Why Did the Twitter Migration to Mastodon Fail?

Define 'failed'. If the expectation was that Twitter would uproot, en masse, and move to Mastodon, well, yes, that 'failed', but I'm not sure anyone really expected that to happen? That is _not_ typically how social networks die; when Livejournal kicked the bucket, say, some people who really liked Livejournal's mechanics moved to Dreamwidth or similar, but the vast majority just drifted slowly to other social networks with quite different mechanics. Mastodon (and that Jack Dorsey thing, and the others) are basically Dreamwidth here, I think; they'll be of interest for people who specifically liked Twitter because of its mechanics, but less so to others, who are more likely to go to Instagram or TikTok or Facebook or something completely new as Twitter falls apart.

From the point of view of someone who migrated to Mastodon, it certainly hasn't failed; if anything, it's quite refreshing, and reminds me of Twitter in the old days. It's an improvement on pre-2022 Twitter, and certainly a massive improvement on Naughty Old Mr Car Twitter. But I really enjoyed Twitter circa 2010; I am very much the target market.

I do wonder are people over indexing the death of Digg. In that case, people really did move, really rapidly, to Reddit. Reddit probably absorbed _most_ of Digg's user base. But that was a really unusual, possibly unique social media death, with significant special circumstances. We should probably be looking more towards Livejournal, MySpace, Bebo, that lot.

One reason it failed was because it looked like you needed a freaking PhD to understand the account setup process. It's difficult to convince people that your party's great if you make them solve a math problem correctly before you let them in.

I don't accept the premise of the headline. The migration hasn't failed, it's still in progress. Also, it's not just Mastodon, it's the entire Fediverse.

I bailed on the twit site when Muskrat's purchase agreement finally went through. Saw the writing on the wall and was already gone-deleted by the time he carried his sink into the lobby.

Took me awhile to find a Fediverse instance that jived, but am a happy camper now. Zero ads to scroll past. Postive interactions with people I don't really know but who are at least real humans who share mostly interesting things. Unwanted bots and agenda crap are easily muted. Posts can be set for auto-deletion which is a nice featire and comes with the same tweetdeck-style interface so nothing lost there.

Basically I have been enjoying Mastodon and don't find it addictive or outrage-inducing at all. Certainly feels like a more open and mentally healthier "virtual space" than any privately owned and profit-driven ones. So maybe it's just taking time for people to find their way out of Melon's escape room.

False premise. It’s still underway. I think one of the big differences is that it’s more dependent on “3rd party” apps than a corporate social network, and a lot of that development is ongoing. The biggest improvement to my Mastodon experience was when Tapbots (of Tweetbot fame) released Ivory for macOS/iOS/iPadOS, which still has some rough edges, but it’s far more useable and enjoyable than the “official” client. Over time they’ll improve the UX to make it more accessible for less technical users, and I believe even better since their efforts won’t be subject to the whims of someone else’s interests. At the end of the day it’s not much more complicated than email, and as it goes mainstream it won’t be harder to use than any of the email services at all use.

Just a counter opinion: My Twitter bubble moved to Mastdon (mapstodon.space, mastodon.social mostly). It's no a winner-takes-all, most seem just happy enough to have escaped some Twitter drama (and ads). The switch wasn't hard and the drawback managable, it will never be a full replacement. (related https://spreadmastodon.org/)

Because it doesn't actually service the needs of users

Really... Stop trying to force stuff down people's throats and make what they actually will use.

Loosely collected silos that regularly cut each other off is not remotely what people are looking for.

Because it doesn't have a success condition. Anyone who wants it to succeed will say it's still in progress, and anyone who doesn't care never cared about the question.

It's a bad protocol and I hate seeing people wasting their time with it.