{"id":39930,"date":"2023-06-29T14:10:22","date_gmt":"2023-06-29T18:10:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/?p=39930"},"modified":"2023-07-05T08:56:22","modified_gmt":"2023-07-05T12:56:22","slug":"why-has-mastodon-adoption-stalled","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/2023\/06\/29\/why-has-mastodon-adoption-stalled\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Has Mastodon Adoption Stalled?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Bloonface<\/a>:<\/p>\n

A lot of that influx has not stuck around. Everyone is very aware at this point that active user numbers have dropped off a cliff.<\/p>

[…]<\/p>

These are people and organisations who were engaged with Mastodon and fediverse to the point of investing real time and resources into it, but simply dropped out without a trace some time between November 2022 and now. I know multiple people who tried it and then gave up, due to lack of engagement with what they were posting, lack of people to follow, inability to deal with the platform’s technical foibles, or worse because they found the experience actively unpleasant. Something has gone badly<\/em> wrong.<\/p>

[…]<\/p>

As it exists at the moment, Mastodon functions essentially as Twitter did in about 2008. In some ways, that’s nice. The userbase is calmer, the DiscourseTM does not get spun up as easily.<\/p>

[…]<\/p>

So what does Mastodon bring to the table in addition to Twitter, that might justify someone deciding to take the plunge and move to it? There are a few unique things about the platform, but they generally fall into the broad category of “things users don’t care about”. Chief among these is decentralisation.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n

Via John Gruber<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\n

I would like to see Mastodon thrive. But the platform’s ideological zealotry is obviously holding it back and seemingly isn’t going to change. That’s why I’m much more optimistic about Bluesky’s long-term prospects.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n

The Mac and iOS developer community has largely moved over to Mastodon. But most others<\/a> have not<\/a>, and there’s enough happening on Twitter (both with developer content and questions about my apps) that I still feel the need to check it. This isn’t so easy without a client app. For now, I’m using Fluid<\/a> to make an app for each account. I need this because Twitter’s e-mail notifications have never worked for me, and the Web site doesn’t show all the mentions if you aren’t logged in.<\/p>\n\n

Mastodon works OK, but I haven’t found much to like about it other than that it’s not Twitter. Maybe there’s less drama, but that hadn’t been a problem with my feed. Overall, I would say that almost everything about the Mastodon user experience is worse. Search is just terrible in comparison with Twitter. The best parts are that it works with RSS (like old Twitter) and that, although pages require JavaScript, they do load completely and so can be easily saved and searched offline.<\/p>\n\n

Previously:<\/p>\n