I don't get this. People are saying Meta will do the same thing when Threads or whatever they call it comes online.
Looking at the networks themselves, there are massive differences in user numbers. Nobody but a few geeks used XMPP. Nobody but a few geeks use Mastodon, Mastodon could never even handle all Twitter users moving over. Then there's a huge influx of normal people into the network because a big company experiments with being friendly with open standards. A system used by tend of thousands is joined by millions.
When those millions move away, the old protocol isn't killed. We're still in the situation that nobody but a bunch of geeks use XMPP. Some of those geeks don't care enough and stick with what works (though I doubt they've landed on Google Chat).
Those millions brought in by Google and Facebook didn't care about the federated nature of an extensible messaging protocol, they wanted to talk to their friends. Some of their friends had weird usernames that didn't end in gmail.com or facebook.com, that's the normal user experience.
XMPP sucked as a messaging tool and even today it still sucks because there are only a few clients out there that actually support basic group chat that everyone expects these days. Mastodon sucks because of usability problems (try following a user from a linked thread, the weird popup system is user hostile at the very least).
When some big company joins your network, you'll have to find a way to keep up with it or it'll leave again. Threads will join Mastodon, probably stir up some drama, and then defederate. Mastodon will then quickly go back to its natural state, a slightly smaller network of servers like it is now.
If your users jump ship because the competition made a better version, that's not killing your protocol. That's highlighting the problems with your current protocol, and your dependence on someone else's customer base to keep your project popular.
7 million 'created' accounts throughout its entire existence in 8 years is hardly interesting or early days. The point of the OP still stands that "Nobody but a few geeks use Mastodon, Mastodon could never even handle all Twitter users moving over."
Even when Meta connects Threads to ActivityPub, it is a magnificent win for centralization and a complete nightmare for Mastodon and 'federation' and there is nothing they can do to stop it other than just de-federate and stay irrelevant.
This post exactly highlights the same thing on what happened to XMPP, but worse. Especially even when admins of other large Mastodon instances can be corrupted by larger companies like Meta with money, NDAs and contracts to allow these instances to federate with Meta. This is the typical 'Embrace, Extend, Extinguish' strategy all over again.
As I said before: "Instagram's success on ActivityPub is also Mastodon's nightmare and it tends to more centralization." [0] A paradox that is unavoidable for Mastodon without accounting for its UX failures and risking more centralization to the point where Meta is already winning after when other companies can still 'buy' out admins of very large instances. [1]
Interesting is a matter of perspective, but I've noticed over weeks and months that your HN account "rvz" has been constantly commenting about Mastodon, so you appear to be very interested, despite your claim to the contrary. ;-)
> early days
logicprog didn't say it was early days.
> Nobody but a few geeks use Mastodon
The issue is with "few". Millions of people aren't a few. Perhaps Mastodon users are all or mostly "geeks", i.e., technically sophisticated, but let's not pretend there aren't millions of users. Yes, the number is small in comparison to Twitter and Instagram, but it's large in absolute terms.
> Mastodon could never even handle all Twitter users moving over.
This is true.
Some Twitter migrants to Mastodon want to bring everyone along. Others, such as myself, are happy to leave all of the celebrities, politicians, and trolls behind. My community, Apple developers, for whom I originally joined Twitter back in the day, have almost all migrated from Twitter to Mastodon, and my Mastodon feed is as active as my Twitter feed ever was, while my Twitter feed is now largely dead.
> let's not pretend there aren't millions of users.
Is there evidence that there are over a million regular users? I'd actually bet there aren't. I'd bet it wasn't even close until the twitter media panic.
> Another fan and avid reader of my comment history, deciding to comment directly to me about it.
No, we both just happen to read and comment on a lot of Mastodon stories here, myself because I'm a Mastodon user, and you because... well, I don't understand your obsession with Mastodon. Anyway, I have a pretty good memory, and I remember discussing/arguing with you before in the comments of Mastodon stories.
