2y ago

Mastodon is Rewinding the Clock on Social Media — in a Good Way

chrlschn.medium.com

In many ways, Mastodon feels like rewinding the clock on social media back to the early days of Twitter and Facebook. On the consume side, that means that your home feed has no algorithm (this can be disorienting at first).

Practically, it means that you see only what you want to see and only see it linearly. You never wonder “why am I seeing this and how do I make it go away?”. Content can only enter your home feed via your followed tags or handles and the feed is linear like the early days of social media.

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2y ago

Mastodon is Rewinding the Clock on Social Media — in a Good Way

chrlschn.medium.com /mastodon-is-rewinding-the-clock-on-social-media-in-a-good-way-8998f6d9f1aa

TechNews @radiation.party

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2y ago

Mastodon Is Rewinding the Clock on Social Media – In a Good Way

chrlschn.medium.com /mastodon-is-rewinding-the-clock-on-social-media-in-a-good-way-8998f6d9f1aa

147 comments

Mastodon is cool, and I'd use it more if I could get used to the format. The Lemmy/Reddit forum style is my preference.
- I just don't understand how people find accounts they like to follow.
  
  just follow hashtags you like, that way you'll see people who post about interesting stuff.
  
  First, it's important to find an instance that caters to your interests, especially if you have more niche hobbies. Once you're set up, search for and follow hashtags related to your personal interests, and use those to find accounts you like. Use hashtags in your own posts so that people can discover you more easily, and browse users that follow you to see if they'd be interesting to follow back and expand your network out. Keep an eye on the local and federated timeline for interesting posts, which includes all posts from people on the same instance and from all federated instances. Eventually, as you build up a follow list (and especially as you follow highly active accounts) your followed accounts will start introducing you to new accounts themselves through boosting posts.
  It's more work since you're building the network yourself instead of having it spoon-fed to you by an algorithm, but it's overall much more rewarding, and lets you tailor your experience to your own personal preferences.
  
  I have the same issue on Lemmy, but at least there's All. I can't figure out where "All" is on Mastodon.
  
  I started by just following a bunch of hashtags and my feed was already quite interesting. Over the next few days I started following a few people who seemed to consistently post content that I found interesting.
  
  how people find accounts they like to follow.
  The low-hanging fruit is sometimes checking out posters that show up in your feed because someone you do follow boosted their post. This sort of amounts to having the people you follow nominate people for you to also follow.
  (fwiw, boosting a post just shares it to your followers, liking it just notifies the poster that you liked it)
  
  List of Journalists etc
- Mastodon is a good reminder of why algorithmic feeds exist
  The option for a chronological feed is nice, but without an algorithm filling in the gaps it’s really hard to get started on there
  
  Meh, I'm sick of all the algorithmic crap. The internet used to be better when people needed a couple brain cells to use them.
- I prefer pull vs push media. Less intrusive. I have a feeling lemmy users may also like RSS feeds for the control it provides. I know in mastodon you decide who to follow, but the whole culture to encourage re-blogging means a lot of potential unwanted crap in our feeds.
- I completely agree. I like the concept of Mastodon and like that it exists, but I just can't get into the idea of following individual or organizations rather than topics. Thankfully Lemmy is a thing.
  
  FWIW you can follow hashtags in mastadon If you know where to look you can see trending hashtags In other fedi clients (particularly firefish) you can configure antennae and channels to give you the ability to have pre-set feed filters and focuses (e.g. search by hashtag, keyword/subject, etc) You can also curate lists (can include people you don't follow if you don't want) in case you want to look at what the law or history or cycling people on fedi are talking about just now. Often when I want to change subject I'll check to see what #lawFedi or #histodon or #biketooter have to offer today
  If that sounds a bit like rolling your own algorithms, that's probably because it sort of is
- Agreed
- Agreed. I love decentralized social media, but I never liked Twitter and never really could adjust to Mastodon either.
Put it simply I just hate ads. Anything that puts in ads is terrible. Including Sync for Lemmy who seems to have completely missed the point of getting the hell away from Reddit.
The next terrible thing is automatically generated content and bots, but I guess those are also really just ads.
- I disagree. I hate ads with a passion too. But as long as we can pay a sum to remove it, it is fair to have a free option with ads. A kinda unlimited "demo".
  We are fools for thinking anyone would give away their own time and effort for free forever. We have completely lost the perspective of how much things should cost because of how much we've taken for granted that was paid for with our personal data. And the biggest fools is those who think most software developers and server admins can live reliably on donations alone.
  Though Youtube is taking the ads a bit far, maybe. One shouldn't scare away users before they have even become customers.
  
