As users flee from Twitter/X, two visions of social media's future compete: Mastodon's community-controlled network versus Bluesky's venture-backed promises. The difference isn't just technical—it's about whether we'll finally break free from the profit-driven cycle that has degraded every major social platform.
I don’t think anybody who administers a mastodon server thinks it’s superior technology.
What mastodon isn’t is funded by fashy techbro asswipe VCs who will turn it into a torment nexus over time, just like X and Meta and Alphabet.
So Mastodon will continue to attract a small minority of people who don’t feel safe or wanted on a fashbro site. And that’s fine. I want to talk to people who think I’m human, not a bunch of Andrew Tate gargling fuck heads.
Twitter is the first time a global social media giant has seen a major exodus (I guess the second if you count MySpace, but the reasons were pretty different). The sample size is very low… It’s easy to forget how new all of this is.
But maybe some kind of resilience to the forces of destruction plaguing commercial social media.
This isn’t going to be the effective slogan that turns the masses who are finally just barely starting to fill Bluesky.
As soon as any platform sees a measure of success, it becomes a product and thus vulnerable. If we want social media that isn’t just a massive propaganda and advertising machine, I feel like we need to change something else.
Like physically storming corporate offices and returning the means of production to the people?
The mastodon is not a platform though, it’s a protocol/standard and the software to run it. Individual mastodon services/platforms will come and go. I think if they become too much of a product (and enshittify), then people will leave, because they can without much pain.
I look forward to the documentary.
“Mastodon: Victory Through Technical Superiority”, available soon on Laserdisc and Betamax
I don’t think anybody who administers a mastodon server thinks it’s superior technology.
What mastodon isn’t is funded by fashy techbro asswipe VCs who will turn it into a torment nexus over time, just like X and Meta and Alphabet.
So Mastodon will continue to attract a small minority of people who don’t feel safe or wanted on a fashbro site. And that’s fine. I want to talk to people who think I’m human, not a bunch of Andrew Tate gargling fuck heads.
Feeling like the mastodon crowd are preaching on soap boxes here. Not a bad product but will it attract the general public, probably not .
When they are out of sinking ships to scurry to.
That never seems to happen though
Twitter is the first time a global social media giant has seen a major exodus (I guess the second if you count MySpace, but the reasons were pretty different). The sample size is very low… It’s easy to forget how new all of this is.
Even then, how many people actually left their Twitter accounts?
I can’t tell how many times I’ve seen people say “I’m leaving Twitter” only to come back after a month
I don’t think anyone is claiming technical superiority. And certainly not financial superiority.
But maybe some kind of resilience to the forces of destruction plaguing commercial social media.
This isn’t going to be the effective slogan that turns the masses who are finally just barely starting to fill Bluesky.
As soon as any platform sees a measure of success, it becomes a product and thus vulnerable. If we want social media that isn’t just a massive propaganda and advertising machine, I feel like we need to change something else.
Like physically storming corporate offices and returning the means of production to the people?
Maybe.
The mastodon is not a platform though, it’s a protocol/standard and the software to run it. Individual mastodon services/platforms will come and go. I think if they become too much of a product (and enshittify), then people will leave, because they can without much pain.