Kevin Beaumont21h ago

I've had 20 sign ups to my Mastodon server in the past 48 hours, and 100% of them have been scammers, phishers and SEO spammers.

I make an effort to go in and suspend the accounts, nobody ever protests the suspension.

The fediverse is at a crossroads, the user base is dwindling and the new users are mostly just SEO spam accounts.

Show threadKevin Beaumont21h ago
For those who don't think the user base is dwindling, a few years ago Mastodon was celebrating about 2m monthly active users. Nowadays it's 0.7m.
Show threadRob21h ago

@GossiTheDog

In my opinion, the complexity is compounded by the absolutely abysmal mobile experience. Put succinctly - the software sucks - and it scares all the normies away.

And then there is the Mastodon peeps. God bless 'em. There are a lot of good people here, but a lot of terrible ones as well.

All this is going to suppress usage.

Show threadGhostOnTheHalfShell19h ago

@rob @GossiTheDog

I don’t use an app. I’ve become completely negative installing any app on my mobile devices.

Right now, I’m on a tablet and I’m using the web interface

Show threadLazarou Monkey Terror 🚀💙🌈
@GhostOnTheHalfShell @rob @GossiTheDog same, and I don't trust apps either.
Mar 25 at 1:42amWeb
Show threadRob7h ago

@Lazarou @GhostOnTheHalfShell @GossiTheDog

A browser is still an app.

Show threadRob7h ago

@Lazarou @GhostOnTheHalfShell @GossiTheDog

All of this just proves my point: normies wouldn’t understand this conversation, you guys are not normies, this is not a normy conversation and it wouldn’t be welcoming to a normy.

None of this is criticism in any way. But it explains why the Fediverse is shrinking. People don’t care about privacy and security. They want convenience and beautiful software. And the Fediverse has not delivered on that dimension.