> got yelled at, felt bad
> Constantly being told I was somewhat dim because I didn’t understand how to do things or what the unwritten rules were.
Well, yeah, welcome to any social group. Personally, I like that people second-guess themselves a bit, and self-limit what they post, to some extent at least. At the other extreme of the spectrum, we would get Eternal September.
> couldn’t find people or interests, people didn’t stay
> For me, it was that Mastodon seemed to actively discourage discoverability. One of the things I loved most about Twitter was the way it could throw things in front of me that I never would have even thought to go look for on my own.
I appreciate anyone making the effort to pierce their own bubble. However,
- I simply don't use Mastodon for that.
- I didn't like Twitter's suggestions
- And btw, Twitter's algorithms never had a reputation of piercing anyone's bubble.
> too confusing, too much work, too intimidating
> I’m tech savvy and have found mastodon simply opaque. [...]
I actually don't totally hate just a little bit of a technical barrier to entry. Quite frankly, that barrier is very very low.
> Discoverability/self promo is limited & typing out 6 hashtags is annoying. # being in the actual posts clutter things (unlike cohost/insta).
"Self promo is limited" sounds like a huge bonus to me!
> too serious, too boring, anti-fun
> ultimately, I just bounced off of the culture, because it wasn’t banter-y and fun. It feels too much like eating your vegetables.
I only follow people on Mastodon for the technical stuff, so I don't really need fun. But then some of those technical people I follow turned out to be lots of fun.
The average Mastodon experience is, I think, much more dependent on who you follow (and maybe your instance) than the average Twitter experience. As a result, different people will get very different things out of it. Of course, all my remarks above are very much only due to my own preference. But I do love my little corner of Mastodon, and this article inadvertently hits on all the reasons why I do.