I still don't believe Mastodon will come out on top as a result of the fallout from Twitter, whatever it finally settles into, but I do think Mastodon is part of a larger contingent of the next generation of social media. Interconnected but smaller social networks that serve different purposes much like the web forums of old.
Mastodon is an implementation of ActivityPub. There are a bunch of them, with more to come. I believe ActivityPub or a descendent thereof will the protocol behind the next generation of social media, but will Mastodon the software? Hard to say.
Yeah, I think it'll be an interesting few years but to imagine one person with too much money and not enough sense to be the impetus to finally break the log jam of social media development is kind of fitting. Especially how social media today is all about appearances even if they're mostly fake. Personally, I would've thought it would be the larger conflict between news publishers and Google that would've broke it but so much for my own prognostication.
It's not about comparing products — It's about the greatest, albeit questionable, drama party on the planet. And if you've been on Twitter long enough, you're not going to leave, because no one wants to be home from a party before the host has passed out.
Also, Mastodon is ugly and clunky AF, and not ready for mainstream — The Typo3 of social.
Looks & feels like a ~2006 CMS, just not fun to use. Not to say that Twitter has advanced a lot recently, but it's still miles ahead in terms of polish.
Also, I was pleasantly surprised that you can use https://fe.soapbox.pub/ to try it on your own instance. I don't mind the default Mastadon interface, but the Soapbox one is better (and actually looks a lot like Twitter). Anyways thanks!
Except that Vivaldi was started with that as the goal from the beginning (as a continuation of the old Opera browser). it already has a mail and rss client iirc.
Seems like a good thing to have a few large corp instances run by well funded orgs. This lowers the pressure on the smaller instances and allow them to be more strict on how many users they are able to support
Use Vivaldi every day for my Hacker News, Techmeme, Twitter and news browsing. While I've been following Mastodon closely, this got me to signup finally!
I think they missed the chance of building this _into_ the browser and having posts/threads created for each page you visit. Then you could comment directly on the content you see in the browser, similar to StumbleUpon back in the day.
> goosesanta 15 hours ago [dead] | parent | prev | next [–]
>
> Gab already did that with Dissenter but Google banned them.
This is a fact so I do not see why this post has been downvoted to death - other than by the fact that the down-voters do not like Gab. That dislike does not make this statement less true, the 'Dissenter' browser extension did add just this functionality and it was banned (removed from the "store" and blacklisted in the browser) by both Google as well as Mozilla [1] . Gab reacted to this by creating yet another browser (based on Brave with the dissenter extension installed and the 'wallet' and crypto stuff removed).
Here's an idea: create an extension like 'dissenter' with a configurable Activitypub server so the user can point it at whatever Mastodon/Pleroma/Friendica/etc. server they want. That way the aspiring revolutionaries can point it at their favourite Mastodon instance, free-speech-absolutists can point it at theirs, [A-Z]+-activists can choose their favourites and so forth.
What Mastodon really needs from browsers is some way of communicating what is your instance, so that features like "Follow" button on other servers just work instead of "new hostname, who dis?".
I've been using Vivaldi for a little over a year now and I love it! The best browser (except for their tiny bookmarking popup) and this only makes it better. Looking forward to seeing how this grows!
They make decent products, and this announcement is interesting, but for some reason their Chrome browser skin is terrible for me. I feel like it's slow compared to other Chrome reskins (Edge, Brave, etc).
A vivaldi.net account requires a mobile number, so while the claims of no tracking might be true now it is entirely possible whenever desired or compelled to. I also wouldn't want to put all my eggs in one basket if you are false positively flagged in the social hellscape you might lose your mail access too.
I like the fact that Mastodon is slowly gaining more and more traction. Maybe, someday, we'll look back and mark that day where Elon Musk accidentally federated social media.
Or maybe he's playing 5D chess and this was the plan all along.
Actually, there are probably cheaper ways he could have made the Fediverse a viable competitor to Twitter, even if he somehow manages to later sell Twitter for 90% of what he paid for it.
Twitter is terrible. I'm starting a foundation to make Mastodon scale to interplanetary levels, and I'm putting in 420 million dollars to start, and I plan on giving additional grants of 69 million dollars every year it hits some marks, for up to ten years.
That would have cost him a single billion over ten years and have a very good chance of wiping out Twitter.
It wouldn't have worked. What the people quitting twitter want is a "safe-space" for whatever ideology they believe in. As long as these people controlled the platform, why would they go anywhere else?
These people don't care about decentralization, only controlling the message and prevent opposing ideas to foster on their platform, nothing more.
They'll go create yet another centralized social media that is not Twitter only by name.
I agree with you, but the question was "Could Musk have done something more effective with his money?" and I came up with an answer.
I think Musk has fallen into the Evil Overlord list, and has failed to run his plans past a five year old child. Watch for him to try to eat an energy field bigger than his head soon...
1. Your comment is claiming that my comment is overgeneralized? It is not.
2. I will grant my reply may be uninteresting to you. Unfortunately it did seem to push one of your buttons, which may suggest that there's something in it worthy of examination. Whatever I see someone reply so strongly to criticism in meetings or mediations it tells me more about the person than the critique.
3. My comment is not a rant. It was far too brief for that.
4. My comment was not speculation. (I am quite sure the words reflect my assessments of your comment.)
Therefore, saying "ditto" doesn't make sense. I think in your mind you thought "ditto" because you perceived my comment as an attack and you wanted to reply in kind.
