[NathanKP]

> We've explored so little of the design space.

The design space that we are willing to explore is limited by the fundamental evolutionary drive of social media platforms to hold your attention as long as possible by feeding you little hits of dopamine for minimal effort. Social media platforms thrive on size and activity and neither can be established by raising the bar, only by lowering it to new depths.

[apatters]

On the other hand, Mastodon doesn't have this drive. Facebook, Twitter et al are designed to be addictive because higher engagement translates to higher ad revenue. But Mastodon is ad free and the cost of operating the service is defrayed over thousands of inexpensive, federated instances, so there's less pressure to generate revenue of any kind.

Unfortunately Mastodon chose to clone Twitter's design and the Tweetdeck UI, so the tendency toward short-form, low information comments is carried over from Twitter. I too believe that these design patterns encourage toxic behavior. A simple experiment for any short-form social platform would be to lift any post character limit, make longer posts more readable, and prioritize longer comments in the ranking algorithm, and see what influence that has on the toxicity of the overall experience.

I mean if ten thousand people have responded to something, I would really rather read a few responses where someone made the effort to type out a few hundred words and what they wrote became popular. This doesn't guarantee it will be sane, cogent, etc. but it's better than staring at a wall of one line haters and trolls, which Twitter harassment victims always reference as one of the most traumatic parts of the experience.

[zestyping]

I think (at least a few) people are starting to realize that this is what's happening. There may be a window of opportunity opening up to try new and different things. I suspect there are a fair number of folks who are looking for alternatives to Facebook/Twitter/etc. and would be intrigued by novelty.

Bumble is an example of a platform that was all about changing the rules of engagement, and it seems to be doing all right so far. Perhaps there's hope?

[hnuser1234]

It's doing alright as in not failing, but remains to be seen if any of their paradigms measurably improve anything.

[nyolfen]

this is the first time i’ve heard someone mention bumble in about two years

[cabalamat]

> Social media platforms thrive on size

Yes. This means federated social networks might long-term have the edge, since someone can launch a new one, and by being part of the federation it automatically starts with lots of users.

[petra]

We've seen similar limited designs in forum systems. And they aren't necessary driven by the social media economics.

So why are they so similar?