2y ago

Want to move on from Mastodon, but so confused on what platform to choose

Recently I've dove a little deeper into the Fediverse. I began with Mastodon like many others and I'm ready to move on. Mastodon as a software in comparison to similar services in the Fediverse like Calckey/Firefish, Friendica, Misskey, etc. just isn't as good and the only thing it has going for it is an established user base and simplicity/lack of feature creep I guess. I've also had major difficulty finding any sort of conversation or getting followers, although that could just be because of me just not being really active on social media in general and being disinterested in discussing the most popular topics like politics.

I've been looking at another microblogging/Twitter type service to switch over to since I just like the concept of the Fediverse (I credit Kbin for being a great 2nd impression) but its been a struggle. It seems like in the microblogging space of the Fediverse, there are just a bunch of different platforms that do the same thing while trying to one up each other in some aspect. I'm not sure if there are large features that separate them besides UI, but this is just how it appears. If there is, please let me know.

This fragmentation is making it difficult to choose a platform, and I can't imagine it'd be any easier for anyone new the Fediverse. Once I choose a platform, I have to choose an instance as well of course. I was going to join calckey.social/firefish.social but I'm a little hesitant now because mastodon.art defederated with it, and I follow multiple accounts from that instance. The drama that always surrounds defederation is a fundamental design flaw in the Fediverse, but I try to choose servers that don't have these issues as I would rather not self-host right now. The Mastodon instance I have an account on has a great admin that lets the users decide when it came to a large move such as defederating with Threads.

I'm really beginning to see how the Fediverse can be complicated for new users, even if they understand the underlying technology. Unfortunately, these seem to just be deep problems with the Fediverse in general rather than just things to adjust to.

Anyway, enough ranting and back the question: which of these microblogging platforms should I even choose? Its making my head spin. Seems like Calckey would be the best for my needs at the moment.

40 comments

I’m really beginning to see how the Fediverse can be complicated for new users
The fediverse is just the internet as it was designed to be. A network, not a broadcasting medium. A place for connecting people, not just consumers and corporations.
Choice means responsibility. It's a feature, not a bug. But sure, it's also paradoxical.
In answer to your question, I'd say just slow down a bit. Forget about self-hosting. Just pick a mainstream instance like this one and jump in. That's what I did. You can make changes later as appropriate. That was impossible where you were before.
- Well explained. Before the big corporations driving the online social conversations, the internet felt messier (in a good way) and more diverse in its offerings. Granted, those offerings were always there, but the louder facebook, instagram, tiktok bullshit drowned them and put them in the background.
  Now it's back to basics, and I'm loving it!
- Honestly, while I love the ideology behind the Fediverse and Activity Pub, it seems like fragmentation is just getting worse and worse as it grows. The defederation drama and the forks upon forks of Misskey for instance is getting a little nuts. Maybe its just a transition period especially with the implosion of Reddit and Twitter, but its a concerning trend that is holding the system back in my opinion. I agree about the fediverse being more like internet as it should be though.
  
  As I have learned more about the Fediverse, and begun exploring all its depths, I have similarly thought about that paradox between, as @JubilantJaguar@lemmy.world mentioned,
  just the internet as it was designed to be. A network, not a broadcasting medium. A place for connecting people
  versus the fragmentation we're all seeing
  It sucks, but as I see it it's just kinda like the "growing pains" as we shift towards Web 3.0 and Decentralization, away from corporate overlords, figuring it all out communally, the balance between ourselves being monetized like the whole "If something is free, you are the product." line gets at

I love what Firefish is attempting to do, but I’m much more impressed with the Ice Cubes app for Mastodon. It works really well and has that ‘twitter’ feel. I’ll be honest, the official Mastodon app just isn’t very good & I think lots of folks have had a bad experience with it. It seems like when they try a 3rd party app, their experience is much better.
One of the things that really enhanced my experience on Mastodon is following hashtags. It allows you to more or less create your own algorithm to see topics you are interested in. It also seems like the importance of hashtags isn’t relayed to new users.

I was going to join calckey.social/firefish.social but I’m a little hesitant now because mastodon.art defederated with it, and I follow multiple accounts from that instance. The drama that always surrounds defederation is a fundamental design flaw in the Fediverse
mastodon.art is unfortunately run by a harebrained power mod. Their predecessor was much much better and more thoughtful in their use of moderation powers.

Fwiw. I’m on Mastodon and Firefly amd honestly they are pretty much the same. One had more features, ones more stripped down, but it’s still just share some words, maybe a photo or video & post, the people like, reblog, share, or comment/reply.
I don’t feel the need for longer post, rich text, or 1000 emoji reactions so I stuck with Mastodon.
And Lemmy/Kbin is scratching my Reddit itch, especially as I’m working hard to build an alternative music community here.
If you are into photos more, there’s also Pixelfed.
What’s great about Mastodon and Lemmy specifically though? The apps. Both have a ton! I’m on Mona for Mastodon and Memmy for Lemmy and it’s really made all the difference.
Finally - don’t worry about mastodon.art - they aggressively defederate from everyone all the time.

I wouldn't worry about mastodon.art, the owner is legitimately psycho.
- I keep reading stuff like this, but there's never really any context to go with it. Could you explain?
  
