Mastodon is interoperable, decentralized, operated by a nonprofit, lively, and, ACTUALLY, isn't hard to use. So why is everyone championing Threads as the main Twitter alternative?
They don’t falsely advertise themselves as decentralized. They are decentralized even if you’ve come up with your own definition where there can be multiple “centralized” entities in control of the system.
There is no central authority in mastodon. There are many entities that are part of a federated system, just like email (which is also decentralized).
Nostr is also decentralized but it’s decentralized by a relay (? – the name of this sort of thing isn’t super well established; they’ve never really caught on) system (which is a twist on peer-to-peer models that overcomes some of the issues with peer to peer tech) instead of using federation.
There is no centralized authority on Twitter either, because you can always go and use Facebook. The Web is a federated system where everybody just decided they don’t want to talk to anybody else.
Those are completely different products, and you’re continuing to abuse established terminology via your personal definitions.
I’m sorry but you don’t know better than everybody else about what’s centralized and what isn’t.
If you make a Mastodon account your digital identity is bound to that one server. You can’t move to another server.
And yes, that’s a solution with flaws (though, I think followers automatically migrate now too, note this is an old blog post) but that doesn’t mean these things can’t be fixed. Ultimately federation can facilitate a sort of “data transfer” to an entry new server, automatically, but it’s a lot of work that hasn’t been completely finished yet.
It’s only decentralized up until server admins decide that it isn’t, which already has happened numerous times in the past.
If you don’t like any of the existing servers, start your own. There’s no difference from that and using relays other than a server holds your data rather than your client(s) – which is a big problem with peer-to-peer stuff.
Email is a terrible protocol by modern standards and the problems of federation show in email pretty clearly, as the majority of people will stick to Gmail and a handful of other major providers. There is no reason to repeat past mistakes.
I’ve moved providers several times. Email has pros and cons.
One pro over what mastodon has done is that you can use your own domain but somebody else’s server, which allows you to reclaim account ownerships/redirect via (basically) changing some DNS entries (which works even if the server is offline/breaks the social contract and refuses access to account migration tools). That could be implemented in mastodon too, but then again few people want to do their own domain management.
People don’t choose other providers because Google does it for free and they’re a household name. There’s not much pressure to go use Proton’s more limited free plan or pay Proton or anyone like them.
The saving grace with email is that you don’t have the moral police looking through your emails and kicking you from their server when they find something they don’t like (outside of sending spam), with Mastodon on the other side they do exactly that.
look at what happened Threads.net. Big company joins the Fediverse and instead of celebrating, everybody starts thinking about defederating them. This approach is doomed to fail if it ever gets popular.
Let’s not forget threads planned to monetize every interaction it was aware of, regardless of any direct interaction with Facebook/Meta. The public pushback probably went a long way towards setting a precedent against that sort of activity. We’re really breaking new ground here and have a chance to take back what is increasingly an essential function of society from folks who would rather fill every waking moment of your life with ads.
GMail does not build an ad profile based on your emails. Let alone emails sent between two people outside of gmails network. This is absolutely a false equivalence.
People underestimate the need for something like this. Society is only going to become more and more censored and monitored as technology evolves. It’s not possible to escape that, so using communication where you are private is going to be extreamly important.
Also it needs to be able to resist being banned by governments.
How does a completely decentralized platform handle data that should be removed? If some asshole starts posting CP or other fucked up shit, what exactly happens? With mastodont the server admin has the control to remove whatever he or she wants. Not perfect, but you have plenty of servers to choose from (or you can start your own).
You want something like society, mostly free but still with some ground rules. If it’s completely free there is also lots of scams and shady stuff. In the long run I think a platform like that will be banned by governments.
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They don’t falsely advertise themselves as decentralized. They are decentralized even if you’ve come up with your own definition where there can be multiple “centralized” entities in control of the system.
There is no central authority in mastodon. There are many entities that are part of a federated system, just like email (which is also decentralized).
Nostr is also decentralized but it’s decentralized by a relay (? – the name of this sort of thing isn’t super well established; they’ve never really caught on) system (which is a twist on peer-to-peer models that overcomes some of the issues with peer to peer tech) instead of using federation.
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Those are completely different products, and you’re continuing to abuse established terminology via your personal definitions.
I’m sorry but you don’t know better than everybody else about what’s centralized and what isn’t.
Wrong again.
https://blog.joinmastodon.org/2019/06/how-to-migrate-from-one-server-to-another/
And yes, that’s a solution with flaws (though, I think followers automatically migrate now too, note this is an old blog post) but that doesn’t mean these things can’t be fixed. Ultimately federation can facilitate a sort of “data transfer” to an entry new server, automatically, but it’s a lot of work that hasn’t been completely finished yet.
If you don’t like any of the existing servers, start your own. There’s no difference from that and using relays other than a server holds your data rather than your client(s) – which is a big problem with peer-to-peer stuff.
I’ve moved providers several times. Email has pros and cons.
One pro over what mastodon has done is that you can use your own domain but somebody else’s server, which allows you to reclaim account ownerships/redirect via (basically) changing some DNS entries (which works even if the server is offline/breaks the social contract and refuses access to account migration tools). That could be implemented in mastodon too, but then again few people want to do their own domain management.
People don’t choose other providers because Google does it for free and they’re a household name. There’s not much pressure to go use Proton’s more limited free plan or pay Proton or anyone like them.
🙄
But you can move to another server, you just can’t take old posts with you
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Dumb analogy.
I can move to another Mastodon instance, and keep following the same accounts.
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All you’re arguing is that the web is decentralised, not that any given website within it is.
What do you think you are leaving behind? Your posts? Do you often go back and edit yours??
You take your network with you which is what people want to bring.
twitter is run by one company
Let’s not forget threads planned to monetize every interaction it was aware of, regardless of any direct interaction with Facebook/Meta. The public pushback probably went a long way towards setting a precedent against that sort of activity. We’re really breaking new ground here and have a chance to take back what is increasingly an essential function of society from folks who would rather fill every waking moment of your life with ads.
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GMail does not build an ad profile based on your emails. Let alone emails sent between two people outside of gmails network. This is absolutely a false equivalence.
what political ideology
People underestimate the need for something like this. Society is only going to become more and more censored and monitored as technology evolves. It’s not possible to escape that, so using communication where you are private is going to be extreamly important.
Also it needs to be able to resist being banned by governments.
what wrong with defederating meta
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Nostr is for memes and bitcoins. Toxic AF.
How does a completely decentralized platform handle data that should be removed? If some asshole starts posting CP or other fucked up shit, what exactly happens? With mastodont the server admin has the control to remove whatever he or she wants. Not perfect, but you have plenty of servers to choose from (or you can start your own).
You want something like society, mostly free but still with some ground rules. If it’s completely free there is also lots of scams and shady stuff. In the long run I think a platform like that will be banned by governments.
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