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I’m glad I read the article, the dripping irony and mockery in the title for some reason didn’t trigger for me until I actually started reading. The idea that someone who considered Google Plus the “next big thing” has any ability to predict the success or failure of social media platforms is indeed pretty comical.
This is probably controversial, but Google Plus was better than Facebook in every way.
Not that high of a bar, but I agree
A nice read. I have the same opinion of the so called “tech journalists” here in Denmark. It’s crazy how little they research or know about the subject they write about.
some weird wannabe social network with no large corporation behind it and no VC money in the bank cannot work, should not work, will not work.
techbros can’t even imagine something working without capitalism, they truly have no imagination… no wonder they made genAI
Which is crazy because like… you think they would have heard of linux before
tbh these people would probably say linux is too niche anyways
but, like, imagine a project that’s entirely free, backed by donations, fully open-source, and so successful that it’s name has become a generic term for what it is. a project so successful that basically everyone who’s ever been online has used it and uses it frequently. a project so ubiquitous that almost everyone takes it for granted.
“Tech” journalists spend way too much time in the headlines of other outlets, getting a much too shallow idea of the actual tech that they’re supposed to cover. It’s quite sad that this is the state of so-called tech journalism.
If a company called TikTok can survive and thrive, surely one called Mastodon can too.
I feel like the majority of people I see quit Mastodon do so because the platform (and Federation in general) don’t coddle their egos. With no algorithm to game and ingratiate themselves on everyone’s timelines, they make a public exit and talk about how broken Mastodon is and offer their takes on what it needs to be. Which, unsurprisingly, sounds like a non-Elon-ed Twitter.
I love Mastodon. I love discovering new people and accounts by happenstance (and not spoon-feeding).
We may have to just accept that it won’t ever be a big platform for this very reason and just have fun there as a niche site.
I’d be totally cool with that. I’ll take quality discussion with less people to talk to over huge quantities of slop and rage bait any day of the week.
I think we need to let go of this idea that online platforms need to be as big as possible or be considered huge failures. This is a lie told by the owners of corporate-run and owned social media that needs to grow at the expense of basically everything else, because they somehow managed to convince investors to pour money into what is effectively a shitty glorified message board and they expect a return on that investment. There used to be thousands of niche forums all over the internet before corporate social media and link aggregators effectively staged a hostile takeover and homogenised everything, they did numbers that would look pathetic in comparison to daily users of X or Facebook, but they still had a busy feel balanced with a sense of community. It doesn’t actually take that many people to achieve that, it’s a fraction of what some people will have you believe.
From a content creation standpoint, it does kind of suck. There’s no ego about it. The system doesn’t carry your content to nearly as many eyes, even accounting for the reduced audience. Discovery and suggestion algorithms are extremely effective, and if I’m trying to get my stuff to reach as much of my audience as possible, I wouldn’t only be on Mastodon. I’m not just talking about mediocre content either - even extremely motivating stuff in the niche doesn’t generate even a small fraction of engagement as regular social media sites.
For some people, this is a benefit - it’s a poorly commodified system. For small content creators trying to build an audience and generate paid subscribers, it’s not enough. Most creators on Fediverse are contributing as a free or non-profit hobby.
I’d prefer for my social media to not be full of ads for “content”.
I’m not talking about ads. Let’s say I’m a video essayist and I publish my essays on PeerTube. The recommendation algorithms aren’t going to show the free content I make to nearly as many people as if I put them on YouTube or Tiktok. And overall, that translates to fewer Patreon subscribers, FAR fewer.
That’s still an ad, you want money for a product you’re offering. The only difference is in your case there’s an extra step between impression and conversion.
Okay let me rephrase. I’m offering 100% of my work on PeerTube for free. They’re high quality, long-form video essays, and people clearly enjoy watching them. I link my Patreon in case people wish to support, but no other product exists on a subscription basis.
Even if PeerTube were substantially more popular, the lack of recommendation algorithms would keep my content from proliferating nearly as well as YouTube. This translates to fewer Patreon subscribers which means less opportunity and funding to create high quality videos. No self-promotion, just content that can’t perform as well because it doesn’t get recommended.
This translates to fewer Patreon subscribers which means less opportunity and funding to create high quality videos
If there’s an algorithm to game, and money to be made, I don’t see how that’s any different to self promotion. Boil it down and all that’s happening is you are performing an action, so that more people see you, in the hopes that some of them will give you money.
The lack of an algorithm is a feature, I don’t want content I havent explicitly asked for to be shown.
I’m so sorry but you really need to reevaluate this because it categorizes like 80% of authentic internet content as ads. Is a graphic artist who works commission posting their art on social media an ad, if they’re doing it to hunt for commission? A streamer who posts their funniest clips on social media to get more paid subscribers? A game dev promo-ing features in their next game patch?
Self promotion is a form of advertising, doubly so if it’s done for the purpose of attracting revenue via some means. People can opt into it if they want via subscribing/following but it’s still advertising.
So yes most “authentic” content is just people advertising themselves. I would prefer not to see that unless I have opted into it.
I completely get that someone used to monopolies can’t understand Mastodon. I don’t think it has anything to do with understanding technology, though.
