[dtjb]

That would be a loss for twitter IMO. I know it's being remade into ground zero for culture war discourse, but there's nowhere else online like Twitter when it comes to breaking news and developing situations. Journalists and reporters sharing information as it's verified real time.

When something was going down, you went to twitter.

[maxbond]

Twitter was lost the day Musk carried that sink into the building. I agree that it was an important cultural institution, but I don't think there's anything that can be done to save it. The faster we let it fall, the faster we can develop alternatives.

Twitter is dead. Long live the Fediverse.

[angelbob]

And even if you think "not the fediverse," Twitter is still dead. Let's get to "long live" something.

[drstewart]

No one cares about the fediverse.

[peppermint_tea]

I do.

[rvz]

Only the tiny minority of techies screaming about the 'fediverse' care. There is little interest with the majority of non-techies 200M+ that care to use it daily, let alone sign up; hence why they still use Twitter.

Federated social networks such as Mastodon are a solution in search of a problem, and it always has been like that for years.

[maxbond]

I hear a lot of people talking about the Fediverse of many different technical backgrounds. It's true it would take a huge event to get non-technical people interested in the Fediverse - but that's exactly what I'm seeing.

They're not a solution in search of a problem. They're a solution a small, dedicated group of people have cared deeply about, but most people have ignored. But people have been unsatisfied with the centralized aspects of social media for a long time. They're not stupid; they see the way the algorithms are designed for engagement, and the toxicity that causes. They see how fragile it is that someone like Musk can just swoop in and sabotage the platform.

Network effects have made it difficult to adopt a decentralized solution. Well - lots of communities are looking for a home they won't have to leave for the same reason they did before. That's creating network effects in the opposite direction.

If you'd said this to me a few weeks ago I'd have been inclined to believe it. But things are in flux. Maybe the Fediverse won't take off, but it has a very really shot right now.

[TomSwirly]

I simply don't get the problem with the "Fediverse". Mastodon works very much like Twitter and you can follow people on your server or another one with ease. You don't need to know anything about anything to do this.

[drstewart]

Go ask your mom what algorithm she prefers for her content feed and report back.

[defrost]

Meh, she seems happy following other emeritus professors on mathstodon.xyz and crafty types in weaving and bridge groups.

How about your mom?

[TomSwirly]

I am on Mastodon, and none of the people who follow me there or who I am following are techies - oh, except Cory Doctorow. All are refugees from Twitter.

Mastodon solves my problem, "How do I keep track of my friends without Twitter or Facebook" very well, and each day new friends of mine appear there.

[throwntoday]

I'm gonna be honest, you're coming off a bit delusional. No meaningful amount of people care about the issues you do to abandon twitter for an already dead network like mastodon. The idea of federation doesn't appeal to normies, it only confuses them.

[maxbond]

This is a reflection on your perception, what you imagine to be possible, and how much respect you afford "normies", more than it is a reflection on me.

[throwntoday]

Well I was calling you delusional if you think your average person cares about Elon's shenanigans enough to jump ship to a platform no one uses. So it was solely a comment on you.

[maxbond]

I see that I wasn't as clear as I could have been, so I've edited it to be "a reflection" rather than "a comment."

If you'd like me to be entirely explicit; in trying to insult me, you're telegraphing your own lack of awareness.

[throwntoday]

If you're perceiving it as in insult rather than taking a second to consider the possibility you may be drastically overstating the importance of certain things to the average person then, it's just you lacking self-awareness here friend.

[midoridensha]

Well this should be a good lesson in why not to trust something that supposedly is in the public interest to a private company that can easily be bought up by some billionaire with emotional problems.

[KerrAvon]

and now Mastodon is the same thing, but decentralized and not owned by a single point of human failure.