  Absolutely agree with your comment.
  I don't really know the solution either... I can't afford to pay for all the things I enjoy online.
  I was considering supporting 1 Twitch streamer I enjoy until I saw subscription cost. And if I paid that for every streamer or YouTuber I enjoy, I'd be broke in a single day lol.
  I get so much incredibly good info and discussions online about my hobbies, all for no charge.
  I used to subscribe on Patreon to my most useful resources/people, but in the end I just could afford it and had to cancel all my Patreon
  I hate ads but I don't understand how the internet would function without ads. No one could afford it
  
  Agreed, but even if free ad tiers exist, web trackers have to also exist to track everything you do, just in case you use the ad tier again.
  Privacy shouldn’t be something unaffordable.
  
  Um Linux and FOSS, kinda show you wrong in that many people are happy to see others use their work for feee.
  We are fools for thinking capitalist solutions are the solutions we need.
  
  I disagree. Paying to remove ads is one of the core problems with ads. If the only way to develop your software is either to frustrate them enough to pay to remove ads or have ads then your software shouldn't exist. You don't get to do something bad just because there is an option to pay them to stop doing that bad thing. That doesn't make it right. The whole concept is basically like a really mild protection racket.
- The second ads are required the customer stops being the users and starts being the advertisers. This starts the enshittification ~~snowball~~ shitball, Randers.
  
  It's a good thing you have the option to pay to remove ads and stay the customer, then
- I'm working on the app full-time and the ads / subscriptions cover development costs.
  
  I just wanted to say I greatly appreciate everything that you've done for reddit/lemmy in app development. Without Sync I'm not sure how I'd browse the web without pulling out all my hair due to all the ads and inconsistencies.
  
  That isn't a good justification to me. If it's ok for you then it's ok for the rest of the world too. You might believe ads aren't bad and that's fine. At least we can agree to disagree on that as our opinions aren't reconcilable. If your app can't exist without ads then I don't believe it should exist at all. Or any other software in the world.
- When's the last time you developed and released a full fledged software project for free?
  
  If you are suggesting ads are the only way to fund software then you are mistaken. For example you can sell it for money to consumers.
- Wrong. The next terrible thing is mass-AI-generated propaganda and disinformation. Like in the "dead internet" theory
  
  Next? I think you misspelled "current":-D
  
  Web of trust solves this problem, until people start intentionally trusting AIs as much as they do other humans, at which point it's no longer a problem.
- I just paid the one time fee for no ads. Works for me.
  
  This is only FOSS bros making a bigger deal than it should, I like FOSS I use FOSS but they need to chill a bit.
- I hate ads too, but devs have to eat so why should we not pay them when we use an app or service they spend countless time making and maintaining?
  Sync is a one-time payment of £17.99 / $20 to remove ads and for the amount I'll be using this app, I think that's absolutely fair. I'll spend more on one takeaway pizza on a Friday night.
- It would suck if Sync was the only option but it's not. Nobody forces you to use it. You have such a hateboner for Sync it's ridiculous. So the guy asks money for his work, who fucking cares.
  
  It just happens to be a great demonstration that there can be no exceptions to eliminating ads. People seem to agree that ads are bad, but then have no principles or conviction when presented with the slightest inconvenience. "Guy just needs money" is not a good enough reason to change my opinion to ads are actually good. I'm not sorry. This has nothing to do with Sync or this person in particular.
  It's just the ad driven business model as a whole.
- Including Sync for Lemmy who seems to have completely missed the point of getting the hell away from Reddit.
  If there is one reason to support ads, only one reason, is for using Sync for Lemmy.
  
