Fediverse isn't VC funded and isn't a 'product' in the sense that Twitter is. Obsession with eternal growth is a function of the funding model. Those putting money or time into this are not looking for a financial return - they are trying to sustain a public service.
If a poster wants their posts searchable then they hash tag key words. Those who don't want randos searching for vulnerable people they can dogpile onto can have that relative anonymity by avoiding contentious hash tags. It's a feature, although some exTwitterati disagree.
I'm of the #opinion that this isn't a #great #way to #implement #search #inside a #product. #Hopefully #whenever a #service goes #down, #people will #remember to #add the #required #hashtags for #other #people to be able to #find them using #search. #Personally I've seen #very #few #posts on my #Mastodon #feed use #hashtags, so #searching is nigh on #impossible, and I don't #think that's #because they're #avoiding #dogpiling.
If #people don't want #other #people to #dogpile their #social #media #accounts, perhaps they should just #make their #accounts #private. #Mastodon has #private #account #support, right?
Keyword spamming has been uncool since the 90s, when search engines were naive. Making every word in your post a keyword defeats the purpose - in Mastodon's case, it also makes it look ugly, I consider that a win
It's trivially easy to move your profile and followers list to another instance, if you want to. But you aren't restricted to following users from your instance anyway. Follow one person you see boosted into your feed, look at who they follow and follow them. Rince and repeat.
Want to join Email? First you have to choose a server ...
No wonder email failed to thrive as an open protocol, distributed communication system. It's just too darned hard and unfamiliar to figure out how to join.
In the early days of email, most people got an email account automatically from their work or school. When it went mainstream in the 1990s, most people got an email automatically from their ISP-and a lot of older people (like my parents age, who are in their early-to-mid 70s) still rely on that for their personal email. Then along came independent free email services such as Yahoo/Hotmail/Gmail, which either started out being owned by famous mega-corporations, or were taken over by them not long after they got started.
Mastodon isn’t really comparable-how many people get a Mastodon account from their work or school? From their ISP? From a major well-known corporation (whether paid or for free)? Unless the answer to any of those questions becomes “yes” (on average, not obscure exceptions)-onboarding Mastodon is going to remain a lot more difficult for the average non-technical person than onboarding email ever was
In the early days of social media, most people got an account on the nearest BBS. When it went mainstream in the 1990s, most people automatically got a Facebook account and a lot of older people still rely on that for social media. Then along came independent free social media services such as Twitter/Discord/TikTok...
It's exactly comparable, just a few years down the timeline from email.
> In the early days of social media, most people got an account on the nearest BBS.
The majority of people never used “the nearest BBS”, only a relatively small percentage of the population ever did. Even in their heyday, they were mainly popular with computer enthusiasts, who have always been a minority of the population. Many computer enthusiasts find technical complexity intriguing, the average person finds it off-putting
> When it went mainstream in the 1990s, most people automatically got a Facebook account and a lot of older people still rely on that for social media.
Who “automatically” got a Facebook account? The vast majority of users had to go to Facebook.com and sign up. People got an email given to them by their work/school/ISP, I’ve never heard of someone being given a Facebook account by any of those (Workplace doesn’t really count.) And unlike Mastodon, Facebook never asked its users to “choose an instance”
> Then along came independent free social media services such as Twitter/Discord/TikTok...
All of which are big commercial services, and none make you “choose an instance” in the way that Mastodon does when you sign up for them
> It's exactly comparable, just a few years down the timeline from email.
It’s completely different; it’s only “exactly comparable” if you ignore many key details
You say that only a relatively small percentage of the population ever used BBSes, and that's true, but what is also true is that only a relatively small percentage of the population ever used a social microblogging service, whether it was Twitter or not.
You're really leaning in to 'choose an instance', which has only really been a problem for tech experts. Everyone I know on Mastodon just clicked one of the listed instances on joinmastodon.org and never thought about it again.
And no, most people didn't have to go anywhere to sign up for Facebook. For an extremely long time, there was a LinkedIn-like email invitation system, and when you made your account it suggested "people you may know" and generally guessed right. Literally all you needed to do to get a Facebook account was make up a password. I'm not familiar with whatever the current growth hacks are.
Anyway, it's easy to make comparisons by ignoring many key details. You did it too, you just described those key details as "obscure exceptions" or saying they don't "really count." I'm not sure what anyone is supposed to get from your text except that you're really stumped about decentralization.
To this day people have to "choose an instance" to sign up for email, because people use email before they get jobs and they can't hang onto primary-school accounts after they leave school. Sure, most people sign up for GMail or Apple mail, because their phones tell them to. That's still choosing an instance, and Microsoft, Yahoo, Fastmail, and other providers continue to exist and turn profits, even though their users had to battle the indominitable hellscape of having to choose an instance.
There is a meaningful difference. Right now, we have Twitter. This is more like using a bulletin board now that Reddit exists. Sure some people do; but it’s far more niche than just having a Reddit account.
The friction that prospective Mastadon users have experience is the knowledge that an easier option exists.
before gmail and the like people didn't choose a server.
the majority of email addresses people got from the institutions they were affiliated with. their university, their job, their isp.
and when they switched their isp or their job, they also had to switch email addresses.
it wasn't until gmail and other independent email services that people actually got to choose.
the only exception were those people who got their own domain who either set up their own server or used the email service offered by their registrar.
email was already ubiquitous before people even had a choice, and when those choices came available there were only very few because the majority of servers were and still re restriced to the members of the institutions they belong to. so for email paralysis of choice never was a concern
It's more centralised now after several decades because monopolistic companies saw commercial value in squeezing out the competition. Plenty of technical folk have given up their own servers because the dominant providers ruined the system by blocking their emails.
O365 works cross platform in the browser well enough for most windows-centric corps. I've got by happily for years with Vivaldi and Libreoffice, without Windows installed.
Your link shows 81% in favour of abortion, with or without some restrictions, with 19% against abortion. Wanting abortion rights is not synonymous with being pro-choice, which carries implications of no restrictions at all.
I hope I didn't misunderstand what you wrote, but where did you get the idea that being pro-choice means the ability to get an abortion from 0 months to 9 months pregnant?
There is obviously a spectrum to being pro-choice, but if I had to bet I'd put the majority of pro-choice folks follow: that woman has the right to choose to have an abortion while the fetus is generally considered pre-viability by the medical profession and under extreme circumstances where the life of the mother is at risk and/or the baby is now non-viable or will suffer a short and traumatic life.
> If you go to your uBlock origin plugin settings > filter lists > annoyances > checkmark "fanboy's annoyances", "adguard annoyances", and "uBlock annoyances"
This ^^ hits the spot. No need to accept the dark UI patterns (illegal but everywhere) without the pain of going through the options. Works brilliantly.
Google has grown by using ad revenue to buy comoetitors or companies that do something interesting, then squeeze them for every penny of profit or dump them.
Google has a dominant search engine, a browser and massively intrusive ad placement system threaded through everything they offer. Gmail was a Hotmail clone. Android, Fitbit, Maps, Nest, and Google Earth were acquired. YouTube was bought after it out competed Google's offering. Even the advertising tech was acquired, with AdMob,
DoubleClick invented outside Google.
They are dominant mostly because they have not been bothered by antitrust actions. That, at least, looks like it might happen sometime relatively soon.