> The graph omits the entire history of Mastodon users before Oct. 2022, and it has been around since 2016. Not 2022. Thus, It is not early days and my point still stands.
Again, nobody here said it was early days, so your point has no point.
> That's the problem with that figure and it is still unimpressive in 8 years.
"unimpressive" is a matter of opinion and perspective. I'm impressed that most of my community has migrated. This didn't happen with app.net back in the 2010s, unfortunately, which I'm still sad about and consider a missed opportunity, because app.net was superior to Mastodon in a number of ways.
I never wanted 220M people to migrate to Mastodon. You can cackle to yourself that Mastodon didn't become the "New Twitter", and perhaps some people out there in the world believed it would be, but I'm not one of them, and nobody here appears to be one, so you're just inserting irrelevant dunks against your perceived foes into this discussion.
Mastodon is not a failure for not having become the New Twitter, with hundreds of millions of users. I see no indication that Eugen Rochko ever had that goal in mind. Mastodon is a thriving community. It's a much smaller community than Twitter, which is fine and good. Mastodon is certainly not perfect, and it could use some improvements, but IMO attracting hundreds of millions of users would wreck everything that's good about it.
> I'm not the one cheerleading over any mass Twitter migrations to Mastodon with normal users
Again you keep rambling, obsessed about this thing that's irrelevant to the linked article and the comments here.
> as much as your are or using anecdotes and fantasies which can be easily dismissed.
I have no idea what you're talking about.
> we both know that logicprog didn't show the whole timeline since 2016.
Yes, logicprog gave the link https://mastodon-analytics.com/ that has stats from Oct 22 to June 23, which is not the full history of Mastodon. But so what? logicprog didn't make any historical claims. I'm guessing that logicprog perhaps just googled for that link, and it came up in the search results. I have no insight into the design of that website.
> You just don't like the fact that what I said is true.
I don't even understand what I'm supposed to not like? I've already stated clearly, several times that I like the fact that Mastodon is much smaller than Twitter.
> Mastodon users (and its die hards) know that it has been there for 7 - 8 years.
Yes, this is an indisputable empirical fact. So what?
> Then 'finally' other users took a look at it in November 2022, left and didn't look back hence the 'slump' in users.
I personally joined in late 2022 and stayed.
> It is still unimpressive. In comparison, Nostr has 3M total signed up in less than a year. [0]
I don't quite understand how nostr defines "users", but in any case, from your own link:
Users: 318,981
Trusted users: 82,323
Daily active users: between 7000 and 9000
Weekly active users: between 18,000 and 20,000
And the retention of users, 30 days after signup is pretty close to 0%. So I'm at a total loss about what you're celebrating.
> Now when tested in November 2022, normal users tried it, weren't impressed and left
It's not clear that "normal" users even tried it. Mastodon never had 200 million accounts at any time, or anywhere close to that number.
By the way, lots of people also try Twitter and abandon it. That's par for the course on any social network.
> In principle, it is a failure. Even Eugen knows this paradox. Following the UX failure of being unable to onboard normal users from Twitter to Mastodon, they chose a 'default instance' to sign up in the official mobile app.
I wouldn't say that's an in principle failure. It's an issue, to be sure, and as I said, Mastodon "could use some improvements". But the goal was never to migrate and onboard every Twitter user, so the onboarding difficulties don't make the project a failure. It's a thriving community nonetheless.
> The problem is however, whilst everyone was too focused on Twitter's death which didn't happen last year
> You seems to be a bit frustrated yourself by the fact that there was little to no such adoption in the first place after showing those links right in front of you.
How many times do I have to say that I'm happy with the current size of Mastodon?
> I thought you said you had a 'good memory'?
This has nothing to do with memory. You made vague, almost nonsensical accusations.
> We all know that the vast majority of normal users (not techies, developers, etc) have tried it, aired their frustrations and left and didn't stick around.
