[ArmandGrillet]

Well-written and touching post. To switch off this API used by so many long-time users on the same day "For You" appears as the default option on Twitter triggers me. The "For You" timeline is only for Elon: it will drive engagement, extremism, and all the things social networks have been accused of driving for years now in order to make more $.

Some folks here have been comparing the crypto/Web3 and ActivityPub craze recently but I see a massive difference. A billionaire has spent the last 3 months shitting on what I thought was my social backyard. Crypto and NFTs did not impact how I use my bank accounts, Elon ruined in a quarter a very special place I had crafted over a decade.

Mastodon is not great right now, the UX needs to vastly improve, but all for-profit social networks have always disappointed in the long run. Looking back, few technologies have kept the same degree of greatness over the past 15 years: emails, torrents, RSS feeds... only tools no corporation fully controls. I hope ActivityPub can join that list fairly soon.

[mikenew]

I admit I don't use Twitter or Mastodon very much, but Mastodon's UX seems pretty decent these days. At least 50% of the time when I click on a Twitter link something breaks. Either the page doesn't load or a video won't play or whatever. And that's to say nothing of the "SIGN UP FOR TWITTER" bullshit that pops up whenever you click on anything.

[qwertox]

I was just thinking about how every page I visit on mastodon is in a strong dark mode theme.

About a week ago I was in Twitters web settings checking stuff like connected apps, just to see if there are some, and switched the theme to light, the default blue-white, which probably 90+% of the users see.

I then noticed that Twitter looks nicer when not in dark mode (I have this same issue with IDEs, but yet I always stay with dark themes), that it looks friendlier.

Does Mastodon have a way to set my own preferences across all the different servers by specifying it in one location, or is this something the owner of the server decides? because if 90+% of those light themed Twitter users are confronted with default black themed mastodon feeds, it might give them a bad association towards this dark web thing the news talk about, or some depressive mood.

I wonder if it would help if Mastodon instances had a light theme by default.

[aendruk]

> a way to set my own preferences across all the different servers by specifying it in one location

https://github.com/mastodon/mastodon/issues/10976

[raydev]

> The "For You" timeline is only for Elon

The "For You" timeline is a new name for the "Home" timeline that's been around forever. And now it's easier to get to the chronological feed ("Following"), the first actual UX improvement to the site since the acquisition.

[harmmonica]

You can‘t default to the “following” tab anymore (every time you open the app it shows “for you” by default), which likely puts it in the “for Elon” camp. Or maybe there’s an even-more-buried setting to default to “following” than tapping the old (were they?) “stars”? But definitely not good UX when users have to tap “following” every time they want to only see, ya know, who they’re actually following (aka what they’re explicitly interested in).

[WillPostForFood]

It doesn't work that way for me (Mac/Chrome). Whatever tab I choose stays active, and persists through opening and closing tabs. Only goes back to "For You" when logging out and back in.

[wyclif]

Yeah, the "For You is only for Elon" thing isn't a smart take. Makes me think he hasn't been around Twitter very long. From my perch down here in southeast Asia, Twitter is better than it's ever been at this point. A lot snappier and faster for users outside of North America.

[michelb]

Maybe because it doesn't seem to be loading every tweet and mention from people I'm following. Quite a lot of threads are broken (at least for me) because a lot of tweets aren't being loaded anymore. The amount of posts on my timeline has been decimated, but if I go to the individuals I follow, I can see that they have tweeted, I just don't see them in my timeline.

[rsynnott]

It does seem to have gotten substantially _worse_, though. In 15 years of using Twitter, up to late last year, I had blocked maybe three 'real' users (that is actual established accounts with followers, not FirstNameBunchOfNumbers). I mostly used it via Tweetbot, but if I went to the website, the algorithmic timeline was... not that useful, but basically inoffensive.

Then between the takeover and giving up entirely at the end of November, I was hitting block every time I looked at the website. For instance, I'd never had to trouble to block Elon Musk before, but he was suddenly constantly popping up.

I'm pretty sure that some settings got fairly dramatically tweaked.

