Mastodon Is the Good One. “Mastodon is interoperable, decentralized, operated by a nonprofit, lively, and, ACTUALLY, isn’t hard to use. So why is everyone championing Threads as the main Twitter alternative?”
Advertise here with Carbon Ads
This site is made possible by member support. ❤️
Big thanks to Arcustech for hosting the site and offering amazing tech support.
When you buy through links on kottke.org, I may earn an affiliate commission. Thanks for supporting the site!
kottke.org. home of fine hypertext products since 1998.
Discussion 17 comments
My .02 about two reasons for this — (1) Mastodon lacks a reassuring parent brand and so people may wonder if it's really that workable (by which I mean does it work well not does it have good content). Threads is from Meta and so it's going to work because people know Instagram and Facebook work. And related, (2), Mastodon was *really* hampered by the "it's too complicated" rep in the beginning months. Whether that was deserved or not isn't as relevant as the perception that it was too complicated and that's as far as the general user got. The good news is, it's kind of still early days maybe. Remember the first year or so of podcasting, when every podcast had to explain what subscribing was and where to even access podcasts? We got through it. Hoping Mastodon does too.
That’s a good point - Mastodon can, with app improvement & PR, get rid of the perception that it’s too hard to use, just like podcasting did.
Podcasting was however helped greatly by Apple, and its yet to be seen what could happen on that kind of scale for Mastodon.
Threads federating would be the "Apple includes podcasts in its new media player" moment.
My recollection is fuzzy here, but I'm pretty sure that podcasting was (quite spectacularly) clunky and un-ergonomic for a lot more than a year before Apple stepped in and added support to iTunes.
Even then, it was pretty clunky, given the need to periodically sync your podcasts to iTunes, and then sync iTunes to your iPod (given the devices' lack of network connectivity).
My take is this -- most of the people leaving twitter are not seeking a replacement at all. Most of the people that would are indicating that they would like to leave twitter and are not doing so. When I left I wasn't looking for a better twitter...
^^This.. leaving Twitter is like getting sober for a lot of people. Replacing alcohol with weed might make your life somewhat better, but you're still avoiding the pain / depriving yourself of joy...
[psst: Bluesky]
I love Mastodon, but the problem is that for most people, it is still far too hard to use, which makes it feel tedious or too serious. That friction has helped self-select for a more insular community that can too often make people from different communities feel alienated and unwelcome. Erin Kissane's informal survey about why Bluesky users bounced off Mastodon was very illuminating for me.
I love the idea of the fediverse, and I agree with this overall assessment. Also, it attracts the kind of folks who can deal with that kind of difficult UI, which creates a very specific kind of dialog that isn't for everyone.
By the time I was actually down to LEAVE Twitter, I had already made a Mastodon account. But it only followed then, and still follows only, the bot account for Kottke. I looked for ALL the other accounts I followed on Twitter and found NONE. I think it's more me than the platform, because my Twitter usage was so niche, but I agree with Robb, above: by the time I was actually ready to say Twitter is dead, I'm down to look for an alternative, I was basically not using Twitter at all, so the impetus to look for a real alternative was almost non-existent.
I found dozens of my favorites on Mastodon right away, and more keep showing up. Maybe it’s my cohort, but my interests cross a pretty wide range. Part of what I did is checked out who my friends were following. Occassionally someone would post a good follow list (e.g. solid journalists and news sources). I’m following over 600 now, and still finding people I want to add in.
I think this piece vastly underestimates how many people want an algo-driven feed. If I don't know who to follow on Mastodon, my feed is slow and stagnate. If I don't know who to follow on Threads, the algorithm fills in.
I agree with this. But perhaps we'll get algorithms we can subscribe to or plug-ins or something for Mastodon... on the other hand maybe, as I read somewhere, Mastodon is coffee to Twitters Meth. You can still get the dopamine hit from Mastodon if you post something that gets some boosts or traction or get some new followers, but it moves a lot slower, so its quite a bit less addictive.
The Mastodon server I was on-- cityofchicago.live-- just went poof with no warning or recourse, and now my account is gone. So yeah, that's a pretty bad structural issue.
After leaving twitter for a while (meaning basically removing the app from my phone), it has been refreshing to see how my mastodon feed is a nuanced space in such a troubled times we are living these days.
The initial perception of Mastodon (too difficult to choose a server, too technical, etc.) has stuck on in spite of the many improvements over the past year. Threads has the advantage of a huge Meta promotion machine that not only lets you smoothly transition from Instagram to Threads but now is also featuring (pushing?) Threads posts in people's FB and Instagram feeds to increase growth.
Bluesky is pretty great. (And I have codes that I'd be happy to share with fellow Kottke.org supporters...).
Hello! In order to leave a comment, you need to be a current kottke.org member. If you'd like to sign up for a membership to support the site and join the conversation, you can explore your options here.
Existing members can sign in here. If you're a former member, you can renew your membership.
Note: If you are a member and tried to log in, it didn't work, and now you're stuck in a neverending login loop of death, try disabling any ad blockers or extensions that you have installed on your browser...sometimes they can interfere with the Memberful links. Still having trouble? Email me!
In order to leave a comment, you need to be a current kottke.org member. Check out your options for renewal.
This is the name that'll be displayed next to comments you make on kottke.org; your email will not be displayed publicly. I'd encourage you to use your real name (or at least your first name and last initial) but you can also pick something that you go by when you participate in communities online. Choose something durable and reasonably unique (not "Me" or "anon"). Please don't change this often. No impersonation..
Note: I'm letting folks change their display names because the membership service that kottke.org uses collects full names and I thought some people might not want their names displayed publicly here. If it gets abused, I might disable this feature.
If you feel like this comment goes against the grain of the community guidelines or is otherwise inappropriate, please let me know and I will take a look at it.
This thread is closed for new comments & replies. Thanks to everyone for participating!