My comment stated what I thought of your comment. It was blunt and short but not without meaning. The brevity might suggest to you that I didn't think your comment warranted additional time. I engage more substantively with good thinking. I'm making an exception here because I see you lashing out instead of looking inward.
Take my comment point by point and you have some opportunity to improve your writing and thinking. Or dismiss it and continue on with your current path. Or counterattack again. Some paths will help you grow and some won't. Choose wisely. I'm not your enemy -- ego and defensiveness are.
Don't worry -- so many tech people have tremendous opportunity for self improvement. Myself included.
> My comment stated what I thought of your comment. It was blunt and short but not without meaning. The brevity might suggest to you that I didn't think your comment warranted additional time. I engage more substantively with good thinking. I'm making an exception here because I see you lashing out instead of looking inward.
> Take my comment point by point and you have some opportunity to improve your writing and thinking. Or dismiss it and continue on with your current path. Or counterattack again. Some paths will help you grow and some won't. Choose wisely. I'm not your enemy -- ego and defensiveness are.
Your comment is by definition (bad) meta thus useless, you are not making any point aside from resorting to a personal attack, which is frowned upon here. It serves absolutely no purpose as you're not developing a counter argument, nothing.
You couldn't even make a complete sentence with a noun, pronoun and a verb...
Now stop wasting people time and get on with your life doing something meaningful for a change, you should reflect on that instead of having the audacity to tell people to "improve their writing".
You are lashing out. I'm sorry you feel hurt or insulted.
My first comment did not attack you personally. It criticized your writing and reasoning.
Substantively, I disagree with about 80% of your sentences, but I don't have additional time to get into it with you, because I don't think it will be very productive, particularly with how the dynamic is going.
I do apologize if I sound condescending or mean or judgmental. I know little about you: you may well be older, more experienced, more successful, wiser, happier, or kinder. You may be having a bad day, week, month, year, decade, or life.
I'm trying to strike a balance between being direct and honest without offending you. I'm quite confident you need to hear this message whether you are ready for it or not.
I wish you (and everyone) the best. You may want to have the last word (if you wish), but I don't expect to reply further.
> You are lashing out. I'm sorry you feel hurt or insulted.
You started the inane ramblings on purpose, I don't care about your feelings, you're not even trying to make any point, you're just pilling up on people and trolling them in the hope that they somehow cross the line and they get banned if they go out of line due to your repeated provocations.
Your behaviors are not beneficial for yourself or for this community. You seem to think you are standing up against a troll. But your words reveal a person making a bunch of guesses based on only one point of view. Based on this, you lash out.
I am not trying to get you banned. That would not have much long term benefit. That would not help you either. You would just get angrier I'd guess.
I'm trying to have a conversation to help you see another point of view. So far, you have not answered my questions. You have not asked clarifying questions. Fair?
Are you really so confident in the things you are saying? I think you will benefit if you can at least temporarily reduce your sense of confidence in your assessments. This might help you to not lash out at people that you think are your enemy.
Here are some questions for you to consider privately. You probably don't want to answer them here with someone you seem to detest so much... Why are you so angry? Why so accusative? Have you asked friends or a trusted person to assess your behavior? Do you have some kind of ethical or moral code? What is it? Does it justify your choice of words (a kind of behavior) here? Have you experienced any traumatic life events? Do you know where the hate is coming from?
Answer my questions, at least to yourself? Or continue being angry and not address them?
Your choice. Maybe. Do you have a choice? Could you reply kindly if you tried? Or are you locked in a counter-attack mentality? What could break the pattern?
What would make you happy (or relatively less unhappy) here? For me to admit that your claims are correct? I'm sorry, but I'm not going to say things that aren't true.
I have not insulted you, and I'm not going to. Everything you are doing is quite human, and all of us have done some parts of it or worse ourselves. This doesn't mean it is useful or helpful.
Your ideas, at least as written here, are flawed and quite unreasonable, and that's ok. Improve yourself and start caring, and your life can get better. Believe it or not, I care. Seriously.
I couldn't give a damn about anything you say because there is absolutely nothing you say that is related to the comment I answered to at first place in the thread. Next time instead of trolling people, come up with an argumented rebuttal. This isn't what you're doing, you're just trying to patronize people and you end up sounding like yet another internet concern troll.
I'm splitting hairs with my comment, but this most recent period is only the latest wave of folks coming over the fediverse. The last big wave previous to this that i recall was around 2017/2017 (maybe closer to the latter part of 2017) - if i remember correctly. That was mostly due to 2 things:
- creation/availability of the mastodon software stack (there are, and have always been other tech stacks on the fediverse)
- U.S. president Trump and his followers getting more vocal on the mainstream socials
Who knows, maybe you're right, and *this time* Elon's actions will have created the biggest migration wave...but i have a feeling, there will be other waves, and likely other reasons.
Nice effort but who uses these sandwich-positioned services (esp. email) for serious purposes when you can't even rely on Google keeping the lights burning?
this is just a grab by a corporation because they see ppl are centralizing on certain servers. Mastodon't.
As mentioned elsewhere here it's lame that servers have niche silos that convos aren't always fediversed out. It's crappy moving social network into that other thing ppl are trying to get back to: forums. Don't want it.
So I am interested in jumping into the fediverse but don't really know how to start. Does anyone have an easy to understand guide to starting or point to resources that are good how tos.
