No, it’s mastodon but centralized. It takes all the difficulty out of signing up for the fediverse, like finding a server. I said it from day 1 on mastodon. We will never see mass adoption until there’s a simple sign up process. People like centralized because it’s easier.
I’ve been trying to hammer this point home.
I wish devs would wake up and create a default easy mode sign-up for the fediverse with an option to click “advanced sign-up” if you choose to do so.
The easy mode would just automatically assign an instance based upon some algorithm.
How?
Well, like asking users what their preferences are and select the servers based on the criteria users have chosen?
Hmm actually yeah this is a good idea, but the problem is that there’s so many servers that I feel that after choosing criteria there’d still be a bunch of servers in the list and the problem remains, right? Just bouncing ideas. I quite like this idea though.
I wish the devs would wake up and create a default easy mode sign-up for creating a web site. The web will never catch on with all this complicated stuff.
Honestly I like the fact that there is some difficulty in the sign up. I think it brings a better quality of people to the Fediverse.
How is it difficult to find a server? Just pick whatever server you come across first and create an account.
It looks like most people don’t have enough braincells to do such a simple task. Isn’t it just nice to live in a world like this?
At least this is one thing that’s not as bad as decades ago. Just remembering how computer illiterate most of the developed world used to be.
Most people weren’t ever taught about this shit and had no reason to spend time learning about it on their own. Most of us are either professional or amateur nerds, figuring this out wasn’t really that hard because of our circumstances rather than our ~superior brains~
They have just as many braincells as you, throw that attitude away.
Centralization is the core problem of social media though. It allows a single entity control over the data and as soon as you have that, you have Zuck.
Centralization isn’t the problem, privatization is. If the single entity that controlled the data was democraticly controlled and not run for profitability it’d be the best of all worlds.
In 2023, there is very little democratically controlled anything left that has not been tainted by the ‘capitalist gains mindset’ - most democratic social programs that are far more fundamental than a social network have either been corrupted and impaired by corporate greed or have had enough legislative protections or funding sources cut out that they can no longer operate properly, allowing the argument for ‘privatisation’ - a one way ticket back to corporate greed. They operate at the whims of corporations and no longer serve the people.
While I believe what you say is true, it’s not something we’re capable of in the current state of civilisation.
Everything you said is true, democracy does not exist under the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie. I’m just saying, centralization isn’t the problem. Furthermore you can’t escape capitalism by decentralizing.
True, but it makes it possible to breakaway from an instance or leaders that are toxic/circumventing your privacy for profit without having to find a new tool or network. You can just hop to another instance.
It’s possible as long as competition exists, but every market trends towards monopolization. EEE is real.
I’ve seen people lose their shit over having to “sign up for another app” and honestly I don’t want people who have no respect for their data, privacy and have the personality of a wet cardboard right-wing conservative on the fediverse. That’s why Fb exists. We are here as users because we chose to, as other people chose what best suits them.
I think it’s a good thing honestly. It brings a better quality of people here in my opinion.
Exactly, I downloaded Mastodon and deleted it in one day. It was too complicated (in an annoying way) to use. I’m very IT literate, but I don’t want to learn to use a platform, or do research. I want it to work out of the box, and I want it to be easy and the content to be accessible. Now think about all the non-IT literate people out there, of course Threads will do well because it’s just create an account and you’re good to go… If Mastodon was like that I would use it.
I’ve said this a bunch of times, but Mastodon’s use of a chronological feed is what kills it. What it really needs is for the default tab to be a “trending” tab, cause that’s what users want to see.
Mastodon’s use of a chronological feed is what kills it.
Funny, that’s exactly the reason I like Mastodon’s feed over traditional social media. No bullshit being pushed, just the people I’m following and the posts they make.
But twitter people love bullshit!
No algorithm designed to keep you addicted or run experiments on you.
You’re fired
You can’t fire me I quit
You can’t quit I’m leaving!
You can’t leave you’re a frog!
You’re saying this… On Lemmy. You do know we have three different “trending” settings here, right?
I honestly much prefer the idea of a chronological feed too, but disagree that’s what kills a platform. Tumblr has both the chronological and the trending for you/for all, and it was also ignored.