  Basically can read her blog on her going psycho on other instances. Basically if you don't agree with her, you're evil. Lots of drama seeking and trying to be a victim. https://dotart.blog/dotart-blog/

I was going to join calckey.social/firefish.social but I'm a little hesitant now because mastodon.art defederated with it, and I follow multiple accounts from that instance.
I'm on calckey.world, and it seems to be federated with mastodon.art. at least post from there appear on my global feed
- And its run by @Ruud@lemmy.world
  
  A deep-Ruuded .world conspiracy indeed!
- Does this have any good Android clients?

I’m a little hesitant now because mastodon.art defederated with [firefish.social]
It looks like mastodon.art has limited rather than blocked firefish.social. It has also limited mastodon.world for similar reasons, and journa.host for... being populated by journalists? Limited means that only your followers from mastodon.art see your posts there.
Both limits and blocks on mastodon.art have been imposed for servers failing to block other servers, which is a particularly aggressive moderation strategy even when the third party in question is particularly bad. Blocking journalists seems weird. I wouldn't take being limited by mastodon.art as a sign that a particular server is bad since they seem to have a pretty low threshold for doing that.

I initiated my Fediverse trip on Lemmy thanks to Reddit and Spez, and then "moved" to Mastodon, currently trying out some Android clients, may I ask what is bad with Mastodon?
I just discovered how the tags work, and I don't know if Twitter has something similar there (because even when I have a Twitter account my usage there is quite limited, and all points to be even less in the future lol) but I really enjoy having my customized feed, created by me and not by an algorithm.

CalcKey just rebranded to Firefish. It has a very pretty UI but UX is currently bad as there is no way to globally disable boosts so you will see the same posts in your timeline over and over and over again. Following hashtags is limited to the Antennas feature so you won't see those posts in your timeline. Until they fix these things it's unusable for me personally.
Have you tried Akkoma or Pleroma? I run an Akkoma instance at https://shrediverse.net if you want to try it out. You can use the web app or an app like Fedilab on Android.
Have you tried other ways of viewing Mastodon? Different web apps or mobile apps? Like https://elk.zone , https://phanpy.social , https://semaphore.social.

BlueSky is made by Twitte- I mean X's original founder, you might wanna try that out.
Yeah, Mastodon isn't really that great. Unless you're someone like me who's trying to make a Flemish sounding nickname.
- I'm on Bluesky. It's vapid. Boring. I forget about it, check it once a week and nothing happens except people make a huge deal about cancelling someone. Not worth the hype at all.
  
  And now I deserve to have some downvotes, I mean a lot of them.
- Twitter's original founder is crazy though, that's not really an upside. And Bluesky's underlying technology just feels like a worse version of Mastodon, the only reason people are going to it is because the names behind it are recognizable and it doesn't ask you to choose a server
  
  Kinda true. But fwiw the folks who built twitter know a thing or two about scale and discoverability. I haven't really dug into The Mastodon implementation, nor the AT protocol of bluesky, nor ActivityPub of Mastodon. But the twitter API was decent, and I bet they've learned some lessons.
  So while I'm on Mastodon mostly on principal, I imagine that bluesky can offer a few advantages for both users and hosts.
  
  Oh. I guess you have a good point.
- Trying to get an invite to it it’s difficult. I’ve been on the waiting list for ages!
  
  I have an invite I can give if you want. It's not my vibe and prefer mastodon, but hey to each their own.
- It's just another centrally controlled, closed source platform. There's no reason it wouldn't go the same way as all the others

I've run a few fedi services, some a long time ago so I'm sure they've evolved since then, but generally they all serve different purposes.
Facebook/personal page centric: Friendica/Diaspora/Hubzilla Reddit/community topic centric: Lemmy/Kbin Twitter/microblogging centeric: Mastodon Instagram/photo centric: Pixelfed
Plus plenty of others, I've run all of the above at some point aside from Kbin and of them Mastodon seems to be the most polished so far, which is probably in no small part due to the massive number of users to give feedback and resulting development interest, which then draws more people to it to feed the cycle. It really depends on what you're looking for in a platform. Lemmy seems to be going through some rapid development right now with all the interest that Reddit generated for it so I'm hopeful that it'll get some more of that polished feel to it in the near future too.

https://trunks.social in digested mode is perfect for mastodon
- I gotta learn about what "digested" mode is. It sounds equal parts disturbing and fascinating
- I actually use trunks on android, had no idea there was a web client as well. Might try it out before dropping Mastodon to see if I like it more.

Friendica is interesting because it's fundamentally different than a lot of the others. It supports ActivityPub, but also other protocols. The view is fundamentally threaded. It supports groups so some parts of the threadiverse can federate with it in that regard and presumably it could too. It also supports RSS, so you can get content from outside the fediverse.
I liked it, especially with a custom skin I set up. My big problem was that it has a php back-end and I needed something way lighter for my tiny at the time server, so I went with pleroma.

From what i can see they are all very similar, I would just read through the documentation of each of them and check out their features. I'm on Hajkey (initially a custom fork of FireFish but now a custom fork of Ice Shrimp) and it was pretty simple to set up, I'm currently in the process of trying to find all the people I follow in my other social media

40 comments