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The Weird, Fragmented World of Social Media After Twitter
(www.theatlantic.com)
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this post was submitted on 30 Jul 2023
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Technology
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I don’t even understand what’s difficult about mastodon or lemmy. Just pick a server forget about it and enjoy the better communities
It’s like how my parents don’t understand streaming: “How do you know what to watch?”
“You just pick something, ma”
So, I don't use Mastodon for the same reason I never used Twitter (I don't need a microblog and I'd rather read other people's regular-sized blogs), but point 2 sounds like a problem. How do you decide who to follow, when you're working from a blank slate? I presume you need to see several of someone's posts before you can know if you'd like to follow them, so if Mastodon doesn't show you any posts by default how do you get started?
It does show you your local and federated timelines. You can also follow hashtags for topics you might be interested in.
If you're only interested in topics then switching from another social network to fediverse isn't so bad. But a lot of the twitter userbase is there because they want to follow people not topics. If you're into journalism all the journalists are there. If you're in the art world all the artists are there. Prior to musk it was easy to know that you were following who you thought you were. And the value is in that group of people all being there.
It's like how it's not a big deal for me that I quit reddit to come here, but I still have to maintain a Facebook and LinkedIn presence for my career. I can't (yet, anyways) tell people I meet at conferences to look me up on fediverse and then have to explain what that is and how it works and make sure they follow the right account name from the right instance.
Right. Unless you've started your own instance or joined one that is somehow completely isolated, Local and Federated will let you find plenty of people to follow.
My instance is just a few users, so Local isn't a very happening place, but I love the Federated timeline. It's where I spend the majority of my time.
start searching the platform for things you're interested in and follow people with interesting related posts. after a while you've got an actual personal feed
Not to advertise or anything, since I've still not grown accustomed to it, but I downloaded an app called mammoth the other day and it seems to have a for you page which makes it kinda easier to follow stuff. Also makes up for the mute filters I've set up not working on any app.
@noodlejetski @qooqie https://erinkissane.com/mastodon-is-easy-and-fun-except-when-it-isnt I read article and can say I understand many problems listed there. If you join Biggest instance then sure you won't encounter some of the listed problems, but federation isn't about joining biggest. Not intuitive UI also big factor, why greeting message don't tell Use #Hello #Привет or other language for first message? People don't understand/know about search being specific to # add to that bombardment with tips... Fediverse is bad for newcomer.
I think it’s an “analysis paralysis” problem. I spent 20 minutes trying to figure out what instance to join while worrying about what was “right” (of course an incorrect question), what “fit” my inclinations/preferences, will it be around in X time, who are the mods, don’t want to centralize on just one instance, until I just bit the bullet.
I’m reminded of how Job’s late-90’s mass simplification of the Apple product line made it easier for consumers to just pick something. (general or pro user? laptop or desktop? boom, done.)
Comes to mind that mastodon.social is open to everyone, it doesn't get more obvious than that.
Seems like people are more stumped by the idea of having to pick than with what that actually entails. Even as far as following people goes, it's as simple as an email address, and mastodon searches usernames in other instances.
I believe if more people avoided bringing up instances and just said "make an account on mastodon.social ", most of these complaints of how complicated it is would disappear.
Indeed. Sometimes these objections of "it's too hard!" Make sense and are worth investigating improvements to the user experience, but in this case many of the complaints really seem more like excuses or a fundamental disagreement over the whole point of all this.
What's difficult?
So I'm on both and I work in tech. I'm technically capable, e.g. I verified my Mastodon account with my website. Neither Mastodon not Lemmy is anywhere near ready for non technical users.
Mastodon
Hell of a job picking an instance. Confusing to log in because I have to remember the instance not the service. Instance is all local stuff, global stuff is by default garbage.
I signed up to Mastodon a few months back. Most of the people I followed on Twitter didn't. Not surprising really given how confusing and complicated it is. I chose a server because someone I followed recommended it. I found most people posting less and less frequently, apart from the instance admin, they seemed to post books worth every singled day and I had to mute them. Then it got really quiet and I saw something about the server admin stepping down. At which point I learned that due to some ridiculous drama involving something the admin of my mastodon instance apparently said that some other instance admin didn't like, the whole instance/domain was 'silenced'. In other words 'the hell with you' to me because of something I wasn't even aware of, let alone involved with. Absolutely childish that something like that can even happen, and even better, it seems people often can't figure out how to make it 'un-happen'.
None of this covers mobile app issues
At this point mastodon has failed as an alternative to Twitter for me. There's about 3 non-twitter-repost-bot posters left in my feed, all either second rate or also posting the same on twitter.
Lemmy
A bit better than Mastodon but comparable issues with picking an instance. Dscoverability is slightly better because I can search for topics. I've had to create a login on a second instance because my first pick, and then my second pick, both:
So now I'm on my 3rd Lemmy login and I spent half an hour yesterday using someone's python script to back up my subs and resubscribe with my next account...
None of this covers mobile app issues
Overall
It's close, really close, and it could work but it's tough on Lemmy and missing on Mastodon
What was your second Lemmy instance?
lemmy.world
That’s who I’m on, damn, I need to go see who I’m actually connecting with. I haven’t been active for awhile.
In the early nineties the term "droolproof" was, well, if not popular then at least existant. "Droolproof" instructions would be something like "do not expose your laser printer to open fire or flame".
Mastodon needs droolproof instructions. A private company like Twitter creates a series of gates for users to jump through and rigs things on the back end to make it so that people are unable to screw up too much. It's like a Fisher-Price chainsaw versus the actual chainsaw of Mastodon.
It's easy to forget how many people are active on social media who have never read a manual or a FAQ or who even know how to google very well, or at all. It's a huge proportion. Twitter serves them all by being, well, what it is. People give up their privacy and data patterns in exchange for a corporation making the experience droolproof.
There needs to be a youtube of some photogenic person happily showing how to use it. Srs. If we want to kill Elmos Fascist Tea Party we need that.
You know I often forget how even being a little tech literate puts you in probably the 90th percentile for tech users
Because it's hard for non techie users to even understand what the word instance means. It's not a concept you encounter in everyday life.
And then without a broad algorithm that curate your feed, most users get confused on how to manage their communities across the fediverse.
I think you encounter the concept pretty often in your life: every time you go to Walmart (or every other chain shop) you basically are ecountering an instance of the company, for example
People are just not thinking about it
Mostly "Mastodon is too hard" is an excuse people make because they just don't like it and/or dislike the Fediverse in general and don't want people to move there.
I 'interrogated' a bunch of people complaining about Mastodon and it was pretty obvious that a lot of them either didn't like the idea of Twitter replacements and/or were Elon Musk fanboys.