is a failure?
roman kuba@arstechnica left Twitter for good.
BandersnatchIf you're still on Twitter, you're part of the problem.
TheJamieDub1🇵🇸🇬🇧@Bandersnatch @arstechnica speaking for myself, there’s too many people on Twitter that I like to read posts from to just ditch it.
Yeah, and you're who I was referring to.
Fubaroque@arstechnica Who cares? Not the users of Mastodon... maybe the users on Twitter?🤔
Well they can solve that problem anyway they like. 🤣
Tony Bark@arstechnica Tell that to the server admins.
taylor 
@arstechnica @EposVox honestly: truth. federation is great in concept but almost completely ruins the user experience.
i recieve a link to a post, instead of being able to click on it and interact i have to, right click, copy link, open my instance, click the search box, click paste, hit enter, click the post, then i can interact.
if i click a link to a calckey or other instance *in my dedicated mastodon app* it opens in browser
also defederation breaks the whole idea of a federated network. if you want to block a instance that is dedicated to hate speech, fine
but, you are at the behest of your instance owner, and there is no explanation required, so you can just have a user you interact with, just, disappear, with no notice or explanation, and i still can't see half the replies under any post because my instance limits m.s, which is for better or for worse, the largest instance
@tay @arstechnica @EposVox
Sounds like your Mastodon app is significantly broken. I haven't really experienced that problem more than a handful of times, and it was several months ago, at this point, when last it happened.
Sounds like your Mastodon app is significantly broken. I haven't really experienced that problem more than a handful of times, and it was several months ago, at this point, when last it happened.
@ferricoxide @EposVox @arstechnica i haven't checked but that might be because they use different urls, and having to check if every link the user clicks on is a fedi instance is a bit excessive
but anyway, that's still a relatively minor problem
Chris Renfrow@tay @arstechnica @EposVox if you disagree with your current instance's moderation practices or communication regarding limiting or defederating (two different things), then you can simply pressure your admins directly for more transparency and accountability, or move to an instance that suits you better. These are both things you can't really do on a platform like Twitter.
@crenfrow @tay @arstechnica that’s all way too much work or hassle for most users. They just want it to work. It’s cool to have that option in practice (tho most admins aren’t flexible as the constant drama over defederating shows) but most people just want to be able to use it
@EposVox @tay @arstechnica I think you missed my point. Twitter and every Mastodon instance have administrators that make decisions for the majority of their users. Here you at least have a choice on what kind of administration you are beholden to while still retaining access to largely the same content. Not so with Twitter.
Your response makes it sound like people would rather not use any social media because it's too much hassle to decide on a platform, when that's obviously not true.
@EposVox @tay @arstechnica granted most users don't initially really care how administrators decide on what content they see, they generally join because they know other people who have joined. It's only after joining that they might discover they disagree, and if they feel strongly enough they may decide to move elsewhere. This is normal.
@crenfrow @tay @arstechnica @EposVox Oops, it seems you have lost a few dozen percent of the users in the process who didn't bother. What now?
@etua_en What indeed? I don't think you understand that I'm really only speaking to a subset of people who care about moderation policies on their social media platform of choice. On Twitter users really don't have a choice but to roll with whatever Twitter decides is best, here they do. This doesn't have to appeal to everyone.
@crenfrow The problem being that as much as you can find a place more suited for you in terms of policy, you can also become part of some admin drama with instances banning each other for the perceived thought crimes. Most people won't care for details, so Twitter is okay for them, but they suddenly would if some local bonzo of an instance forces their strong authoritative opinion and prevents them from seeing thousands of people at a whim.
@etua_en that's fair, but also not exclusive to the fediverse. Twitter or any other platform isn't some arbiter of neutrality and they are just as capable of taking a strong authoritative stance that removes thousands of people from the platform on a whim. And when exactly this happens, people try platforms like Mastodon, or they quit microblogging entirely, which is fine and probably a good move.
@crenfrow Technically they are capable of and I don't mean that they didn't have in the past, but because it's a huge platform they wouldn't normally go as far as some dedicated Mastodon instances. That's what I tried to convey, that their policy must be averaged for better or worse.
Jake Bartolin@arstechnica ...they said, cross posting to Mastodon unironically lol
animortis@arstechnica All this is true, and sure we may never get big, but there's value in having that alternative there. A corporate-owned web is not the web I want to use.
Stormfalconsj@arstechnica Gee. A repost of someone's blog post whining that Mastodon isn't Twitter and isn't friendly to corporatism, with a side of slamming Linux and open source solutions. Oh, an added bonus of an update at the end stating that the author left Masto.
Very, very disappointing, Ars. You're much better than this clickbait.
Glyph@arstechnica did y'all fact-check this at all before republishing it? like, *has* the twitter migration 'not panned out'? By what metric has it failed? "Everyone is very aware at this point " is not a citation.
Philip Weiss (Phil in SF)@glyph @arstechnica Mastodon isn't bigger than Twitter in 6 months, therefore it's FAILED FAIL FAILED
I want to be circumspect about complaining about this article, because I *do* get the frustration, and it describes a real experience of being on the Fediverse and in particular administering an instance, but the categorical language here — "I had a bad time for a few months, therefore the endeavor has comprehensively failed" — is just immensely annoying to read, and to see repeated over and over again as received wisdom
Oceanotter 
@arstechnica ok but you're ignoring changes that can and will happen to improve how we use this service.
Twitter evolved with it's growing user base and so too will mastodon.
Are people expecting most Mastodon users to deploy their own instances? I feel like a lot of the discomfort the writer feels could've been solved by just starting with an account on a large, generally default instance, and moving to something more private later.
Discover ability does need to be addressed, but that might also be part of what I'm liking about the platform. I don't feel like I'm having content shoved down my throat constantly.
spherulitic@arstechnica it panned out for me. I haven’t look at Twitter in months and my life is much better for it.
Jérôme Leroy – Composer@arstechnica the very fact that I get my news from Ars Technica (and other sources) on Mastodon now is enough for me to say that the #TwitterMigration worked out quite fine in my case… (although I wish more accounts made the move like AT and Flipboard did)
Cole Minar@arstechnica well, not with that attitude 😋
Nico 
@arstechnica Siri describe missing the point of not being the product for the gratification of a billionaire
GFH_oheffllc@arstechnica Interesting that the author from whom Ars republished the post can't see it on Mastodon but we can.
Lewis Edwards@arstechnica Mastodon isn't simply a Twitter replacement, and I am very grateful for that.
IanMoore3000@arstechnica this article is interesting. Some definite good points, like how surprisingly complicated it can be to follow someone on a different instance. And that's without mentioning how completely useless Mastodon search is.
@arstechnica and yet, for all that I miss the people I followed on Twitter, Mastodon scratches the itch that Twitter use to.