There's nothing existential wrong with Twitter. Elon Musk generates drama which the media plays up for clicks. It's an open question how many of the people creating Mastodon accounts because a reporter mentioned it are going to be actively using them in six months. And if it continues to be the same kind of garbage fire subject to the whims of oligarchs as the networks people are fleeing, that's not likely to be many. Fixing this kind of problem is how you get people to stay.
> Coming up with a replacement at this point isn't going to work: the Mastodon name is already out there, and this is the time when an alternative has to be ready and usable: it's first-mover advantage.
Twitter has first-mover advantage. Mastodon is still a tiny thing.
> So why hasn't this been done yet? We've had decades.
DKIM and SPF were done. They're widely supported and work as designed.
> Incumbents don't want to fix it.
This is an obstacle, not a death ray. Find a way to exert pressure on the incumbents to fix the problem. Isn't this supposed to be the benefits of centralization I keep hearing about? There are only a couple of parties you have to convince in practice to get something changed?
> Mastodon is likely in the same place now. Something better doesn't exist yet, and doesn't have any name recognition.
There will be a fresh omnishambles causing people to seek alternatives a year from now after you've implemented a proper protocol for people to switch to. Do it now so you're ready for then.
> Mastodon itself can't be fixed because the designers like it how it is: if they wanted a better design, they would have designed it that way from the outset.
That doesn't follow. People frequently make mistakes and regret them later.
> So if Mastodon catches on, we're stuck with it as-is.
So don't use it until they fix it. It's not like Twitter was actually incinerated. What good is switching to a known-broken technology? Wait for the one that works, and in the meantime build it.