Absurdly false. There's no evidence whatsoever that hundreds of millions of people have tried Mastodon. That's such a bizarre claim, especially since you continue to talk about how you think the total number of Mastodon accounts ever created is low.
> But clearly you refuse to acknowledge that and continue to ignore the centralization and corruption risks with Meta's backroom NDAs with instance admins.
This may be the first relevant thing you've said. Except I'm 100% opposed to Facebook's P92 project.
> Yet the majority of the normal users (220M+) on Twitter took a look at Mastodon, tried it, left and never looked back again.
Whether they "looked" at Mastodon, I couldn't say (and neither can you), but I can say that the majority of Twitter users didn't try it.
Do 200M people even have the motivation to try Mastodon?
> But for perspective of that figure, it seems that Nostr reached that 'total number' quicker than Mastodon did in less than 7 years.
There's an obvious reason for that, the elephant in the room. The Mastodon and Nostr signups both mostly occurred after Elon Musk acquired Twitter.
> Is that why you haven't replied to this comment [1] who is asking whether if there is even evidence of 'over a million regular users?' (non-techies) using it?
Why do you take "regular" from the other commenter to mean "non-techie" as opposed to "frequent"?
According to https://joinmastodon.org/about there are 1.2M monthly active users. There are no demographic surveys of Mastodon, so I have no idea how many are "techie" or "non-techie", nor do I care.
> Mastodon was meant to challenge that during the so-called #TwitterMigration outrage as that alternative for normal users.
What do you mean Mastodon was "meant" for that? As you continue to say, Mastodon was created in 2016. The so-called #TwitterMigration was a result of Elon Musk acquiring Twitter in 2022. Unless you're claiming that Eugen Rochko magically predicted this acquisition 6 years prior, Mastodon was not meant for that.
The simple fact is that after Musk acquired Twitter, a significant number of people including myself were looking for an alternative to Twitter, and they found it with Mastodon. You seem overly concerned about what happened with Mastodon from 2016-2021, but I don't really care about that. Yes, Mastodon had relatively low adoption before the Musk acquisition. So what?
> given that you're were part of the Twitter collapse nonsense on HN last year. But you knew that already.
You: Yet the majority of the normal users (220M+) on Twitter took a look at Mastodon, tried it, left and never looked back again.
Me: Absurdly false.
You: Exactly.
This is truly an insane "discussion".
> I already said that in my first comment, but perhaps you finally decided to read what the actual problem is.
> You can be opposed to it, but that won't stop the further centralization and Instagram's dominance in the 'Fediverse', already being compromised in the process especially when they are already winning.
I already read this in the linked article: "if Meta joins the Fediverse, Meta will be the only one winning. In fact, reactions show that they are already winning". You've added absolutely nothing new or enlightening.
> Seems to me that this other commenter is interested in how many users are regular, i.e 'non-technical' and also signed up to Mastodon.
You have no idea either way.
> For 'normal users', it is seen as the 'alternative' to Twitter. During the #TwitterMigration of 2022 and even before Elon acquired the company.
I suspect that most weren't even aware of its existence.
> 'Significant' is 1.2 million MAU
Yes.
> when compared to 450M MAUs still sitting on Twitter?
I don't feel the need to compare.
> especially when you are still unable to show verifiable data around Mastodon daily active users.
I don't know whether that data is even collected. I'm not responsible for Mastodon data collection.
> Henceforth, the majority of Twitter's users don't care
I don't care.
> I do not need to cite, since you already know you were part of the 'everyone' camp who was talking about Twitter's collapse on HN.
I don't know any such thing, because it's false. I do know that your accusation against me here is in gross violation of the HN guidelines, and I also know that this discussion is becoming extremely tedious and futile, so let's just end it now.
