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Charlesinrichmond t1_ixd4xm2 wrote

isn't it so techie still that it's going to be hindering uptake? I read the last sentence with mild comprehension, for example. But most I know would read it with complete incomprehension

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___zero__cool___ t1_ixd7exc wrote

Yes, probably.

The federated models used by the Matrix protocol and the ActivityPub protocol used by Mastodon are really cool, but they both suffer from the same issue. Very techie power users will utilize the projects but never reach the critical mass of users to be relevant for a social network. Case in point, I first looked in to Matrix and Mastodon back in 2017 or so but it’s taken Twitter imploding in 2022 for even the more tech inclined general public to hear about it.

Other option is less tech inclined users just signing up on a server and ceding control over all their data to some arbitrary server owner. Both have tons of issues.

That’s why I’m super excited to see what Jack Dorsey and his former Twitter team come up with for BlueSky, since it’s built on top of the Matrix protocol. I’m really curious to see if they can keep the things that attracted the techies in the first place, while streamlining the usability for everyone.

Edit - This is why I love Signal. They took something that was only used by a dwindling amount of tech nerds and people buying drugs on dark net markets (PGP public key encryption), and made it as easy to use as Messenger or WhatsApp.

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Charlesinrichmond t1_ixdcsq0 wrote

yeah. I just don't see Mastodon going anywhere for those reasons. It needs to be seemless for mass adoption.

I also don't think twitter will go away. Most of the fear of that is by people who don't understand basic corporate structure. If it goes bankrupt it is highly unlikely to vanish - it just gets owned by someone other than Musk. I'm pretty sure many would welcome that

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