It's kinda depressing how tumblr is imploding now and I'm seeing half my follow list go "man, after seeing both twitter and tumblr do this, it's really showing how it's a bad idea for a social media network to be run by a company who can make arbitrary changes without user consent.
anyway, here's my bsky: ..."
@foone I think activitypub based stuff will win out against whatever bsky is doing due to the practicalities and feature availability.
A horse that plinkos is a horse that is approaching it's destination.
@foone I think your point is good but I want to note one special case: A lot of Japanese artists seem to be jumping to Bluesky right now, and I think the reason they're jumping to Bluesky right now instead of Mastodon is that on Mastodon you can get banned for being Japanese* and this is not true on Bluesky.
* Read: "Banned for being federated with a particular large Japanese server". This was as far as I understand a very real problem at one time, I do not for a fact know whether it still is.
@mcc @foone There definitely seems to be a large population of people that can’t conceive of an internet that isn’t one gigantic walled garden. Thus finding mastodon/activitypub confusing and intimidating.[*]
Mix in the mastodon old guard being quite insular, and frankly wrongheaded about a lot of things. It’s not really much of a surprise.
I like decentralization a lot, but man. The amount of Drama™ the masto community insists on is making me get a repetitive stress injury in my eyes from rolling them so much.
[*] I stand by the idea instances actually don’t matter beyond the ability to peace out and move when whatever instance admin gets drunk with power. Old masto folks putting an emphasis on choosing an instance adds needless anxiety.
Re the last point (that instances don't actually matter insofar as relocating is possible), I would respectfully disagree.
Instances don't matter *if* one does not use the local or federated timeline and one does not care which other instances federate or don't.
On any two instances, the local and federated timelines, *and* the home timeline, may differ greatly and thus, leave a very different impression to anyone looking at, and comparing, both.
@aaribaud @jonathankoren @mcc @foone
While I do get your point, two things:
1. It's not a big if for someone new to masto to not use the local/federated timelines. And so, not consider them a factor. That's very much a fediverse concept -- anything analogous on centralized social networks will basically be a completely uncurated firehose. Not appealing.
I've been on here for approaching 2 years now, and I've checked my local/federated timelines maybe 10-20 times ever, if I'm being generous.
@aaribaud @jonathankoren @mcc @foone
Am I missing out on some kind of local instance community interaction? Yeah probably. But that's not why I'm here. That's not what I'm using masto for.
Those who do have that in mind, already have an idea what kind of instance they want to be on, and are less likely to get caught up in instance choice anxiety.
Which gets to point 2:
@aaribaud @jonathankoren @mcc @foone
2. There's a difference between "doesn't matter" and "will never matter". Getting very fixated on choosing the perfect instance in the beginning, to the point of just giving up is very much focusing on something that doesn't have to matter... yet.
I may decide that my instance is actually a bad fit for me. But it's better that I got on here and developed relationships which motivate me to stick around, than if I kept on holding off, like I was for months.
@aaribaud @jonathankoren @mcc @foone Okay, with that in mind, I think I can try to communicate my point more clearly.
What I'm talking about here (I won't speak for anyone else in the thread) is the when instance selection is presented as so high stakes it becomes intimidating for new users to make a choice and join masto/the fediverse.
And by saying it doesn't matter, yet, I'm saying there's room for training wheels and a person figuring out what they want while they're already here.
@glitchontwitch @jonathankoren @mcc @foone
Respectfully again: if a new Mastodon user, freshly arrived on their first instance, does not read the local and/or federated timeline, at least at first and for some time, then how will they ever discover people and/or hashtags to follow? And if they follow no one and no tags, then how will their home timeline contain anything for them to read?
[1/2]
@glitchontwitch @jonathankoren @mcc @foone
[2/2]
Now, maybe newcomers receive a customized instance welcome message with a few pointers; but then again, as such messages would be customized per instance, that would make the experience on two distinct instances very different.
@aaribaud @jonathankoren @mcc @foone
Nobody said that there was no difference between instances, or experiences on instances.
I've seen as much on my time here.
None of that needed to have such a high priority on it, that I should have felt like I was doing masto wrong if I didn't thoroughly vet my instance first.
See also: people on instances that shut down. Even after they vetted. These things happen, and nobody is denying it.
But "perfect is the enemy of good" applies here.
@aaribaud @jonathankoren @mcc @foone Respectfully: I was said new mastodon user. I managed just fine never doing that.
I joined an instance, found some of my friends, and started to follow the hashtags of my interests, both which exist and have existed, well outside any local or federated timeline.
This is actually, to a certain extent, what people are talking about wrt: old guard masto making assumptions about how new users will/should engage w/ mastodon and its features. Though less hostile.
@AimeeMaroux @aaribaud @jonathankoren @mcc @foone
In this case, I was responding to the question above. How will one *ever* discover timelines or people to follow.
Both of us are still here. Me without using the expected tools, and you, with -- if I understand you correctly -- a less than ideal initial instance.
Conversely, I know people who won't join bc they're afraid of choosing poorly.
(Also there's a reason I pointed out the difference between "doesn't matter" and "will never matter".)
@aaribaud @jonathankoren @mcc @foone I would say they very much do matter because when Twitter was blowing up a number of scientists moved to Mastodon and moved to a bad instance than advertised itself as pro scientist but was promptly defederated because it claimed it would not defederate with anyone.
none of these scientists are still on Mastodon and a lot of them blame the network for being cliquey or hostile as a result
so yes what instance you join can hugely shape your experience
@mcc @Canageek @aaribaud @foone Compounding the uninformed choice that Andi highlighted, is the consequences of “choosing wrong”.
Let’s say that someone chose Wrong™. It’s really unclear how this manifests from a user perspective. If you picked a niche instance you might not ever know. Even in the case of this instance that refused to defederate, the people that are upset with that will clearly complain loudly and berate the users (reinforcing the Masto is a bunch of shrill karens). The number of users on the angry instances possibly (perhaps even likely) are irrelevant.
The problem with wielding defederation as a cudgel is that it’s only effective if the target cares. If you don’t follow people on that instance, then why care? Reach? What are you, a wannabe corporate brand?
@foone To be fair, they did release federation recently up there, so in the event Bluesky becomes Crimson Sky, some people can just split off.
Maybe add Activity Pub interaction while they're at it.
One thing the covid epidemic has really made clear is how MANY people are both passive and unable/unwilling to think two steps ahead.
@foone But why even leave tumblr? Now that Twitter is collapsing, the cool stuff I see on corporate networks is increasingly coming from tumblr.
If I didn't have Fedi and was leaving Twitter, I'd be more likely to go to tumblr than to bsky, nostr or threads, just because tumblr has better and more trustworthy leadership and cooler members.
@foone I use both bsky and here, and I'm increasingly thinking the ability to quote is the killer app - whether you use it to dunk on a bad idea, make a joke or simply highlight why something is worth reading, it makes it so much easier to spin off a conversation with people you know.
And as others have said, the general vibe of the place is different too - Masto can seem incredibly earnest, and quite often a bit sterile.
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