How could it replace Twitter? Even the Mastodon devotees admit it can't scale to that level and the sign-up process will turn off most users before they even get started.
(I didn't think Horseshoe Theory would bring back bangpaths, but here we are.)
Personally I believe a big central silo for so-called public discussions is a terrible idea, but I do understand there is some value to it. However, there will always be a problem with this sort of thing because a very large number of people are morons and/or scolds, and they seem to have a lot of free time.
People seem to be using e-mail just fine…
Normal people struggle pretty hard with email. Or at least a fairly significant portion of them. Giving them something that looks like an email, doesn't work as one, and includes an additional @ sounds like a tech support nightmare.
What I don't get is why all of these services with the similar format have to adopt their own quirky address formatting, rather than piggybacking on the same format as email. I should be able to just tell people that I'm "someone@example.org", and have that work for email/matrix/mastondon/etc (and be autodiscovered!) with the appropriate hosting setup.
You'd need to set up your domain of example.org to have some form of SRV or TXT record to say "example.org" points to "mastodon.social", or even records per user if you wanted granularity.
You could also use .well-known or other domain verification/pointer methods. However if I'm joe@gmail.com, how does another user on mastodon know how to contact me? Where is my home server?
Someone could maintain a centralised lookup DB with auth to show you own the address (and I believe Matrix allows for that optionally), however isn't that the opposite of what the fediverse is meant to be?
If you own a domain, you or your registrar configures the appropriate A/SRV/TXTs to point services at your chosen service provider, just like is already done. If you use something like Gmail, then you're looking at Google to run a Mastodon server or at least a stub redirection server.
We don't want to dump users randomly into a small server because the community aspect is much stronger there. Thus, we should dump them into a big server -- perhaps a randomly selected one, from a list of general-purpose trusted servers (ideally democratically selected, but for now JoinMastodon.org seems to be fine).
Then, encourage people to move to smaller instances, and make it easier to do so. It's currently too hard. I moved because I was envious of smaller server's interesting public timelines which catered more to my interests.
For now, Twitter scales better. There's no such thing as an instance, a slow instance, or registration simply being closed.
Twitter preserves content. Yes, I know it's currently debatable, but in general it does. On Mastodon, any instance can go the way of the dodo, and this regularly happens. Further, it's standard policy to wipe out all media attached to your toots. I think this point is a big deal. Your content simply isn't safe on Mastodon.
Mastodon has poor on-boarding. You need to pick an instance which a normie doesn't understand. Further, it has no (good) algorithms for recommended content, followers, finding people you already know. You have to bolt and stitch things together. This too is a massive issue in the age of Tiktok, where even the effort of lifting a finger is too much. I think organically building up your feed is actually great, but you have to understand that the HN audience is not the same as the masses.
Mastodon has no consistent moderation. Yes, you could argue neither has Twitter, but it's still consistent-enough compared to Mastodon, where you're at the helm of whichever volunteer runs the instance. Not necessarily an issue for middle-of-the-road conversations, but still a difference.
Lastly, and this is perhaps the most twisted point: Mastodon isn't designed for drama. Twitter is hyper optimized for it. It's quite the culture shock for some.
I do a lot of tech support for the elderly in my family and they don't grasp concepts a hundred times simpler than a server/instance, and they're in their 70s. It's not an age thing, it's an education thing. The vast majority of the world is lowly educated.
Besides tech skills, the additional issue is that some people are entitled. They reject any service that adds friction, since they're used to zero friction. The Tiktok effect.
it's super debatable. i take it most of your Twitter experience is through the website/app, rather than following links posted in chats/elsewhere.
i run a Pleroma server. anything from anyone i follow by default gets replicated locally. if/when those servers go offline, accounts get suspended, etc: the content is still viewable to me.
> Mastodon has poor on-boarding.
Twitter has poor on-boarding. post something as a new user? nobody will ever see it. on Mastodon? any instance < 1k users will have a decent chunk browsing the local timeline and you'll get a few interactions. and a lot of instance admins will "boost" first-time posters specifically to help them with onboarding.
in general though, yes: growing any social circle takes time: in person, or online. there's no real way to speedrun that.
> Lastly, and this is perhaps the most twisted point: Mastodon isn't designed for drama.
at this point it's clear you're playing the "shoot down the new tech" angle, rather than honestly evaluating the two on equal footing.