Mastodon has gone from 2.5M active users in early December to 1.8M last week | Hacker News Reader

Mastodon has gone from 2.5M active users in early December to 1.8M last week

theguardian.com

34 pointsmfiguiere24 comments

Mastodon's big problem is that most instances have the same weird and exclusionary kneejerk culture you see from the Twitter weirdos. Those weirdos already have their echo chamber, and other people, who could make a stable userbase, are repulsed by them and do not want to contribute to places filled with them.

> Mastodon's big problem is that most instances have the same weird and exclusionary kneejerk culture you see from the Twitter weirdos.

Can confirm.

Just about a week ago I had an interaction with some schizoid user that started info-dumping on me via replies, while also claiming they hoped mastodon will be better at keeping the-people-they-didnt-like off the platform.

I briefly mentioned that's not how mastodon works (federation and stuff) and that there are some counter-measures available (with the ultimate weapon being de-federation) but they just wouldn't listen. "mastodon" had to keep the trolls away!

Needless to say, such user was very, very, VERY pushy. When I asked them to stop being so pushy, this user just blocked me ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I wonder if that user started claiming I was some kind of troll too.

It has been so disappointing to see tools that could alleviate the discoverability curse for smaller communities being regarded as a new cool way to create an iron echo chamber where nobody is allowed in or out.

So many people who promised to quit twitter have returned after realizing the alternatives are not as good

I'm one of the 1.8 million.

I mean, yes, if loads of people are doing thing X, and suddenly a problem with thing X causes a bunch of them to do thing Y instead, then you would ordinarily expect some of the people who move from doing thing X to thing Y to go "actually, thing Y isn't for me" and either go back to thing X, or do something else entirely. This is normal! It would be _extremely_ weird if this was not the case; it's very normal for people to drop off a new thing.

However, the net effect has been that (a) Mastodon has gotten a lot better (it really didn't have enough people before) and (b) Twitter has gotten a lot worse (my Twitter account's now fairly dormant, but if I log in, the linear feed is pretty quiet, and the algorithmic feed is just _nonsense_).

It'll very much depend on how you use Twitter, of course, but, well, for some of us Mastodon is a big improvement; it's a lot more like how Twitter was in the noughties than Twitter is today.

The article in general has kind of a weird spin on it; the interesting bit, IMO, is the movement from under half a million active users (and note that that was _after_ a big influx in early 2022 when the whole Musk-Twitter thing got started) to nearly 2 million.

Mastodon's Sales and Marketing department will be heartbroken over this one...

They sampled a single instance for this figure.

Shit reporting.

Agreed, but just to clarify: which instance did they sample?

Because if it's mastodon.social, people can and do migrate off that instance to smaller ones, and that might affect the final figure.

Much as predicted. Now that Musk has stepped back from needing to be the main character every day Twitter usage remains solid. Friends who are minor but successful influencers on that platform report about a 10% gain in attention and think it retains or improves its existing position.

As predicted, and as expected with no surprise. [0] Once you start with "Choose a server" it was a non-starter and game over.

It was never about the temporary spikes of hype and mania as demonstrated by the media and screaming individuals, it is always about retention. Another reminder that Twitter's network effect has still been unchallenged by the so-called 'Twitter alternatives', with still 220M+ 'daily' active users still sticking around.

Looks like it is time for the screaming voices in [1], spreading fear and doomsday articles like this one [2] to admit that their prophecies of the immediate collapse of Twitter has been a total miscalculation and a great exaggeration as many have once again pretended to 'Leave Twitter'.

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33498145

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33701371

[2] https://www.technologyreview.com/2022/11/08/1062886/heres-ho...

On the flip-side, there's no way Mastodon was a million-user service before Twitter melted down. Maybe a half million people go back to Twitter, but twice that decided to stay. For a service that doesn't live-or-die on the ad revenue of it's userbase, that's a net gain.

How will it look in another month? In a year?

Trend reversals are not a good sign

As an active user on a thematic instance (metalhead.club) I’ve seen an initial tsunami wave in the immediate days/weeks of the twitter craziness, then a dropping off in the following month. But the instance has easily increased in size by several times, and those on board seem to be engaged. But at the end of the day, the instance I’m on is more active and more fun as a result. This isn’t a pissing match for Mastodon admins or users. I don’t suffer from Twitter FOMO :)

More of a Mastodon hype (outlier, FOMO) event being touted as a trend

That's fine? The parent comment was just expressing their indifference towards the stat, same as me. I frankly don't care about how many MAUs Mastodon has - the platform's success is not driven by widespread adoption. The nice part, for me, is that the platform feels fresh again. Even if 90% of the Twitter refugees left, the remaining 10% would help freshen up the userbase and keep things diverse.

What the hell is wrong with that instance? I've gone back through weeks of messages and there's not a single on-topic post. It's all Americans talking about Trump or """fascism""".

I've seen a bit of that as a result of people "boosting" (re-posting) posts from people on other instances, but if you groom your follow list (as I have, over a couple months), you see mostly what you want to. In my case, I've learnt of so many new bands from all over the world (Bloodywood, Znous, Slave to Sirens, Pentagram). That's what floats my boat.

Also, one tiny bit of anecdata - just from what I've seen on the instance I'm on - the majority of the political commentary is coming from Twitter refugees.

EDITED TO ADD:

You can also "follow" hashtags which makes the feed more pertinent.

I'd argue that once you start with "Mastodon" it's game over. Branding is important if you want to attract anyone but die-hard techies, and for a service that relies on network effects to deliver the most value, you need all kinds of people, not just techies.

““The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated” - Mark Twain “ - Twitter

Migrated to Mastodon and so far I like it much better than Twitter.

The iOS communities I followed on Twitter have been posting regularly on Mastodon which is great.

Most important of all, there's no algorithm on the timeline trying to push the latest viral stupid statements and rage-inducing drama to keep users engaged. I have block and mute so much accounts and word yet Twitter still manage to show it on my timeline.

No centralised moderation means the platform is a hotbed for nefarious activities, which reinforces certain accusations about the left's priorities (and Twitter's past inaction on the matter)

https://www.secjuice.com/mastodon-child-porn-pedophiles/

Mastodon isn't a platform, it's a protocol, and all reputable instances block that sort of content.

>which reinforces certain accusations about the left's priorities

Which accusations? Donald Trump's Truth Social is a Mastodon instance.

>and Twitter's past inaction on the matter

Reports say as of this week, Twitter has fired even more of the moderation teams and the trust and safety teams.

It’s impossible to find anyone interesting on there

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