from Hacker News

Mastodon isn’t just a replacement for Twitter

by ntnsndr on 11/29/22, 5:38 PM with 101 comments

• by totemandtoken on 11/29/22, 7:19 PM

  You know, if you move around the 'just' in this title, it changes the meaning of the title to almost every opinion I've seen about Mastodon and Twitter

• by ergonaught on 11/29/22, 6:27 PM

  I've taken to suggesting people read https://mastodon.help/ before they bother. It's not perfect, either, but I like to kid myself that it helps avoid the "I DEMAND THAT THIS BE LIKE TWITTER" thing.

• by dawnerd on 11/29/22, 7:57 PM

  I've been meeting a lot more really cool people on Mastodon than I have in the entire 15+ years I was on Twitter. Discussions end up much more civil, everyone has been friendly so far. It's just really chill not having an algorithm push outrage topics to bump engagements.

• by hk1337 on 11/29/22, 6:39 PM

  Mastodon seems like a more successful version of what Diaspora was supposed to do.

• by czbond on 11/29/22, 6:51 PM

  what is the incentive for anyone but the technology adopter or politically inclined to move from Twitter to Mastodon? For almost all users, Twitter is free, and has all the users?

  The only reason I've heard someone suggest to move from Twitter is because the new owner opened his mouth about political views.

• by api on 11/29/22, 5:54 PM

  It reminds me more of a cross between Twitter and Usenet. It is not the same thing as a silo social media site.

• by noncoml on 11/29/22, 7:59 PM

  Isn’t Mastodon moderation similar to subreddits? I.e. the owner of the server is the one who decides what’s allowed and what not? I find it very problematic

• by orangepurple on 11/29/22, 8:02 PM

  While we're on the topic of social media I'd like to remind everyone that Discord won't let you delete older messages without the risk of getting banned with no appeals process. So if you were considering leaving Twitter or Mastodon for Discord, DON'T.

  https://github.com/victornpb/undiscord/discussions/273

• by incomingpain on 11/29/22, 7:34 PM

  Mastodon isn't a replacement. You can be on both platforms at once. Yes, an outrage or drama event violating trust will be what shifts people away from a platform.

  Why Mastodon isn't as large as twitter is a question by itself. Twitter's continued existence doesn't matter.

• by baxuz on 12/1/22, 3:16 PM

  Mastodon is just an extra obtuse version of subreddits with less users and features.

  I honestly don't get the hype.

• by ohiovr on 11/30/22, 2:09 AM

  There is no drama leakage from mastodon that I've seen which seems the point of twitter entirely.

• by dpflan on 11/29/22, 6:45 PM

  'As media scholar Victor Pickard suggests, “Hopefully Twitter’s collapse will lead to a more expansive conversation about the relationships between capitalist imperatives and the communication [and] information needs of democratic societies.”

  As users begin migrating to the noncommercial fediverse, they need to reconsider their expectations for social media — and bring them in line with what we expect from other arenas of social life. We need to learn how to become more like engaged democratic citizens in the life of our networks.'

  All right, running with this: corporate sponsored "public spaces" aren't really public (as they are capitalist entities). Let's add "Conway's Law" [1.] to this, and extrapolate that perhaps democracies currently are repeating the design of the communication structures that comprise it (of which there are myriad, but assume the largest/loudest have more sway). Let's pick one nation, the US, and question: is the US democracy constrained by the current corporate-sponsored public-spaces/communication structures (which have been old media, i.e. print, but seems now new media, i.e. all online). A 'fediversification' of the public mind seems really important here, the question is how far can/does it go (techno-first generations seems fine, but let's say baby-boomers perhaps not so much?).

  I'm curious what others think about this, and what resources can be shared to provide more insight into this question.

  [1.] Conway's Law: “Organizations, who design systems, are constrained to produce designs which are copies of the communication structures of these organizations.”

• by ourmandave on 11/29/22, 6:34 PM

  I've seen a lot of people migrating to POST.

  There's a waiting list while the devs are frantically in the middle of actually writing it.

  https://www.thewrap.com/what-is-post-twitter-alternative-new...

• by trollerator23 on 11/29/22, 11:38 PM

  For all the three users flocking to Mastodon

• by 10g1k on 11/29/22, 9:22 PM

  Extreme lefty Westerners: "OMG! Twitter might allow free speech?! Nooooooo!!1111"

  Meanwhile in China...

• by JustSomeNobody on 11/29/22, 6:49 PM

  The Twitter migration to Mastodon will be short-lived, sadly. People see Post as the new shiny already. One silo to another. Sigh...

• by floren on 11/29/22, 6:55 PM

  Unfortunately Mastodon is doomed to failure because 50% of people will spell it "Mastadon" no matter how many times they see it written correctly.