[dmitryminkovsky]

Twitter was really pretty solid for what it was, had lots of great accounts and even with the stock UI was pretty operable for me. Even advertising on Twitter was pretty fun. You could reach people all over the world at reasonable cost and get feedback on your product and messaging.

Most recently I used Twitter pretty much exclusively for following the war in Ukraine, and it’s been a big loss for me—Telegram is a good source for primary content, Twitter was great as a human-driven social redux. I followed a person in Mariupol, some people in Russia and Belarus, lots of people in Ukraine and Europe. It was a great for keeping up with such a terrible thing.

RIP Twitter.

[wingworks]

tbh, I haven't noticed much change on Twitter. I think for the average user it's BAU.

[dmitryminkovsky]

I meant for me, I should have been clear.

[wingworks]

aaah, that's fair enough.

[dmitryminkovsky]

My wife is still on, I peek from time to time, it seems disorienting with the new blue check semantics. But I guess you get used to that?

[wingworks]

Yeah, the blue checkmark means nothing anymore. That I do find annoying. But I ignore it as best I can.

[wyclif]

> RIP Twitter

Reports of Twitter's demise are greatly exaggerated by people with "Spaceman Bad" political brainworms.

[bioemerl]

Unfortunately it takes a lot, and I mean a lot, to overcome network effects when something like Twitter is involved. The only way it goes under is if they are losing revenue and they actually go bankrupt at some point.

Elon has already been muzzled quite a bit and I haven't seen much out of him recently, so I imagine as long as that keeps being the case going forward we're going to see Twitter do just fine.

[dmitryminkovsky]

To be clear, I meant "RIP Twitter" for me personally. I wouldn't bet on Twitter failing. I think he'll make it work one way another.

> The only way it goes under is if they are losing revenue and they actually go bankrupt at some point.

That said,

> According to press reports, Twitter requires more than a billion dollars a year just to maintain its debt service and anything that endangers loan repayment or workforce security could endanger the business.

it won't be easy.

[wyclif]

>I haven't seen much out of him recently

Ever heard of Space X, Tesla, and the Boring Company?

[minimaxir]

"much out of him" is a relative qualifier. At the least his tweets haven't been making news unlike the week where he was taking polls whether he should step down and unban journalists.

[bioemerl]

By recently I mean the last few weeks and by much out of him I mean stupid tweets.

[amatecha]

I find it hilarious when people say stuff like this. Every day, Twitter shambles ever closer to the distant, cobweb-laden corridors in which you can find Myspace, LiveJournal, or DeviantArt. Yeah, they're still out there, technically operating, but with not even a fraction of the social/cultural relevance they once held.

[Spooky23]

I’m bullish on Mastodon with the influx of users. It’s different than Twitter, but it’s pretty awesome in its own right.

Hopefully the different model will create something new and amazing. Twitter had amazing elements, but it’s sunset has arrived!

[aduitsis]

At this point the signal to noise ratio on Mastodon is amazingly good. Who would have thought that just displaying the timeline would be so refreshing.

[Kostchei]

yep, I have to say, it (Mastodon - mostly infosec.exchange) has been ..nice.. and /tilts head .. effective in communicating what I wanted to communicate with people who I wanted reach. And I think for social media that is the bar you want to reach. Nice and works. refreshingly surprised after being scarred by years of facebook and twitter- I assumed that was a good as social media was going to get. Apparently not.

[chelical]

Dealbreaker for Mastodon (that I've seen multiple people mention) is that instance admins can view personal DMs. Yes, employees from major social media companies can view your private messages, but it's more likely there's an audit trail in those cases while Mastodon instances have minimal oversight.

[98codes]

Eh, if it’s that secret, use Signal or something.

[wedn3sday]

I agree this is a pretty glaring issue, I disagree that its a deal breaker for me.

[acdha]

Right now I’d be more worried about Elon Musk giving activists access to Twitter DMs than either of the admins for the Mastodon instances I’m on. What good is an audit trail when the auditor is part of the problem?

[Fatnino]

Run your own instance.

[hhh]

The ‘For You’ is the behavior i’ve had for a while. I’m happy to be able to go to the Following tab. I’m tired of seeing ‘X follow’ etc.

