Comment by simonw | Hacker News Reader

Comment by simonw | Hacker News Reader

I'm excited about this - and about Threads too.

I've been on Mastodon for just over a year now. It works really surprisingly well, especially considering it's stitched together from so many independent, non-profit open source instances.

But... it's still not easy enough for non-nerds to get onboard.

I'd love to see efforts from organizations like Flipboard, and Threads, and Automattic make an impact here. I want to be able to follow interesting content from the kind of people who are put off by language like "first, select your federated instance".

Also noteworthy: in the Verge article about this at https://www.theverge.com/2023/12/18/24006062/flipboard-fediv... there's this quote:

    “Basically, we’re in the process of replacing
    our whole social back-end with ActivityPub,”
    says Flipboard CEO Mike McCue. “I think
    Flipboard is going to be the first mainstream
    consumer service that existed in a walled
    garden that switches over to ActivityPub.”

You can now follow the Flipboard account for The Verge on Mastodon/other-Fediverse-things by following @theverge@flipboard.com - or pasting in the URL https://flipboard.com/@theverge

> But... it's still not easy enough for non-nerds to get onboard.

I made several attempts to get onboard with Mastodon about a year ago when I stopped using Twitter. I used a tool to copy over as many people I follow on Twitter to Mastodon.

Technically, it's fine. The issue I have is that it felt exactly the same as Twitter, and I always disliked Twitter.

However, Twitter had reached a network effect threshold where most of the news in my industry was shared exclusively there, so I was... well not quite forced, but strongly compelled to use it.

Mastodon doesn't have this. It's just noise and thoughtless hot takes, much like Twitter, but without most of the news I used to use Twitter for. I hope it doesn't become another Twitter where I feel compelled to wade through the mess to get my industry news.

To sum up: for me the reason I don't use Mastodon is not technical. It's because it feels useless and I dislike it. I had hoped for a more thoughtful arena of public discourse, but Mastodon is not it. All the interesting tech aside, it's just a Twitter clone using different technology.

I doubt the specific communication medium is going to impact the conversations therein much if you're talking with more or less the same group of people on any of them.

Or to put it another way: You interacted with people who post hot takes on Mysterious Twitter X, you went to the Federation of Mastodons and followed the same people who post hot takes. Now you're saying all you get are hot takes on both of them. Is anyone supposed to be surprised?

80% of the Mastodon userbase are Twitter refugees, the other 20% of hardcore users are misfits and nerds.

You can't really say that Mastodon is a neutral network, like all networks it has a vibe. The vibe on Mastodon is progressive orthodoxy, doomer-culture, endless dunking and virtue-signaling.

It sucks. Even if you look beyond its depressing culture, it doesn't deliver for news, sports, or frankly anything popular.

> I want to be able to follow interesting content from the kind of people who are put off by language like "first, select your federated instance".

But not put off by language like, first select Threads, Flipboard or Automattic?

Can these people fog a mirror?

https://flipboard.com/@theverge doesn't work for me. I have to change it to https://flipboard.com/users/theverge.

As a nerd, Mastodon wasn’t useful for me. All of my friends are on Snapchat or Instagram, so my mastodon social account sat with zero followers, which means if I post something there is no engagement from anyone and unlikely anyone would see it.

I’m not an online personality by any means, so no followers makes sense.

I think Mastodon is great for people who exist online, just not so much people who exist in real life. I don’t mean any insult by that, just the way it is right now.

Presumably people will find stuff you post based on searching, keywords, etc. Some might follow you if they find your posts interesting enough?

I think it is definitely easy enough, but it's just not as intrinsically addictive.

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