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by gloriousternary 1812 days ago
Honestly I think Mastodon is already about as easy to use as possible. The real problem is the network effect, and the fact that the average person really just doesn't care enough about the benefits you get from it. What we really need is a libre, decentralized social network that's "cool" enough that non-tech people would have FOMO if they don't join. That's a much harder problem, one that I certainly won't be able to solve any time soon.
4 comments
SECProto 1812 days ago
> Honestly I think Mastodon is already about as easy to use as possible. The real problem is the network effect, and the fact that the average person really just doesn't care enough about the benefits you get from it.

I care a great deal about the benefits of Mastodon! For me, the benefit is that anyone who is obsessive about conspiracy theories, racism, etc have a quarantined social space where they can converse without me having to listen.

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vimy 1811 days ago
Maybe https://bitclout.com/
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jazzyjackson 1811 days ago
Hahaha I agree with my sibling - I went on a ride with bitclout and enjoyed the camaraderie, but immediately saw how petty people were going to get over losing a buck, ironically ready to call other users scammers at the drop of a hat.

If they had a different answer to decentralization than a 2MB/minute block size or a media hosting solution that wasn’t just “allow iframes from YouTube and Vimeo” I would have had more faith, but now that I’ve cashed out I see what the sibling sees, target demographic for a influencer-speculation-exchange is very small.

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Nursie 1811 days ago
Wow no. That's not going to appeal to normal people.
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ampdepolymerase 1811 days ago
Mastodon powers Gab. It is as popular a decentralized technology as it can get.
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cvwright 1811 days ago
None of us can solve it alone.

First we need good tech, like Mastodon.

Then we need to move our own digital "lives" onto those better platforms, and start encouraging our friends to join us.

For my part, I'm working on a new social app where everything is E2E encrypted [1], so you don't have to trust the server. The main use case is to let parents share photos of their kids in a safer way. I'm hoping this will be a big draw for people who have currently checked out of the creepy ad-tracking platforms.

[1] https://github.com/KombuchaPrivacy/circles-ios

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