[input_sh]

You were able to switch to "latest tweets" before as well. The control was top right next to "home" label, the icon looked like stars.

The only thing that truly changed is "latest tweets" got renamed to "following" and it now takes up more vertical space (53 pixels to be exact) completely unnecessarily for something you're quite unlikely to click on on a regular basis.

Change for the sake of change. Doesn't actually have an impact on anything.

[Jcowell]

Not that I want to defend Elon’s twitter, but a sliding menu is far better than a button you need to click on to see the options of what it does. It far easier to see tweets just from the people you follow with just a glance & swipe

[input_sh]

There's no sliding to be done on a desktop, and I'm pretty sure there's enough space to put "for you" and "following" next to "home" above it, where the icon used to be. Or better yet get rid of "home" above it completely as I fucking know when I'm on a homepage, plus there's three(!) additional ways of getting back to the top when you scroll down the timeline ("home" in the sidebar, Twitter logo in the sidebar, "see new tweets" popup), and there's your space for "for you"/"following". Still horrible, but at least as horrible as it was up until now instead of being twice as horrible.

That vertical placement on a desktop is by far the biggest part of my complaint. It's half a two-line-long text-only tweet less on your screen at all times (spacing and controls below the tweet included), accurate to the pixel. It annoys me enough that I used inspect element to measure it. The implementation on a phone is way less horrible.

[greenie_beans]

you've been able to switch for a while but it wasn't obvious, i kinda stumbled upon it one day.

i find the new tabs at the top of the screen take up too much space and they scroll down when i go through my timeline. (i browse on my laptop via firefox, no idea what the mobile experience is like)

[kome]

> "For You" appears as the default option

The "for you" was already the default option, if anything they made easier to switch to the "following" that before was kinda hidden on top and hard to find.

p.s.: i dislike musk since it was cool to like him.

[Wowfunhappy]

What's wrong with Mastodon's UX? It's basically Twitter from ten years ago. The whole federated thing is a bit confusing but you can just use the default mastodon.social instance and not think about it.

[aendruk]

We need a solution to this family of experiences, quickly.

> Some toots are not shown https://github.com/mastodon/mastodon/issues/3794

> Turns out, there's a lot more messages in the conversation, and Mastodon shows barely a fraction of it. https://github.com/mastodon/mastodon/issues/9409

> I can only see one or two toots […] Some toots don't appear to have any replies https://github.com/mastodon/mastodon/issues/14017

> you are often missing replies https://github.com/mastodon/mastodon/issues/18150

> the existing behavior is a barrier to Mastodon usage for those who are not sufficiently technical https://github.com/mastodon/mastodon/issues/20533

[tptacek]

You cannot in fact just use mastodon.social, because they haven't been accepting signups since the great Enmuskening.

[latchkey]

Indeed. I got to that point of signup and playing with Mastodon and stopped. What, am I supposed to go hunting for some random server that'll allow me to join? Nah. I'll take my chances with getting kicked off or banned from Twitter, thanks. If I'm sent away from Twitter, I'll just stop consuming that content entirely. Probably a waste of time anyway.

[tptacek]

This notion of affiliating with specific servers with specific cultures is I think one of the first things that's going to go out the window as Mastodon/ActivityPub succeeds. It's not that hard to provision single-user instances, and the fabled moderation overhead issues are, as I understand from talking to operators, mostly a thing that follows from having lots of people in an instance following lots of other instances --- much less a big deal if you're personally choosing every follow on your own instance.

Think Blogger, not Twitter or Facebook.

In the meantime, there's lots of smaller servers that are taking signups. I ended up on infosec.exchange; it's been fine (thanks, infosec.exchange people!). I'll be on my own address sometime in the next month or so.

[AstixAndBelix]

Mastodon was not made for p2p, which having a huge amoung of single-user instances basically is.

The problem with Mastodon is that it ties your main account (and yes, most people just want a single account to represent their online persona) to a single instance which might have a very silly name and a very strong and unique culture (i.e. local timeline).

