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Comment by teddyh | Hacker News Reader

For those who missed it, his Mastodon is: https://mas.to/@paulg

Mastadon UX is really frustrating. Hoping there's a better option for following him in the near future

I feel like someone should lean into the fact that twitter is going insane and make a carbon copy of it, instead of trying to innovate on the concept/UX. Maybe even use a similar name, like bitter, xitter, etc.

Innovation is usually the way to overthrow incumbents, but in this case a carbon copy might be more effective.

https://nitter.net/about

That's not a separate clone, just a different front end, basically just a proxy for everything on twitter.

It feels like Mastodon is limited by the limitations the web (rightfully) added to improve security/restrict third party tracking. A lot of these UX issues could be fixed by having native client apps, where you add servers and the client takes care of mixing feeds and searches.

Finally signed up, seems fine. I think the big problem is if the servers will be able to handle the volume.

The whole server concept is a disaster, IMO. There is no search box for server. There is no information on how to create a server (at least on landing page). A lot of servers require "manual review". Many are "full". I don't know which one of these servers will even survive over time. I use Twitter as my "log" of interesting content and ideas. I rather not put content on server managed by a dude who can be run over by bus tomorrow and then I lose everything in an instant.

This whole server concept is what makes it viable as a network and what will make it outlive other popular services like Twitter.

The servers on the Mastodon website are servers that have been running for a long time, are trusted, and have a plan for what happens in an emergency (multiple people with full access to everything required)

Well, doesn't it feel like twitter let you down now too? It didn't get run over by a bus but it sure feels shaky.

At least mastodon has a complete export your data feature available for you, without hassle.

tbf same bus-factor applies to everything you collect

but have you tried simply using bookmarks in your browser — full control, full responsibility

also if you on the level of creating and maintaining your own server — its all open source

I agree. Mastadon in concept is OK but execution is quite poor.

> Mastadon

Is this word especially hard to write properly somehow? At least, please let your spell-checker do its job.

> Is this word especially hard to write properly somehow?

Yes, as evidenced by your frustration. It was a poor decision to use that word as the name in the first place - hopefully it hasn't hampered adoption too much.

It's so painful to use. It's such a waste they're winning the network effect battle off of Twitter's collapse. Not that I have a better alternative (open to suggestions).

Twitter gave some suggestions:

https://twitter.com/TwitterSupport/status/160453126541959168...

Mastodon is the protocol. You can't really quit "Twitter" by joining "email", for example. It doesn't make sense.

Now maybe you can "quit Twitter" to join "Gmail", which is an email service. Similarly, people are going to have to pick Mastodon servers that work with them the best.

Tumblr seems to be the weird one (promising ActivityPub, aka Mastodon, support soon). Tumblr seems to be my personal best bet, but I'm also open to suggestions.

ActivityPub is the protocol, Mastodon is an implementation of that protocol. There are other services built on ActivityPub that can interop with Mastodon, which is part of what makes the whole system awesome.

Yes, the protocol is terrible, which plays a major role in the UX. And yes, the semantics game is very fun to play with Mastodon, but people say they're quitting Twitter for Mastodon all the time and we all know what it means.

The charitable reading is that a lot of people are saying "Mastodon" when they mean the "Fediverse" (the large collection of mostly inter-communicating servers running an instance of the software).

The masto/Fediverse thing is giving me GNU plus Linux flashbacks.

which exact part is frustrating?

there are some additional twitter-like mobile clients, i.e.

- https://www.macrumors.com/2022/11/29/tapbots-ivory-mastodon-...

which supposedly fix the difference

my main frustration right now is the inability to follow somebody on a different instance from a web link, coupled with all instances using the same theme. when somebody links to https://mas.to/@paulg, i end up on a site that looks exactly the same as mastodon.social, except i can't sign in to it, and i can't actually click the follow button there. if i want to follow @paulg, i have to go to my instance and search for @paulg@mas.to

1. you can copy-paste same url ( https://mas.to/@paulg ), no need to re-format, event simply writing `paulg` will start the search and likely find intended user pretty fast

2. https://indieweb.org/webactions

Agreed, this is annoying. I just have to go back to my instance, and search for the link (https://mas.to/@paulg) in the search bar, then I can follow them.

you can pin tab with your instance, or even open it in a sidebar

- https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/webpage-sideb...

if that's the biggest obstacle

both those options are bad UX and papercuts that cause me to not want to use it. if you "just" have to take a second step or prepare your environment in a particular way for the most important part of a social network, following someone, that's a dealbreaker.

yeah, i have no idea how people seem to use internet for everything but cant bring themselves to copy paste a single url

maybe it just show how little someone else's content is important to you

>maybe it just show how little someone else's content is important to you

i mean that's pretty much it. i barely care about the whole thing, but if it's easy enough it's a bit of decent time waster. twitter was easy enough, adding the tiniest of steps is enough to make me decide i don't really care.

