And I don't know what it's like now, but cross-server following used to be quite annoying.
I understand it can be confusing for people coming from Twitter or Facebook or wherever, the local instance culture is Mastodon’s greatest strength. That, of course, and the lack drive to turn a profit from users.
There are major differences between "subs"/"rooms" that are fundamentally joined and independently operated protocol hosts that are fundamentally not.
The most difficult part of Mastodon is linking to other instances but even that just involves using the search bar.
One might ask why Bluesky has more sign-ups and monthly active users acquired in less time even without the facestagram login power funnel that Threads has. And of course Threads has waaaaaayyy more. The evidence of what people want from a social media service is right in front of us and very clear.
This reads to me very much like the timeless words of Seymour Skinner, "Am I so out of touch? No! It's the children who are wrong."
Everywhere that people have ever asked why people join Bluesky and not Mastodon, the objections to Bluesky are always philosophical (not actually decentralized, corporate overlords, and so forth) and the objections to Mastodon are always practical (signup sucks[ed?], search sucks[ed?], feed curation sucks[ed?]). Bluesky's selling point has always been "like Twitter, better control, none of the bullshit of Mastodon". That's exactly why any influencers went there and not to Mastodon. Look... I'm not telling you my opinion, I'm communicating the common message given over and over and over by everyone who looked and bounced and talked about it. And when people say over and over and over that Mastodon is frustrating, and people have indeed said that over and over and over, all you need to do is believe them instead of saying they're wrong. Threads has the trifecta of like Twitter, not Twitter, connected to maybe the biggest central platform in the world.
Untrue. People complain about Mastodon's politics and make many of the same "philosophical" arguments as they do with Bluesky. People even argue Mastodon isn't even decentralized.
>Bluesky's selling point has always been "like Twitter, better control, none of the bullshit of Mastodon".
None of Bluesky's marketing has ever mentioned Mastodon as far as I'm aware.
>Look... I'm not telling you my opinion, I'm communicating the common message given over and over and over by everyone who looked and bounced and talked about it.
No, you are literally telling me your opinion. Your ever-increasing use of hyperbole rather than sources demonstrates that you're making an emotional argument grounded in hypotheticals.
>And when people say over and over and over that Mastodon is frustrating, and people have indeed said that over and over and over, all you need to do is believe them instead of saying they're wrong.
I think a lot of them are wrong, and are intentionally overstating how difficult Mastodon is because they view it as "leftist" and feel obligated to shit on it as much and as often as possible. I find it difficult to believe so many of the brilliant technically gifted minds on HN can't figure out how it works, but George Takei, random scientists, gardeners, musicians, authors and other "normal" people can. And a lot of those people also have accounts on Bluesky.
That's an absurd/hilarious thing to say given the demographic breakdown of Bluesky users. Ain't no rightwingers promoting Bluesky because of their opposition to leftism, my friend.
> I find it difficult to believe so many of the brilliant technically gifted minds on HN can't figure out how it works
This is specious on multiple levels. First, "can't figure out" and "not willing to give energy to" are different things. Second, reading this website has no bearing on being either brilliant or technically gifted. Third, there's a big world outside of this website. Fourth, nobody is responsible for what you find difficult, not even you. Fifth, wait a minute, did you just say you find it difficult to believe the perspectives of others? Shouldn't brilliance and giftedness make it easy?
The marketing people are the ones who tell you to not use terms like "federation," "instances," or "tooting" when designing a social networking product.
They're the ones who tell you not to force dark mode down everyone's throats by default, when usability studies going back to the 1980s say that's a bad idea.
The marketing people are sometimes wrong. But on the whole, not usually.
I can tell you how this reads to me: "I consider myself among peers with coders, scientists, and founders. Being asked to understand pretty simple concepts is too much for me."
I am a happy user of Lemmy. Was there more to understand than how to join Reddit? Yes. Is the fediverse simple enough to understand that people on HN should be viewed with incredulity when they make statements that it's too difficult / too much? Unless they're speaking about people who aren't HN commenters, also yes.
I think I can clarify the framing here. People of all walks are extremely uninterested in being told that they need to care about something that they do not care about. For most people, I bet almost all people, decentralization can really just get fucked, because decentralization is not what people are there for. Connection is. What federation offers is just not important to...as a percentage, almost anyone...in relation to what it removes.
Think about it this way: many things are too annoying for you to put up with, even if you technically are capable of dealing with them were you willing to give more energy than you believe is reasonable to give. See also, juice vs squeeze. See also, the iron imperative of writing ("don't waste the reader's time") applies to more than just writing.
Also...
> "I consider myself among peers with coders, scientists, and founders."
One might call it empathy to commiserate with the perspectives of people who are not those things. It's a judgement error to expect a platform to be something other than niche without that. One can also be all of those things and have zero patience for software that has an annoying user experience.
You don’t care. There it is. Just say it. It’s not a crime. I’m not judging you. I’m really not.
I care and it might not matter, but I do. It’s not for you. That’s ok. Don’t bag on it for reasons other than this. It’s not difficult and I don’t care if you don’t care. It’s fine.
> You don’t care.
Forget about me for a moment. We're talking about people. Most people, in fact. Actually the upstream comments use the term "normies", which is a term that I personally object to because it's pejorative and gross behavior. It's imperative that you evaluate this thread within the given context.
Side note on upstream calling people "normies": It's absolutely nuts to me that the groups most sensitive to othering will themselves engage in mindless othering. But anyway.
> It’s not difficult
To you. In fact one of the things that makes something difficult is how much a person is forced to deal with things that they don't want to deal with, especially when those things are the opposite of what they want from a service.