Don’t forget that some people have more than one account
You do know we have three different “trending” settings here, right?
Which are optional so what’s your point?
The sign up process is just too confusing for most people too. I tried evangelizing it when musk took over and that was everyones response. Need like a temporary instance for new accounts that you can transfer out of once you’ve got your sea legs
Counterpoint: This tiny little hurdle keeps out the lazy and ignorant.
That’s how I feel right now. I don’t need the Fediverse to replace reddit and Twitter, I want it to be a refuge from the commercialized crap! The people who can’t be bothered to figure out Lemmy or Mastodon can stay right where they are!
Exactly. Why would I want anyone else in my community when I can just talk to myself! !league@lemmy.ml
I think these communities are plenty big already! I spent a while on tildes before coming here so in used to, and enjoy, smaller communites.
But people using those platforms is not good for our society. Of course if they cared about freedom a little bit of extra difficulty wouldn’t really bother them. But the goal should be to make the switch as easy as possible.
I really dont get this “Lemmy/Mastodon is sooooo haaaaard to sign up for”. I’m a barely technoliterate 30 something who’s closest thing to coding knowledge is the Missingno cheat in Pokemon Blue, and I figured it out. Its not that hard.
Like, the instances/server thing is the only real extra step you have in signing up, but besides that, its like signing up for any other website.
not that hard, yes
but not simple enough to sign up without using your brain cells.
The focus on chronological feeds is what I like about Mastodon, and Fediverse platforms in general. I don’t want to be slapped in the face with what some algorithm with ulterior motives has decided I should see - I want to see the things I follow in the order they were posted.
That’s not what I want to see.
Mastodon’s own app is kind of trash. Mastodon confused the shit out of me until I tried Ivory.
It also doesn’t really show a like count which I kinda get but it’s really annoying
There are 1 billion active users on Instagram and those users were invited to Threads using an existing account. Celebrities, businesses, streamers, etc. all popped up on Threads within the first few hours of public release.
I’m a big nerd and just learned about the fediverse within recent months. Everyone else I know who uses Twitter and Threads have no clue what Mastodon is.
Yeah, it’s unfathomable how huge Instagram is. That’s a massive number of people who could be easily informed “hey, wanna try our new product?” As an aside, when I googled it, it said there was 2 billion active Instagram users.
I find it silly when people act skeptical of Threads’ numbers, since Meta only needed a tiny number of their existing user base to try it out.
The thing I noticed right out of the gate when I went slumming on Threads is that the Android app package is 77MB. Compare that to Mastodon at 2.5MB.
Two apps that (from the user’s perspective) do pretty much the same thing - make queries to servers and display pieces of text on the screen, maybe with some pictures or videos. Not that hard.
So what does that extra 74MB of bloat in the Threads app do? Meta’s not telling us…
I think it’s because threads is just a new front end for instagram. It’s just instagram with a twitter skin applied to it.
To be fair, Threads is almost certainly built with React Native which always leads to bigger app bundles. Not to say that there isn’t anything fishy in there, but that’s part of the reason.
Just different tech used most likely. Mastodon is a native app and Threads probably something like React Native, so it has a JS runtime inside and a bunch of dependencies.
As mentioned in other comments, tracking logic is going to be so negligible at those sizes that it’s not even worth talking about - it’d be like 100kb at worst.
The problem is Meta is extremely inefficient in writing mobile apps. They solve many problems by just chucking libraries at them, but those libraries are “jack of all trades” type libraries. They use React which is abysmally large, and tons of their own monolithic garbage.
When you write an app from scratch, you only use the pieces you need. Meta is an absolute monolith with years and years of code that’s been added over time and it’s easier to just “copy/paste” most stuff they’ve ever written than to start over.
This is the equivalent of suspecting one of two books to be containing Nazi propaganda because it has more pages in it.
I’m not saying you should not be suspicious of the content of Threads but using size as a metric for it seems nonsensical to a software dev.
The problem with Mastodon is discoverability. The fact that if I follow 10 hashtags, it won’t sort them on my homepage, but will be fully chronological.
Say I follow #photography. The top of my homepage would be the post posted 2s ago, no matter how bad it is. It is so hard to find quality content.
