#Medium link; don't be surprised if it does weird things before showing you the article.
"Mastodon brought a protocol to a product fight"
> Yes, yes, the network is under immense strain as people flee the Elon strain infecting Twitter. But come on, there are folks who really believe this is going to replace, or even stand alongside Twitter, as a massively scaled social network? I call bullshit. While it’s impressive that millions of users have apparently given Mastodon a try, the product is far too slapdash and clunky to keep folks engaged. A lump of coal.
No, it isn't meant to be a #Twitter replacement. Keep your Twitter account until you no longer want it--or the company closes and the site shuts down--you can use Mastodon alongside Twitter.
And the #Fediverse networks are much more than just #Mastodon. Don't think you have experienced the network and all it has to offer if all you've done is briefly tried to use Mastodon, because you haven't experienced it.
> I’ve somehow avoided signing up for the service up until now. Largely because signing up was and is so comically obtuse — pick your server everyone, hope you choose wisely!
Have you not used e-mail? It works the same way. You pick a server, such as Gmail or Outlook dot com, and sign up. Please tell me you realize that the people you communicate with are not all on the same e-mail service that you use.
> But, but, it’s not a product, it’s a protocol. Yeah, that’s a nice thing to say. And to believe in. But I truly believe the ship has sadly sailed for such idealism in this space. Jack Dorsey can talk about how this should have been what Twitter was from the get go until he’s bluesky in the face. It’s just not going to happen. And he’s more to blame for that than most everyone else. As is he for the Elon element of this current equation. But that’s a different story.
Okay, so how about this story: Twitter has only been profitable two or three years of its entire history. Since it started, it has existed by burning through investors' funds. Eventually, with or without Elon Musk's ownership, that runs out. Without such funding, their corporate-centralized ( #corpocentric ) model cannot exist very long. And same for their centralized competitors, such as Post.news, Gab, Parler, and so on. What is left is either #federated or #peer-to-peer approaches, where no single entity is responsible for funding and managing the entire network. So whether it is the #Fediverse ( with #ActivityPub and #OStatus and their successors ) & the Federation ( with #Diaspora ) or #Bluesky, or #Twister, or #NOSTR, the eventual future of #socnets is #decentralized, if not entirely peer-to-peer unless a national government takes over Facebook and Twitter in order to provide effectively unlimited resources. It is the protocol that makes it possible for thousands or millions of instances to displace and replace one big centralized instance.
> We don't want "Twitter, but with my people in charge of the ban button", or even "Twitter, but with impartial benevolent people in charge of the ban button"
I think a lot of people want exactly that. But if they think about it, there are always some points where they disagree with most of "their people" and they'd rather have those decisions made differently.
It is a toss-up whether many people would be willing to leave an instance ... or self-host over this.
> we want a solution where no one and everyone has a ban button.
I think eventually, some #P2P elements (maybe like #Twister) will have to be added. Maybe servers / instances will turn into trusted relays for a P2P network. Or maybe P2P will be an add-on atop the existing federated networks.
Also: #Twister. “Twister”:{http://twister.net.co/} is a #P2P microblogging tool. Twister seemed a little complicated to get running, but once I did, it was cool.
Bitmessage seemed to be: 1. Mostly for person-to-person messages, but I don’t recall reading its security & privacy specifics. 2. A little tech-specific, as in not appealing to people who are not into the technology involved 3. Slow to develop ... I’m sure the note about using the updated patched version has been on the website for years.
Twister seemed to be: 1. Mostly for public microblog type posts. 2. I wasn’t really sure whether “following” did much. 3. At the time, it felt like things were actively moving, but I do remember a months-long thread about censorship resistance features that resulted in some contacts abandoning it.
@sonya@kodo there's no easy fix for that - traffic grows exponentially with number of users and instances, if all federated with all by default, it would be unmanageable. That's where p2p networks are better - but also so much harder to do (look at #Twister ) #KeepCalmAndFederate
@Gargron@mastodon.social @mcscx When social networks are illegal we can use something like #twister or https://github.com/HelloZeroNet/ZeroMe When p2p communication becomes illegal we can make encrypted connections to forums hidden on some darkish net. When port 80 is the only legal one left, we just won't know when they're about to smash the door down, drag us out onto the street, a shoot us in the back of the head.
So I'm not going to completely pull the plug on either #Bitmessage or #Twister yet, but neither one seems to have much personal interaction going on*, so I expect to greatly reduce the time and effort invested in either one.
Twister is full of feed repeaters, but not much actual person-to-person conversation. Meanwhile, it can be months between incoming messages on Bitmessage. Be aware that the !Bitmessage #GNU_Social group broadcast address (BM-2cThQovMpBKcomn5xbLKZdT63CcnmAUC1k) is only functional when my client is connected, which is only intermittently with the current #hotel_inet situation. It is probably a good idea to use the group public address (BM-2cSmr7ACeZ2jVEdXAEHxAgr7jyhv1herKv) instead.
Is there a list of all these types of communication services? Blockchain messaging like #Steemit, #Twister; Microblogging like !GNUsocial; Multi-media social networks like #Diaspora, #Friendica, #Hubzilla, &c? Thinking of !FS solutions only, of course.