[sandyarmstrong]

In my circles I'm seeing mass exodus. It's not just the tinkerers and the anarchists. I'm not surprised about the uptake in the open source community, after all I remember identi.ca being a lovely network for GNOME back in the day.

But I'm also seeing authors, actors, journalists, doctors, and scientists I follow make their way over, as well as a few novelty accounts.

Sure, many of them are dual-posting. But I still see them interacting directly on Mastodon and not just mirroring their Twitter posts on it.

I didn't expect this, but I'm finding it very easy not to use Twitter most of the time. The main exception is friends and family messaging various tweets to each other to share news or laugh about something. So I still have an account, it's still useful, but I'm not scrolling it casually anymore.

[UncleOxidant]

I setup a Mastodon account back in May as sort of "just in case Musk messes it up" insurance. And man, did he ever mess it up - worse & faster than my more pessimistic expectations. However, up until about 3 weeks ago there just weren't that many people to follow on mastodon. But that has changed more rapidly than I would have expected. Now I'm following several interesting people I used to follow on twitter.

[SoftTalker]

> I'm also seeing authors, actors, journalists, doctors, and scientists I follow make their way over, as well as a few novelty accounts.

Are you seeing your mom and dad moving over? Or your teenage kid and her friends? Or your non-tech friends?

[sandyarmstrong]

I'm about 40 and I don't know anyone whose mom or dad is on Twitter. They're all on Facebook still.

Teenagers and even 20-somethings are already a lost cause for Twitter. They're on TikTok, Snapchat, Instagram, etc.

And yes, I'm seeing artists, writers, and other non-tech people moving over and finding instances that better suit them.

My friends who consume Twitter as a passive way to be entertained by celebrities aren't moving yet. I'm not sitting here trying to say that Mastodon is a drop-in replacement for Twitter for everybody. But I am surprised and encouraged by how easy it has been for me and many others to find a better experience.

[citizenkeen]

No, but they weren’t the first ones on Twitter, either.

[paul_funyun]

Would you see it if they did? Finding people isn't as easy on Mastodon as it is in other places.