Yeah, absolutely. Despite its growth, IMHO Mastodon is still a usability mess in the sense that a typical user will find it needlessly complicated compared to any alternative that is perceived as equivalent. The confusion starts early, with onboarding. I think this is one of the reasons why, for instance, Threads became a larger social network in its first ~24 hours than Mastodon had in its entire 6-ish year run to that point.
I was curious what the experience was like, having never used Mastadon. I searched for "Mastadon Signup"
First page is a bunch of rules. I don't mind moderation and decorum, but leading with that sends a signal to me that the moderation is going to be even more capricious than Reddit.
> that sends a signal to me that the moderation is going to be even more capricious than Reddit
That's actually where mastodon (and other fedi-platforms) different from a mainstream social media, because you have a choice:
- you can choose an instance with very strict moderation to be in an echo chamber with like-minded individuals.
- or if you choose instance with little to no moderation - you'll find yourself on a platform where everyone speaks what's really on their mind, even if it's socially unacceptable.
Choosing instance is hard, because popular ones are blocking a lot of small instances (mostly because of spam). But simply choose a server close to your interests, you can transfer your account between instances later.
From cloudflare 2024 stats bluesky traffic shot up during the US election but is now back below (aggregrate across all servers) mastodon traffic [1]
But its true that mastodon did not have a major breakthrough as of late and bluesky will likely surpass it in the near future as some important "high information quality" communities (journalists, scientists etc.) seem to migrate there in preference.
Orientation towards general (mainstream, non-tech) users, easy usability etc is indeed a problem for the fediverse. The reasons are mostly an anti-commercial ideological stance which on the one hand makes funding scarce. Hence brilliant open source products - there are many more than peertube - remain unpolished, not marketed at all etc.). On the other hand this hostile culture keeps mainstream actors from joining the revolution.
But make no mistake this is a revolution. The hyper-concentration in social media is an aberration that does not fit any other pattern in society and the economy. Some more pragmatism from the decentralization pioneers will accelerate the inevitable.
Arguably, Bluesky being spun off from Twitter and having Jack Dorsey as one of the founding members is a somewhat Meta-like advantage, in a sense of immediate legitimacy in the press and networking opportunities/connections in Silicon Valley. Mastodon had to start absolutely from scratch. I had zero connections to anyone important when I launched it. Bluesky also raised over $8M in venture capital funding, while Mastodon was being developed on a $0/mo budget for the first year of its existence, and something like $5000/mo for the next 5. Our current annual budget of around $500K still pales in comparison to the money Bluesky has at their disposal right now to spend on e.g. marketing. They also have the advantage of not really trying to do decentralization. That being said, venture capital money isn't free, while Mastodon's funding comes from the community with no strings attached, so in the long term, I believe in our approach.
To add some color to my comments: I also believe in your approach and I admire the work you and your team have done.
To sum up my entirely unoriginal opinions:
1. Mastodon has far better usability than any other Fediverse software I'm aware of
2. Despite this, usability is still a material coefficient of drag on Mastodon's growth
To be clear, I don't believe Mastodon has to or even should aspire to match the growth of other more centralized networks; only that usability is a drag on what would otherwise be natural growth for Mastodon itself.
I know you and your team spend a considerable amount of time and energy on usability, so I hope I'm not saying anything you don't already know infinitely better than I.