The solution to this is not to self-host, because the infrastructure was not made for it. The solution would be to completely rethink the Mastodon experience, but that will never be done

[tptacek]

I'm not sure I even follow this argument. I can stand up a single host in an hour or two. Six months from now, there will probably be 30 competing providers who can do it at the push of a button. Respectfully: why is it relevant to me what Mastodon was "made for"? I just want to follow people and post stuff. That works just fine even if literally everyone has to run their own server.

ActivityPub is like RSS and Google Reader rolled up in Twitter's UX. That's what I'm psyched for, and the part of it that I think will catch on.

[pvg]

I ended up on infosec.exchange; it's been fine (thanks, infosec.exchange people!). I'll be on my own address sometime in the next month or so.

This is a dumb question because I've yet to mastodon-on but how does this work? Like, how do the followers of the old id start following the new id?

[tptacek]

It's not a dumb question! I know that there is some notion of portability from one instance to another but I haven't the slightest clue how it works under the hood. I'm just sort of counting on this working. :)

[Wowfunhappy]

Yes, exactly. I don't know how it works under the hood but you pretty much press a button on both instances and the followers get moved.

[Wowfunhappy]

I greatly appreciate federation being available even if I never have to use it. If a future social network comes along with some kind of new innovation,and it supports ActivityPub, I'll be able to use the new network while still communicating with my old contacts.

[girvo]

> I'll be on my own address sometime in the next month or so.

As someone who's looking to do exactly that myself, what server are you thinking of running? Mastodon itself, or one of the others?

[tptacek]

I'm watching Takahe pretty closely but I'll do Mastodon if I don't have any other choices.

[Wowfunhappy]

Awww, I know they were accepting new accounts a few weeks ago because I made an account! But it looks like they closed again. That's a shame!

If anyone reading this just wants a simple Twitter replacement, I recommend masto.ai, another large and general-purpose instance which is accepting signups. But, yes, this is very much The Problem.

[crispinb]

> the UX needs to vastly improve

Which client?

Elk (https://elk.zone) seems pretty good to me, though I'm not particularly fussy about UX in this particular case (I only check social media a couple of times a week). But there's quite a range of clients to choose between.

[postmeta]

I think he reached peak ad hominem: "a prick" "Space Karen" "King Shithead" "shitty person" "arrogant bastard" "billionaire bozo" "a clown"

[DonHopkins]

A billionaire attacking somebody else as "Pedo Guy" was peak hominem plus outrageous power imbalance, and the post you're replying to doesn't hold a candle to that. Plus Musk really is "a prick" "Space Karen" "King Shithead" "shitty person" "arrogant bastard" "billionaire bozo" "a clown". Truth is the best defense against libel.

[wyclif]

Thing is, that level of invective just makes me think he's got politically motivated brainworms. In terms of performance and features, Twitter is better than it's ever been.

[kccoder]

Using "politically motivated brainworms" multiple times in this thread seems like a politically motivated brainworm.

You don't have to be politically motivated to realize Elon is an ass.

[vsl]

Elon just killed a sizeable chunk of their business without a word of explanation, let alone at least heads up. He’s pissed, rightfully so - it’s “livelihood motivated”.

[Ensorceled]

Insulting people who've done you harm is not an "ad hominem"; he's not debating Musk here.

[freddyym]

It's admirable elegant variation. [0]

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elegant_variation

[catach]

Ah, much thanks for this. The concept has been with me for what seems like forever, but I'd never come across the term.

[tptacek]

None of these are ad hominem arguments.

[pessimizer]

None of these are arguments.

[tptacek]

Yes, one of several reasons they can't be ad hominem arguments.

[giantrobot]

It's not an ad hom if he's not claiming Musk is a shitty person therefore he's wrong about X. He's saying Musk is a shitty person and he's wrong. He's just using Musk's chosen pronouns.

[tag2103]

I'll probably get severely downvoted for this but the whole tripe screamed nothing but narcissist who got his free toy taken away.

[api]

Anyone comparing ActivityPub to the web3 craze has no idea what they are taking about and probably knows nothing about both of these things. They have nothing in common.

[warinukraine]

[flagged]

[Ensorceled]

And you're defending the antics of a childish billionaire and blaming the damage on the people he hurt. That's on you.

