It's perfectly reasonable and possible for *both* of these statements to be true:
* it is better here than on Twitter
* this better *isn't good enough*
Federation and decentralization *as currently and inconsistently and idiosyncratically practiced* while better, are not good enough.
Digging in and saying that decentralization and federation *is* good enough is really, really unhelpful.
Also, the potential for better does not mean the practical experience is better.
I feel like giving up algorithmic feeds is one of those moments like outlawing AI in Dune or giving up networked computers in Battlestar -- we're going to have to decide as a society to do it. It's not an experience that wins on its merits.
I'm motivated by ideology to be here, but it doesn't seem to me to be a more accessible, more safe, more expressive environment. Absent ideology, what's the reason to prefer it?
Mastodon has grown a lot over the last two months. Where are people setting up new accounts?
As might be expected, growth correlates with instance size (Matthew effect), but there's another part of the story: many people joined new instances that didn't even exist previously!
I once had a high status outsider review some work my team did and say "yeah, that problem is actually very hard and we don't see an obvious alternate approach."
Imagining ex-twitter staff are having that moment constantly as they watch Mastadon admins slowly learning all the lessons they learned over the years about policy, moderation, security, etc.
Dan Hon
Jeremy Sinclair #ฺNET
Carl Colglazier