If you’re reading this toot there’s a pretty high chance you’ve asked yourself ethical questions about your social media use *and that’s why you’re here*
You’ve likewise probably got concerns about Meta and Threads
But the 90-odd % of your friends you left behind on Facebook, Insta etc. likely don’t have those concerns to the same extent as you
Mastodon has to win on user experience *as well as on ethics*. We can’t just berate the Meta users
@jon I don't think this is some kind of competition. Mastodon doesn't have to "win", it is its own thing, apart from whatever Twitter or Meta or Bluesky or whoever does. It has value on its own.
That does not mean I don't think the Mastodon experience should be improved, but I think the aim of those improvements should be to make the lives of the users better, not to "win" against Meta or whatever.
@jon @heinragas I don't know ... based on the last two sentences of the original toot, I would have likely read something similar in it.
Having to win on user experience, as well as ethics, suggests to me at least that the aim of Mastodon is to win at some sort of competition with Twitter/other social media. Instead of just letting it be it's own thing.
@tirohia @jon @heinragas I think there are complications here - I personally don't want it to be about winning *or* letting it be its own thing.
"Winning" suggests an "at all costs", "if we don't win, we lose" attitude, when Fedi has its own value.
The latter suggests having no goals. Sounds care-free, except we'll default to techies-building-for-techies, while others feel stuck on proprietary social media. We should deliberately build to be welcoming to good people.
Letting it be it's own thing doesn't mean no goals. To me it suggests that the goal is not continual growth, or to drag users away fro other platforms. The goal is to be a better platform for the people that are here.
If people on other platforms like what they see, they're welcome to come over, that's cool. Developing a specifically to appeal to those not here already doesn't feel like a path to a better platform.
@tirohia @jon @heinragas Ah, I read "Letting it be its own thing" as imposing no goals, so that's just a word thing.
OTOH I disagree w/ "The goal is to be a better platform for the people who are here". Fedi underrepresents people I feel should be here. Naming two distinct dimensions, Fedi is overweight techies & underweight black people.
Given the mess that is Twitter, w/ XXXM users, many of whom would do great here, it feels remarkably selfish to focus on the 1M largely like us already here.
@tirohia @jon @heinragas I think my post was messy, I'll try a different angle:
By building for those already here, we inevitably make Fedi more attractive to non-users similar to current users.
Intentional or not, we're "competing" for users - when Twitter screws up, we get a huge influx.
If we work to build for current users, Fedi's "natural" growth will leave groups behind.
Hence I think we should deliberately build for good ppl not here, even if we want to avoid a competitive mindset.
Jon Worth
Hein Ragas
Ben
Simon Frankau