[pessimizer]

If you're referring to Twitter closing their API again, this tone is a bit hysterical.

[nradov]

There hasn't been any damage. No one has been hurt. Calm down and stop being overly dramatic. Twitter is not a real place, it's just a social network. Anyone who doesn't like it is free to use other communication tools, or even build their own.

And I'm not defending Elon Musk here. I don't care about him one way or another. This isn't an issue that rational, educated people should get agitated about.

[Spooky23]

Twitter is how a failed game show host and real estate promoter became the president of the United States.

It matters.

[Ensorceled]

> There hasn't been any damage. No one has been hurt. Calm down and stop being overly dramatic.

We are literally talking about a posting from the CEO of a company that has been essentially shutdown by this change. Other companies have also been placed in this predicament. People will probably lose jobs, at least, and these companies may go bankrupt.

[simonw]

"Twitter is not a real place, it's just a social network"

The idea that what happens on the internet is unimportant compared to what happens "in real life" hadn't made sense for over a decade now.

The internet is real life.

[cirgue]

This is so utterly wrong it hurts. The internet is real life the same way that evening news is real life. It’s a self-referential funhouse mirror that’s useful exactly for understanding what people who post on the internet think, and “people who post on the internet” is a tiny, profoundly idiosyncratic group. Conflating their opinions with “real life” is a powerful solvent for rationality, empathy, and mental health.

[simonw]

Depending on demographics, including stage of life, many people talk to their real life friends online more than than they do in person.

[warinukraine]

I'm defending the right to own property, which is something really fundamental to the way we organize our society.

... and when you say "the people that were hurt"... If you leave your wallet on the street, it might be stolen and you might be hurt. I'm not blaming the victim; someone stealing your wallet is wrong even though you left it on the street. It's not your fault, I'm not blaming you, I blame the thief for the theft. On the other hand there's something that you could've done that would've avoided it - don't leave your wallet on the street.

[aktenlage]

Nah, you are defending something that is based on the right to own property (and do whatever you like with it), but may nevertheless be shitty behavior. Just because something is legal and the legal basis is important (in your opinion), doesn't necessarily mean it is ok behavior.

E.g., being rude isn't forbidden, the freedom of speech is important, so is the right to express your personality. But lecturing the affected person about these rights may not be the best reaction when they have been insulted by someone.

I think the main point to discuss is not the rights, but whether the owner of a company should act more responsible, even if he is within his rights. And that's also the point of the OP.

[Ensorceled]

> I'm defending the right to own property, which is something really fundamental to the way we organize our society.

No one is trying to "steal" twitter in this thread, we are saying he used his "property rights" to unnecessarily hurt others.

You're the one who is saying this is just peachy keen and "that's on you".

You're defending the harm.

[xupybd]

I feel for this guy. He worked on a product for 16 years. A lot goes into that and it becomes part of your identity. Then right at a time close to the loss of his mother it gets shutdown, with no warning. I'd be devastated.

That said Elon is not doing this to anyone. He is not attacking anyone. He simply made a business decision. This happens all the time. Companies let suppliers go for financial reasons, they let staff go for similar reasons. People invest their lives into helping these businesses only to find they were let go for a few dollars. It sucks and it's can be super painful. Businesses mostly exist to make money and people should avoid investing their identity and loyalty into businesses as they probably won't reciprocate.

[vajrabum]

Just business doesn't usually lead to massive losses in an advertising revenue at an advertising business to the point Twitter is giving away ads. I'm not sure what it is but it's not just business. https://mashable.com/article/twitter-free-ads-to-advertisers...

[arrrg]

This to me reads like an argument that we should nuke capitalism. (Which I’m not sure is a good ideas, even.)

I mean, you are presenting something as inevitable, I just don’t understand why.

[Spooky23]

Why? Turds like Musk don’t need defense from anything other than their own ego.

Taking a poorly run site that had such a great influence in society and somehow running it even worse so that it loses its influence and revenue capability is breathtaking. It’s a lesson on how the modern hands off approach to corporate governance puts society at risk and is a lesson for limiting the rights of property owners.