Now, Threads’ algorithm is pretty bad, but it’s still a lot easier to find quality content there instead of on Mastodon. Mastodon badly needs sorting by Hot, Active etc like there is on Lemmy.
I was listening to a podcast (by three software devs) just yesterday talking about algorithmic sorting on Threads vs chronological sorting on Mastodon. Nerds, it seems (of which I am one), prefer chronological sorting. This is because they have a community of people that they follow (I’m not using Mastodon, Threads, never used Twitter). They self-select for high-quality content. Normies, they theorized, don’t have a specific group of people to follow, thus they need an algorithm to show quality content from celebs and such.
I’m curious how you self-identify and how many specific people you deliberately follow?
I have selected some high-quality content to follow, but I still need to SORT through it. I’m into photography, but I don’t want to see people taking a mirror selfie and it being on the top of my feed just because it was the latest one posted with the hashtag.
Reddit (and Lemmy) solve this by giving me the choice. I can sort by Hot or Active, and get a balance between recent but upvoted posts, and if I need to, I can always sort by New.
The user needs to have options. Mastodon currently isn’t it for me, and won’t be until they add it. Until they do, I would take Threads with a following feed over Mastodon.
I also feel like Bluesky is the one doing this really well too. They have custom algorithms, that users can create and people can enable them in the settings, like community plugins. I really, really love that concept and would love seeing something like that on Mastodon.
Custom algorithms like community plugins is actually such an incredible good idea I wonder why we don’t have it already on mastodon
That’s my other issue with Mastodon, it’s development doesn’t seem that open, it feels like the head dude isn’t really open to change. When asked about fixing search, he said it was “intentional” and he wanted people to search less. Seems weird, let the users have the choice, right?
Heck, even Bluesky, which is VC funded feels more open than Mastodon at times.
I particularly like Mastodon’s chronological and weak search. You won’t be easily found unless you wanted to, and your timeline is well-ordered and never will it be disturbed by some algorithms. To me these are its advantages.
I don’t like it because my feed gets flooded with low quality content that’s only there because the poster used that particular hashtag. It needs sorting like Reddit, so that I can keep the good quality content on top, but also have a chronological option if I ever get bored.
It makes no sense to choose chronological when you can make it optional. Bluesky is much, much better in this regard.
The brilliance of Google+ was solving this exact problem by having circles sharing, that is sharing of groups of people to follow. That way a nerd could share their group of say news people, then a normie could click one button and follow the same gorup. Bam! The normie got upgraded to nerd-level content.
Something equivalent can most likely be implemented for Mastodon.
Oddly, I thought that was one of the worst parts about Google+. I get your point though and I respect your opinion, I just thought it was interesting how we disagree 😄
I used the Lists feature like this on Twitter. One of my most popular ones is the “Official Xbox Feed” list that had Xbox employees, developers, and official accounts all in one place. I made it for personal use but it now has 100+ followers.
I used to use Twit before the Nazi jerk off came along. I used it to follow individual game makers as they made progress on their games, creative writers tweeting out little stories, and amazing artists I would find there.
I was definitely a Twitter Nerd before it became tainted.
I love combing through the federated timeline and randomly finding someone new to follow or maybe just interact with that day. It’s my choice, it’s happenstance (based on chronological feeds and when I take time to look) and it feels like running into new people in the real world in a way.
Algorithms tend to funnel people into partisan views of the world. They find people that think like you and follow the same topics as you and eventually without realising it you become partisan and unwilling to talk or compromise with someone with different views. It’s this part of social media that has made political situations hot and compromise seem impossible… I am digressing in my ramble though.
I curate people in my follow list based on looking for things I know I like at first and people/celebs I know I follow elsewhere. 10-15 minutes a day I spend looking through the federated timeline (not the local timeline which is the only one available in the official Mastodon app) and I will interact with or find new people to follow at random. And then occasionally I go to people I am following and see who they are following to find new things as well.
All my posts are chronological in my feeds, which means I can actually find them again.