Mastodon's UX isn't bad, it's just not actively pressuring me into interacting more than i really want to, the way twitter generally did/does.

You can use RSS if you prefer: https://mas.to/@paulg.rss

Create your own? There are many implementations over ActivityPub, but you can create your own if you like.

haha, would love to for fun, but not a good business move as consumer network based products are hit driven/hard to cold start/etc., and already 100% dedicate to trying to get my own startup off the ground. Would be a fun project though, and I did take a first stab at a social network with a gaming clip sharing site once, but quickly realized this is a very hard space with very low probability of success when you're competing against a bunch of incumbents that have a network to work with already.

Would be pretty amusing if Paul Graham decided to invest in the Mastodon ecosystem. That said, I think Elon is a pretty public cautionary tale of why emotionally driven financial decisions are a bad idea.

Not an investment, but a donation to a server is a good start: https://mas.to/@paulg/109536767974913388

It's amazing Mastodon is still so utterly disaster. Where are all the startups? Why is making Twitter clone so hard?

Why would anyone fund a startup to reproduce something that’s already wildly popular and successful and still not producing a great ROI?

Twitter is hard enough technically, but the global compliance/regulatory challenges must be daunting.

I have a feeling that Twitter could be politically important enough to have one or more governments reign them in unless Musk manages to calm things down or drive it into the ground.

The smartest thing he could do is find some pretext to remove his public persona from the daily operations. He's clearly in over his head (micro managing policy etc) and business sense alone should tell him that.

Making a Twitter clone is probably moderately hard. Doing so in a decentralized way is very hard.

Post.news and t2.social are two startups under way

> Where are all the startups?

Before: Twitter was everywhere - any clone would fail.

Now: Twitter is still everywhere. Seems like drug for journalists.

Mastodon is not really a twitter clone, there's a lot of features they disagree with and don't want.

gaining 5000 users per hour all day today. it's an utter disaster for Musk, pretty much it

I’m guessing he got banned for posting this?

Not quite. This was his ultimate tweet:

>This is my last straw. I give up. You can find a link to my new Mastodon profile on my site.

The tweet itself did not contain a link to http://www.paulgraham.com/, which contains a link to his Mastodon profile. Apparently that was enough to be suspended.

> http://www.paulgraham.com/, which contains a link to his Mastodon profile

It doesn't even contain a link. It contains the mastodon handle (username and instance), but you can't click on it because it's not a link; you can paste it on the search bar of your own instance to follow him (and see some of his posts, if someone on the same instance has already followed him).

Paul Graham's mistake was he should have made an NFT of the link and posted that.

/s ...maybe? I honestly can't tell anymore

What was the last straw for PG?

New policy banning off site social links.

He didn't even post the link directly, just said that it was on his site.

Banned for posting a link to his personal website (which has links to his other social media profiles)

Ridiculous.

I don't think he posted a link to his personal site, just said the link was there.

He didn't need to post a link to his personal site; it was already there in his twitter bio.

By that logic basically any Twitter user with a link on their profile should be banned. For example Microsoft would have a link to Microsoft.com on their profile and on that webpage there will be links to other competitive social media.

In fact, Tesla's Twitter profile links to Tesla.com and at the bottom of that website is a link to Instagram, YouTube, and LinkedIn (in addition to Twitter).

Almost anyone with a link to a site in their profile will likely have competitive social media links on that site. PG's website didn't even link to his Mastadon profile, its a plain text representation of his Mastadon handle.

> Banned for posting a link to his personal website (which has links to his other social media profiles)

How many levels deep does their new policy go? It sounds like they violated it not Paul...

Paul and I disagree on a lot (I've struggled to remember to not post like a Redditor here) but dear lord -- last I looked at HN, it said the guy was leaving Twitter, and Paul doesn't seem like the type to troll on his way out like I am.

This is absurd.

For context: I'm an amateur comedian in addition to being a hacker. Every set I've done IRL I've asked folks not to record or quote, and had that honored. I specialize in observational comedy -- often rude, insulting observations that approach the limits of American style free expression that I won't repeat here. I've encountered folks who can't take a joke before, but dear lord, the levels of petty coming from Elon Musk are off the charts.

Or as I'd say if it was open mic night in an undisclosed location in Appalachia:

"Big 'You're not breaking up with me I'm breaking up with you' energy on the bird site tonight ladies and gentlemen."

> How many levels deep does their new policy go? It sounds like they violated it

They can’t violate it, because it doesn’t restrict them in any way.

>They can’t violate it, because it doesn’t restrict them in any way.

So to be clear, their policy says if you link to a website that links to a website that links to something other than twitter? Or they were so ambiguous that they can selectively ban whoever they want due to the nature of the internet?

This is untrue. The link he posted in the tweet was this: https://twitter.com/TwitterSupport/status/160453126179152281...

You mean this is a quick way to get rid of mostly unused Twitter accounts? I'm in.. I've got a few to knock their total account #s down.. After that make a gdpr request and have fun.

No, he merely mentioned his website.

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