[dkjaudyeqooe]

You seem to be suffering from Reductive Personality Disorder.

Just because Musk has the power to do things like this doesn't absolve him from the absolute shittiness of his behaviour. He doesn't get a free ride because he's the owner, quite the opposite. People who wield power should act responsibly with it. Musk hasn't heard of the concept because he's so self absorbed and insecure he has no room for any sort of basic human empathy.

Obnoxious people

[doctor_eval]

I’m not a Twitter user at all, but the people who have engaged with Twitter over the past few years are the ones who have provided Twitter with its value ($44 billion according to Musk). It’s not because of Elon or the previous shareholders, it’s because of the users.

In return for this value, the users got a social ”backyard”.

We like to say that there is no such thing as a free lunch, but it’s also true that the free lunch is an exchange.

ISTM Elon is breaking this agreement.

[leokennis]

I imagine you believe the money you keep with the company known as your bank is yours as well right?

Just because it’s a company doesn’t mean they get to behave like assholes and then put the blame on their users for being gullible or ignorant.

[kaashif]

I disagree somewhat with what that guy said but your "counterpoint" is ridiculous.

Bank deposits are yours! If the bank collapses and can't give them to you, there's FDIC insurance so the government will get you that money.

This is nothing at all like Twitter and only weakens your argument.

[ivalm]

How does this example supposed to work? When you deposit money you get an asset (an IOU from the bank), while the bank gets money + liability (they are short the IOU).

Your property after the deposit is the IOU, not the money (you gave the money away in exchange for the IOU!).

There is contract + law that governs how the IOU can be redeemed for money (up to a limit the federal government guarantees some kinds of IOUs via FDIC/etc).

Once the bank has your money (for which they gave you the IOU), they in fact can use the money at their own discretion (it is their money!) subject to some legal limitations. Those limitations are not about how banks use other people’s money (because normal banks aren’t custodial), they are limitations based on risk and collaterization of IOUs (the bank’s liabilities).

These limitations are not expression of your property rights, they are in fact limitations on bank’s property rights (their freedom to deploy capital) since historically banks were not very responsible and blew up (in which case they failed to cover their liabilities, so IOUs were redeemed for less than their face value).

Edit: as an aside, this

money => money + IOU + IOU short

Is exactly how most of “money” in circulation is produced. People take the IOU and spend it like money, banks take the money and lend it collaterized by houses/factories/etc. So you get people spending more than total cash in circulation (because they spend IOUs), while banks accumulate large IOU short position (again, collaterized through stuff like houses, factories, etc).

Nothing bad about this, this is in fact working as intended.

[pessimizer]

Twitter is a bank and is stealing deposits? That's a crime.

[warinukraine]

It's mine because the law says so.

[soheil]

> Well-written

Really? So if you go on a rampage of profanities and spew never ending hate and be as ugly and rude as possible that's praiseworthy?

> "For You" appears as the default option

No, it had been the default for several years now and every time you disabled it, it would mysteriously re-enable itself after a while.

> The "For You" timeline is only for Elon

No, he even complained about this feature, shadow-banning, censoring, and basically brain washing the masses among other things, before he bought Twitter.

> Mastodon is not great right now

No, because it will never be great. We discussed de-federation when I was at Twitter in the early days. It was clear an archipelago of decentralized servers can never generate momentum to drive enough revenue to get the wheel of acceleration spinning fast enough.

It was true then and it is true now, no matter how many hipster wanna be crypto bros who work on m7n tell you otherwise.

[wedn3sday]

> "... drive enough revenue ..."

Pretty clear where your values are here. Personally I quite like a system that's explicitly not being designed to drive revenue, and would like to interact with other people that also want to be in a place with a higher value then the dollar bill. Im perfectly happy to let people with your values stay on twitter away from me.

[soheil]

What do you think revenue does? It's a signal that something is of value to society so it can be used for growth to further increase value.

[wedn3sday]

Im saddened to hear that my community garden and local library dont provide any value to society, must be why I like spending time there so much.

[soheil]

I think you're confusing "if" with "if and only if".

Revenue is one way to provide value, not the only.