Mastodon’s founder cedes control, refuses to become next Musk or Zuckerberg

Just the UX rather than the UI. It’s also missing some features like quote tweets. But it can be confusing to onboard either your own instance and know that your discoverable or to join an instance and know how discoverable you are.

Like I am a career man in IT, servers, and networking. I have no idea if I were to run my own instance, who exactly on the network would be able to see my public posts

As someone who had never used corporate social media like FB and Twitter (for my own reasons), when I found out about Mastodon back in 2017-18, I decided to join it because of its philosophy and it not being a corporate-owned walled garden. It has its flaws of course. But since I didn't have any preconceptions, I mostly liked Mastodon as it was and didn't find it confusing at all. That's probably because I read up on Mastodon first to decide whether I'd want to try it, so I knew what to expect.

So I can understand how people who had been using Twitter and had their expectations shaped by it would assume that Mastodon was just a Twitter clone, not having learned anything about it beforehand. That's why they were confused and disappointed to find that it was its own thing with its own philosophy, and had existing communities aligned with that philosophy.

Some (not all) of those who saw the differences as flaws, complained that Mastodon was crap for not having certain Twitter features, and some (not all) existing communities didn't take kindly to demands that Mastodon abandon its philosophy and transform itself into a Twitter clone, so there were conflicts as well, and those new people didn't stick around.

OTOH, many other new people found that they liked the different philosophy and those people did stick around, so Mastodon has grown. But IMO since most people like the Twitter-style algorithms and "broadcast/consume" culture (as opposed to Mastodon's more personal interaction culture), Mastodon will always be a much smaller thing. But its existence is an important and good thing, like the quiet room away from the riotous street party, where you can hear each other speak.

More UX than UI. The entire on-boarding process is hard on Mastodon. Who is on there? How do we find them, etc. it’s all rather nebulous. BlueSky has been innovative with some of their ideas. Things like starter packs are simple but greatly help new users get going. It’s shocking other social networks have not thought of them.

imho: UX-wise.
a: marketing, the name Mastodon is not in common usage, at all… it’s named after a (very cool) metal band… i love it, but your avg chap will hear “mastodon” and wrinkle their nose and move on in the sea of infinite new apps that are shinier… i think this hurt Diaspora a lot as well… at the end of the day, it’s a social network and people have to actually talk about it…
like, regular schmoe’s who don’t love new words have to drunkenly say at a bar “hey add me on ____” and bluesky is so so much better for that.
… remember, regular sports bar types need to say it to each other… grandma’s in nursing homes need to be comfortable with it.
“federated” is a big word and concept, but still the best word for it… after decentralized….
….
b: probably bigger but Jack Dorsey is kinda touted as this super moral tech luminary, even though he quit bluesky for centralizing, he still added a lot of weight to that critical mass a social network needs to achieve to be useful at all.
….
c. actual UI: trying to tag a username and instance is pretty cumbersome… on twitter or insta or most things, you can type @username and tag anyone, on lemmy it’s not as big of a deal because it’s little forums organized around posts, instead of posts organized around users… on a microblogging or friend-network thing like diaspora, it’s just not easy enough.
like, granny in the nursing home isn’t going to type !sonnyboy@dopemastonny.federaloo.org… or get all that….
if you don’t abstract all that away, regular users will be afraid and you’ll get mostly techies and people ideologically motivated to join….
and of course, most of the ideologically motivated ones will take bluesky as close enough… especially because it’s gotten big enough….

"Why can't the algo find me better content?"

Motherfucker, it's social media. You have to get social with people. Make a fucking friend, right?

Like, I fixed that shit by following George Takei and Mark Hamill and some reporters. The algo shouldn't be finding things for you. You should be finding people.

Yeah, scratching my head just the same. My only problem with Mastodon is the same I had with StumbleUpon. It's way too good about putting neat people and conversations in front of me and I feel bad not rising to the occasion more when I just want to deadbrain.

Bluesky has the USP of people being able to choose from multiple algorithms or even use multiple ones at the same time; and that certainly has resonated with a lot of people.

That and finding relevant things or anything at all sometimes; also I hear that people want to see everything like a friendica environment but don't like the differences from the social medias they know already. I'm not sure if it is all valid or relevant because I am extremely new to the fediverse in general myself.

I can't speak for others, but when I joined I was definitely confused by instances, federated internet, moderation variances, and how to operate the various ~ 4 beta apps I downloaded at the same time.

I'm definitely not a tech normie, but it was still unfamiliar and I would never have migrated if I hadn't been fed up with Reddit.

Most people don't want to have to look up guides to figure out how a system works, they just want to download an app that their friends all use and move on with their day. Blocking instances you don't like? Doing research to find a "home" instance? Ain't nobody got time for that.

Very valid! This guy is like 38 though so I think he has gotten to the age where he has streamed for so long that it’s second nature but using a new social media that isn’t familiar enough seems like a hassle I guess? I feel those closer to my age, people in their 20’s, are either a bit intimidated by it or feel that there is a lack of people and content because it’s hard to find relevant “tweets” (or whatever the equivalent is called). That was my biggest thing when I first tried it a few years ago. I had this “so… what now..?” Feeling. It felt like the social was missing from it. I’m a little bit better at finding things to engage with; such as now, but I can somewhat remember the feeling I had that originally deterred me till now.

What features?

The Washington Post published a guide encouraging and teaching users how to migrate to the platform.

But don’t take my word for it. Jump on and look around. It’s as crowded with neoliberals as Truth Social is with Red MAGAs.