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Comment by dbish | Hacker News Reader

Mastadon UX is really frustrating. Hoping there's a better option for following him in the near future

I feel like someone should lean into the fact that twitter is going insane and make a carbon copy of it, instead of trying to innovate on the concept/UX. Maybe even use a similar name, like bitter, xitter, etc.

Innovation is usually the way to overthrow incumbents, but in this case a carbon copy might be more effective.

https://nitter.net/about

That's not a separate clone, just a different front end, basically just a proxy for everything on twitter.

It feels like Mastodon is limited by the limitations the web (rightfully) added to improve security/restrict third party tracking. A lot of these UX issues could be fixed by having native client apps, where you add servers and the client takes care of mixing feeds and searches.

Finally signed up, seems fine. I think the big problem is if the servers will be able to handle the volume.

The whole server concept is a disaster, IMO. There is no search box for server. There is no information on how to create a server (at least on landing page). A lot of servers require "manual review". Many are "full". I don't know which one of these servers will even survive over time. I use Twitter as my "log" of interesting content and ideas. I rather not put content on server managed by a dude who can be run over by bus tomorrow and then I lose everything in an instant.

tbf same bus-factor applies to everything you collect

but have you tried simply using bookmarks in your browser — full control, full responsibility

also if you on the level of creating and maintaining your own server — its all open source

This whole server concept is what makes it viable as a network and what will make it outlive other popular services like Twitter.

Well, doesn't it feel like twitter let you down now too? It didn't get run over by a bus but it sure feels shaky.

At least mastodon has a complete export your data feature available for you, without hassle.

The servers on the Mastodon website are servers that have been running for a long time, are trusted, and have a plan for what happens in an emergency (multiple people with full access to everything required)

I agree. Mastadon in concept is OK but execution is quite poor.

> Mastadon

Is this word especially hard to write properly somehow? At least, please let your spell-checker do its job.

> Is this word especially hard to write properly somehow?

Yes, as evidenced by your frustration. It was a poor decision to use that word as the name in the first place - hopefully it hasn't hampered adoption too much.

It's so painful to use. It's such a waste they're winning the network effect battle off of Twitter's collapse. Not that I have a better alternative (open to suggestions).

Mastodon is the protocol. You can't really quit "Twitter" by joining "email", for example. It doesn't make sense.

Now maybe you can "quit Twitter" to join "Gmail", which is an email service. Similarly, people are going to have to pick Mastodon servers that work with them the best.

Tumblr seems to be the weird one (promising ActivityPub, aka Mastodon, support soon). Tumblr seems to be my personal best bet, but I'm also open to suggestions.

Yes, the protocol is terrible, which plays a major role in the UX. And yes, the semantics game is very fun to play with Mastodon, but people say they're quitting Twitter for Mastodon all the time and we all know what it means.

ActivityPub is the protocol, Mastodon is an implementation of that protocol. There are other services built on ActivityPub that can interop with Mastodon, which is part of what makes the whole system awesome.

The charitable reading is that a lot of people are saying "Mastodon" when they mean the "Fediverse" (the large collection of mostly inter-communicating servers running an instance of the software).

The masto/Fediverse thing is giving me GNU plus Linux flashbacks.

Twitter gave some suggestions:

https://twitter.com/TwitterSupport/status/160453126541959168...

which exact part is frustrating?

there are some additional twitter-like mobile clients, i.e.

- https://www.macrumors.com/2022/11/29/tapbots-ivory-mastodon-...

which supposedly fix the difference

my main frustration right now is the inability to follow somebody on a different instance from a web link, coupled with all instances using the same theme. when somebody links to https://mas.to/@paulg, i end up on a site that looks exactly the same as mastodon.social, except i can't sign in to it, and i can't actually click the follow button there. if i want to follow @paulg, i have to go to my instance and search for @paulg@mas.to

Agreed, this is annoying. I just have to go back to my instance, and search for the link (https://mas.to/@paulg) in the search bar, then I can follow them.

you can pin tab with your instance, or even open it in a sidebar

- https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/webpage-sideb...

if that's the biggest obstacle

both those options are bad UX and papercuts that cause me to not want to use it. if you "just" have to take a second step or prepare your environment in a particular way for the most important part of a social network, following someone, that's a dealbreaker.

yeah, i have no idea how people seem to use internet for everything but cant bring themselves to copy paste a single url

maybe it just show how little someone else's content is important to you

>maybe it just show how little someone else's content is important to you

i mean that's pretty much it. i barely care about the whole thing, but if it's easy enough it's a bit of decent time waster. twitter was easy enough, adding the tiniest of steps is enough to make me decide i don't really care.

Mastodon's UX isn't bad, it's just not actively pressuring me into interacting more than i really want to, the way twitter generally did/does.

1. you can copy-paste same url ( https://mas.to/@paulg ), no need to re-format, event simply writing `paulg` will start the search and likely find intended user pretty fast

2. https://indieweb.org/webactions

You can use RSS if you prefer: https://mas.to/@paulg.rss

Create your own? There are many implementations over ActivityPub, but you can create your own if you like.

haha, would love to for fun, but not a good business move as consumer network based products are hit driven/hard to cold start/etc., and already 100% dedicate to trying to get my own startup off the ground. Would be a fun project though, and I did take a first stab at a social network with a gaming clip sharing site once, but quickly realized this is a very hard space with very low probability of success when you're competing against a bunch of incumbents that have a network to work with already.

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