And one other thing I’ve noticed on sites with algorithms like Twitter… eventually you’re just seeing the same people over and over again from the algorithm. There are thousands and thousands you’ll never see because it will never think they are important enough to show you. Chronological feeds are unbiased and give everyone and equal platform… for better or worse… but after years of Facebook and Twitter algorithms, I strongly feel that’s for the better.
I’m really digging the simplicity at Lemmy.world, though I haven’t gotten mastodon yet. Still not up to speed on “instances” & the federated timeline (?).
Unfortunately, Threads is run by a very, very shitty corporation that sees you, me, and the rest of the fediverse as a new market to expand into (i.e. fresh meat). I wouldn’t blame people from defederating with them — their incentives will clearly push them to violate many instances’ rules against advertising.
Don’t forget the amount of data you’ll be sharing, including health records
Dang you weren’t kidding. I know everyone here fucking hates all things social media but I was actually enjoying the content on Threads.
However they seem to be collecting literally everything about me even down to my workout routines and sleeping habits…this really gives me pause.
Seriously question, how do they get access to your health data, short of reading emails or sms?
It means data that has been recorded to your health app - steps per day/hour, sleep hours/analysis, heart rate readings if you have a watch or device that does that, estimated calories burned, etc.
Useful data for you to know and control, but incredibly creepy for a corporation like Meta to take for no reason other than to build an intrusive ad profile.
Ah gotcha, now I’m glad I haven’t set my phone up to monitor any of that
I’m guessing they record if you’ve been viewing a lot of, say, heartburn-related content, or once said “I suffer from heartburn”.
These are primarily the data stored by your health apps and sos information.
If you’ve Android health info stored for emergency cases, some apps with right permission can access it. You know to save your life.
Likewise, your health record on your health apps like Google/Apple/Samsung health store a lot of information about you like steps, sleep trends, heart rate, diabetes, water intake, and even period regularity.
In normal cases these records should only be known to you or shared with apps you approve.
Threads has no business normally to request these data, but if they want go serve you relevant ads, these become quite useful information.
They can show you sanitary products when you’re on period, or show ads for meds when you’ve high blood pressure. None of these should be monetised, but they can very well will be.
The average Twitter user has no idea what Mastodon is.
Die average Twitter user doesn’t even care about not knowing what it is.
Why would you want them to die?
Die Twitter users, die!
Federation is so confusing! Why can’t I just sign up at facebook.com where the rest of the internet is? You guys and your cryptofederatedarkweb.
Back to business as usual. The reality is that the majority of people can’t be bothered with privacy and other scandals from GAFAM.
The silver lining of the whole Reddit and Twitter fiasco is that more people are interested in and participating in a decentralized network. That’s a good thing for the community.
Except they have thoroughly infiltrated the fediverse to the point where the simple idea of not federating with FACEBOOK of all companies is somehow controversial now.
That’s how I got here. I realized how many hours I was spending on Reddit and, once Slide stopped working I really just stopped using Reddit for the most part.
And now there’s Slide for Lemmy
Literally this, or the Web3 BS Bluesky.
Bluesky is at least federated, no?
What’s wrong with Bluesky? 🤔
It’s founder circle is fully made by Web3 Crypto Scam people.
What the hell is Bluesky?
The guy that is one of the main creators of Twitter, Jack Dorsey, made Bluesky. It’s a Twitter alternative that I believe is still invite only. It’s funny, when Bluesky officially started allowing people to use it, Twitter was abuzz with excitement and people posting memes about begging for access. Those select few that did get in early were going on and on about how awesome it is and how it was like old Twitter.
Then Threads drops without the invite barrier automatically adding everyone with an Instagram account and I haven’t heard a fuckin peep about Bluesky in weeks.
Threads got rid of the invite barrier so hard they already created an account for everyone and even thier friends thatve never used it.
Another Twitter alternative
Please tell us why it had to hide away for so long (so long)?
The only thing I liked about bluesky was that i could use my domain as my handle…seemed cool.
Anyone else notice the cursor on the top left?
deleted by creator
Nah, Twitter users stay where they are. That’s Instagram users seeing what Twitter is like.
Threads is the narcissism of Instgrammers and the psychopathy of Twitterers
An alternative to Twitter with an Instagram flavor.