  What allows this particular piece of software to implement an egregious dark pattern and have it be ok?
- We have different reasons for getting the hell away from reddit. I came to lemmy because reddit killed sync. I paid like $3 for Sync in 2014 and used it every day until Reddit killed it without seeing a single ad. So, not only do I disagree with Sync for Lemmy missing the point of getting away with reddit, but I also disagree with the notion that sink for Lemmy is in any way bad for having an ad - supported tier when you can pay a negligible amount of money ( $20 in 2023 ) and never see an ad again for the entire lifetime of the app.
- Are there ads on Sync? I've been using it exclusively for the last week or so and haven't seen a single one.
  
  I've been using Sync for Lemmy since it was first released and I still haven't seen an ad. I'm pretty sure it's a bug.
- Bad content feels much much worse to me. E.g it is so infuriating to see those fake prank videos with tons of likes and positive comments. It kills my hope in humanity every time... At least an ad could be for some interesting legit product. 🫠
- Jerobi is great.
  
  Pretty much all the Lemmy clients for Android are great, and I think the iOS clients are very competent too.
- AFAIK pretty much all the lemmy apps are decent. There's no reason to bash on any of them just because it's not your preference
The problem is that #10 in this article is why 99% of people won’t leave Xitter for Mastodon. Most of the people with lots of followers on X aren’t on Mastodon. It’s really that simple. Some “influencers” need to be convinced to open up Mastodon accounts and advertise exclusive content on there for their followers. Until then, we will be stuck with a handful of journalists, Flipboard, and Stephen Fry.
- I really don’t think that Mastodon needs influencers. It’s just normal people talking about normal stuff. Don’t need any “I‘m so glorious, and here’s my product that will make you think you’re glorious, too” kind of influencers there, thanks!
  
  This, very much this. I've been having more pleasant discussions with random people replying to Mastodon posts compared to the brain parasites victim making their nest on xitter.
  
  "Influencer" is just a word to describe a phenomenon that will naturally arise on any platform where following someone doesn't require a follow back: some people will have a lot of followers, for whatever reason. They've existed as authors and columnists, radio personalities, television and film celebrities, podcast hosts, etc.
  Some grow followers organically on the specific platform, while others bring their followers on from being independently famous outside the platform. And it doesn't matter if they don't start off as famous - all it takes is for a post or comment to go viral and then the attention is there, whether the creator wanted it or not.
- I mean, you guys are stuck with me as your only real celebrity for a while... (and the Debian logo design person.)
  
  Wow. Finally got a reply from her! Big fan of what you’re doing (you know, the Barbie movie and whatnot).
  
  I remember back in 2000s 2 or 3 guys were so misinformed that Bruce Wills himself joined the comments and explained the movie industry doesn't work that way. Of course they didn't believe it was him and they ended up being video called by him to "prove" it is really him. I will find that page one day. In the 90s it was common that a famous actor/producer discuss ongoing things with the fans.
- Please, just no. Keep those scum influencers away. It would immediately ruin the platform.
- Xitter
  LOL, my brain read that as "shitter" and I found that pretty fitting.
- Here's an alternative question: Do we really want the fediverse to take off like big tech did?
  I sort of like that this little corner of the Internet isn't filled with a bunch of megacorporations and political bot farms trying to fiddle with our opinions to their benefit. Once it gets too big, it's going to lose something really important. Also, I fear that it could become impossible for a little operator to run an instance anymore.
  