One more thing though: Nobody is trapped on Twitter. They don't need Mastodon or any Twitter alternative to "rescue" them. Mastodon didn't "fail" them. If they want to leave, they can simply stop using Twitter and spend their free time in another way. I'm old enough that the majority of my life predated the existence of Twitter, and it was fine.
I was referring to the XMPP users before Google started federating. Twitter's slow descent into online hell has made Mastodon significantly more popular.
However, there may be 7 million users, but about 2 million still use the platform at all. Two million people is a lot of people, but compared to Twitter's 240 million user accounts and Instagram's 2350 million user accounts the Fediverse is a spec of dust.
Lucky for most of us who enjoy those platforms, two million people is plenty. Like all the bumper stickers in my town say, "BEND SUCKS. DON'T MOVE HERE."
> Those millions brought in by Google and Facebook didn't care about the federated nature of an extensible messaging protocol, they wanted to talk to their friends.
Yes, and instead of using "true XMPP" to talk to their friends and contribute to its growth, Google diverted that flow of new users into its own product. Sure the growth would have been far slower without Google, but this way Google managed to steal a few users that would have joined XMPP even without Google, on the false promise of compatibility.
Instead of slow, healthy growth, what happened was fast, parasitic growth, and on top of it all it added a maintenance burden for XMPP developers trying to maintain compatibility with Google.
You say XMPP was small - that's the point! To kill competitors before they become a threat.
If Google knew how to kill a competitor's messaging platform they wouldn't be starting two new chat apps every year. I don't believe that Google decided to pick XMPP because it formed an actual threat; rather, XMPP was open source, freely available, and had a whole bunch of code all ready to go. Why invent your own if there's a free, documented protocol already out there?
WhatsApp picked XMPP as a basis for their messaging infrastructure when it started out. It never even bothered to federate with XMPP, but the technology still worked. XMPP's miserable state isn't some evil Google plot, it's a lack of user interest and a failure to effectively market the protocol. Unlike previous attempts, WhatsApp actually took off, easily overtaking Google's own fledgling messaging service, because it knew what people wanted: "chat without SMS charges". This left some space in other countries where SMS was essentially free, but nobody managed to capture interest in XMPP there either.
I know one XMPP client that everyone agrees is somewhat usable, Conversations, and it looks like development and design stopped somewhere around 2014. Absolutely nothing stood in the way of XMPP taking the place that Line, Telegram, Signal, WhatsApp, and all the others, but there was simply no interest in making a good product out of a federated service.
Matrix is trying again, with big companies using it instead of IRC, and it's struggling to survive in a world where Discord looks better and works better.
Looking at the networks themselves, there are massive differences in user numbers. Nobody but a few geeks used XMPP. Nobody but a few geeks use Mastodon, Mastodon could never even handle all Twitter users moving over. Then there's a huge influx of normal people into the network because a big company experiments with being friendly with open standards. A system used by tend of thousands is joined by millions.
When those millions move away, the old protocol isn't killed. We're still in the situation that nobody but a bunch of geeks use XMPP. Some of those geeks don't care enough and stick with what works (though I doubt they've landed on Google Chat).
Those millions brought in by Google and Facebook didn't care about the federated nature of an extensible messaging protocol, they wanted to talk to their friends. Some of their friends had weird usernames that didn't end in gmail.com or facebook.com, that's the normal user experience.
XMPP sucked as a messaging tool and even today it still sucks because there are only a few clients out there that actually support basic group chat that everyone expects these days. Mastodon sucks because of usability problems (try following a user from a linked thread, the weird popup system is user hostile at the very least).
When some big company joins your network, you'll have to find a way to keep up with it or it'll leave again. Threads will join Mastodon, probably stir up some drama, and then defederate. Mastodon will then quickly go back to its natural state, a slightly smaller network of servers like it is now.
If your users jump ship because the competition made a better version, that's not killing your protocol. That's highlighting the problems with your current protocol, and your dependence on someone else's customer base to keep your project popular.