[meibo]

My entire tech bubble moved to mastodon and it's been great. No ads, no algorithms. Maybe the VC bubble is just stuck with it because of what it used to be?

[dooraven]

I'm curious about the composition of your tech bubble - is it programmers / technical folk mostly? cause yeah lots have moved.

The non-technical tech sphere hasn't really moved though, but maybe my circles are quite different to yours.

[orwin]

Infosec/cybersec. If you just want CVEs, automatic updates, and LinkedIn-style influencers, Twitter is still fine. If you want the stories, the how, the why, and reading humans live updates, you go to mastodon/Activitypub (bonus if you're a student: make your own activityPub reader!)

[thefreeman]

can you recommend an instance with this type of content?

[_fizz_buzz_]

Definitely a lot of electronics/EE stuff has also moved to mastodon (at least people that i was following). I follow a bigger group there than I have ever on twitter. Mastodon is still a bit quirky sometimes, but my mastodon feed is now definitely more interesting than my twitter feed.

[andreygrehov]

How do I, as an investor, make money with mastodon?

[somehnguy]

You don’t - oh well. I’m sure there is an endless number of other ways you can try to make money investing if that’s your main concern.

[rsynnott]

You... probably don't? I continue to believe that there may be some small value in a single-person-instance-as-a-service product for celebs etc (particularly if Threads goes ahead with its embrace of ActivityPub; lots of value for celebrities in having the audience but having some independence from Facebook), but it's very niche.

Not everything has to be about making money, you realise.

[bee_rider]

It seems like a hassle to re-negotiate federation each time for each celebrity. What about a general PR themed instance (strictly moderated so that everyone will peer with it).

[frameset]

Thats actually a really cool idea. The big PR agencies who rep for actors, authors, musicians etc, could run an instance and that's where the person's identity would be.

[rsynnott]

> re-negotiate federation

That's not really how it works. Federation happens ~by default in general; restriction is reactive, not proactive.

[rajamaka]

You don't, which is why it doesn't suck

[flagrant_taco]

There could be a market for one central Mastodon host with better UX that makes it easier to onboard non-tech people, but I'm not sure why making money is a pre-req here. Mastodon was never meant to be a for-profit enterprise as far as I'm aware.

[Vosporos]

Find a real job

[ncallaway]

How do you, as an investor, make money with oxygen?

But you still breathe, right?

[pessimizer]

Does anyone make money from your Mastodon use? I understand how moving to your own place could be good, hell, if you're just talking to each other you could even consider retroshare, but I don't understand the business loss when a bunch of IT professionals move their conversations to a private server.

[ke88y]

> but I don't understand the business loss when a bunch of IT professionals move their conversations to a private server.

Why pay (as much) to advertise to an empt(ier) room?

[thefreeman]

what instance did you join?

[mavhc]

Who's paying for servers, moderation, etc?

[stephen_g]

A lot of the medium to large instances use crowdfunding subscription services like Patreon, Ko-Fi etc. to cover costs.

[mavhc]

Wait, aren't we against paying to use a social media site?

[coldpie]

No, I'm a big fan of paying for what I use, and I actually do give money to a small social media site that I use. However, I'm also strongly opposed to giving money to transphobes and Republicans, so Twitter is out.

[pjc50]

Not in principle, we're just against paying to use Twitter.

(The dynamic is very different when it's voluntary and feels like supporting a community, though, and in practice it's going to be a few whales making donations)