  Solid point. Kind of goes back to what we want out of our social media. If we want to follow the celebrities we like, we’re probably stuck with Xitter & other data harvesters (outside of the enlightened folks like Mr. Fry). I honestly use Mastodon slightly more than I use(ed) Twitter. Barely more than not at all.
- There's a part of me that legitimately wonders how far Twitter could go as an influncer bubble. Granted this is unlikely to happen but if everyone who's not an influencer just left for Mastodon and Twitter just became a hollow shell of influencers trying to sell products to customers who just aren't there, how far would Twitter's inerta carry it before anyone realized?
- Jeri Ryan is on mastodon. I'm ok with that too.
- Stephen Fry is there? Well shit, guess I have a reason to check it out after all.
- This is how I feel about Bluesky. It's so good, but really needs more people.
Preach. I hate the "bubble" that curated / sponsored feeds try to wrap everyone inside of.
Most people used Twitter and Facebook not as a social network but as a pastime. They didn't create or post anything, but simply lurked and browsed random stuff on the platform to amuse themselves and keep up with trends. The random content in feeds that articles like these complain about were rather the main feature of those platforms for many. And this is a feature Mastodon fails to provide for its own good.
- People should stop having such high expectations for similar # of users on Mastodon then if it is not competing with Twitter.
You never wonder “why am I seeing this and how do I make it go away?”
I actually find myself wondering this a lot. Mastodon doesn't allow people to add comments to things they're reposting, so you're left guessing as to why they elected to insert something from an unfamiliar account into your timeline.
Mastodon is also short on tools for discovering interesting new posts and accounts that aren't already on your radar. In this regard I agree that it's behind the times. Threads handles this much better, giving you a classic chronological feed of people you're following plus an algorithmic feed that shows you things that are popular with people like you.
- But I don't want anyone to make assumptions about "people like me". Those kinds of services are always ways off.
  At best I could do with a feed from followers of my follows. But repost kinda does that already.
  A comment to reposts would be nice though.
  
  And it could do with an automated language filter. Because I'm getting a lot of German in my feed, would rather not.
My timeline has always been this way. Third party clients man. They were so good.
Algorithmic timelines are toxic.
- Hot take: Algorithmic timelines are cool, provided we can (1) opt out from the default algorithm and (2) plug in our own algorithms
  
  Yeah as long as I can filter by what I personally want I have no issues with the site structuring my posts for me.
  
  That would be awesome if people could just make their own algorithms, like when people say 'just start your own instance'. Don't like the way algorithm A does things? Try B or C, or make your own! I could see some weird filtering options appearing...
- The virgin official app: NOOOOO!!! YOU NEED TO PAY A SUBSCRIPTION TO AVOID SEEING ALL THESE ADS DISGUISED AS POSTS!
  The chad third party app: Hey man this whole thing is maintained by one dude so I gotta show a banner ad every now and again. I know that sucks so I'll stop if you wanna make a one time donation of a buck or two.
One thing I want from Mastodon is to see the likes of people because I like to follow artists and see what they're liking lol -- but that might go against the intended usage, not sure.
- That's what boosts are for. You can see what others boost on their profile as a sort of repost. The like, is not a like, it's there for feature parity with Xitter. But every app and instance calls it something different, but generally it's a favorite button. So you have, boost, favorite, and bookmark. Boost are intended to be seen by others, favorites are for the original poster, and bookmarks are private for yourself. I've read that quote boosts are coming, but I'm not a fan of the feature. Find it to be really toxic. But we'll see how it pans out when the feature is implemented.
I've been trying to find my way on Mastodon with little success. Can anyone recommend ways to find or follow ? Also, I see that I can follow Lemmy/ Kbin sites on MAstodon but I can only see the title text. No images or comments come over.
- That's a great tip. thank you
Mastodon will never “show me only what I want” without the content being there. I mostly used Twitter to keep up with pro wrestling. All of the wrestlers, journalists, and most of the fans are still all there. I just have to wait until Twitter gets bad enough that even they all end up moving off.
Fuck advertising. Sorry not sorry. I actively try to avoid products advertised ...it's not really possible but I try. Fuck advertising...I blame Pepsi
A fine brief on mastodon but it hardly "rewound" anything.
The fedi had been around long before mastodon and even facebook.
- So... taking social media to something that existed before Facebook isn't rewinding?
  
  I think they mean that fedi didn't take social media back because it never left. It's the users who went back.
  Like if we all joined Myspace again we wouldn't say that Myspace rewound social media. People forget that the fediverse has been around a very long time, it's not new.
  
  correct
- Look it’s new to a lot of us ok??? 🫣
  
  im sorry you forgot about the rest of the internet.
- Tell me you don't understand how mastodon works without saying it

147 comments