We've seen it so many times.
Learn the lesson. Use Mastodon this time.
Also, while we’re at it, try to make Fediverse culture less insular and more open. There's no point in trying to reply to anyone since everyone hates everyone else. Pointless platform.
Actually that's a feature. If search doesn't work, there is less incentive for bots polluting others people searches.
On the other hand, search works so bad than even connecting to people you know on other networks is painful.
All I use social media for is to look at whatever funny piece of media I'm obsessed with currently and related things.
Unfortunately, Mastodon both has busted search and useless tags. Tumblr's search has been hilariously bad for ages now, but at least the tagging system is so comprehensive it more than makes up for it.
Mastodon is the worst of all worlds in that aspect.
I haven't actually been subject to this, yet, but I've seen enough people react negatively against others doing this that it saps all my desire to do anything other than just aimlessly scroll every once in a while. I can read the room, you know.
Sometimes I wonder why do instance admins even open up their instances? Just run it for your friends and those who you like and cut the crap.
Or do you have experience from bluesky, meaning you're only interacting with one central server and none of the complexities of federation come into play?
Yes, my experience using the Bluesky app includes the Bluesky app server aggregating from many independent PDS hosts (because people I follow like that). But it doesn’t show up in user experience because that’s the whole point.
And yes, I can use another aggregator instead of the Bluesky app, or even use a client which has no backend and relies on community-run Constellation index. It all roughly works the same.
App servers are aggregators. You can use any to read the network. Here’s a post I wrote, as seen via Bluesky aggregator:
https://bsky.app/profile/danabra.mov/post/3mol3gyikac2d
A second later, I could see the same post via the Blacksky community aggregator: https://blacksky.community/profile/did:plc:fpruhuo22xkm5o7tt...
Here’s the same post on pdsls which reads it directly from my hosting: https://pdsls.dev/at://did:plc:fpruhuo22xkm5o7ttr2ktxdo/app....
My hosting is managed by Bluesky but it has nothing to do with Bluesky app. Hosting is a separate decoupled thing. I could move hosting to my own Docker container, and all aggregators would see my posts just as fine.
Does this clear things up?
Users of different PDS would be the closest thing to a mastodon instance and there's thousands of different PDS without much issue. I'm on a "third party PDS" and I've had barely any issues.
I use a "third party" PDS, appview, PLC directory mirror, CDN, and client so 99.9% of my interaction with bluesky and atproto at large is independent of bluesky the corporation.
Despite using a third party "basically everything" my experience is essentially the same as a "default" bluesky user if not better in many ways
I just checked and yes, I follow someone that's on Eurosky. Maybe I follow multiple, I honestly don't know because it isn't at all noticeable. It just works.
Mastodon is social: you follow people, you see their stuff. It's what social media used to be.
Why did you switch them around? Red always meant left wing. Even in the US red meant the Soviets. It's just confusing to everyone else.
Also Mastodon is on the road to enshittification since the previous CEO and founder bowed out for $1M using donations and the main instance federates with Meta's Threads.
The other instances are out of the question since one rogue instance owner can lock and shutdown that instance.
I'm not necessarily saying you made this mistake, but plenty of other people who dip their toe in the fediverse do this - they get in, find nothing in their feed, they shrug and forget about it. A good start is to search for a few hashtags that match your interests, even add a follow for those if you see they're active, and soon you'll start seeing interesting people. I've been on there for years, and I'm always amazed at the small niche discussion threads I find.
No signs of enshittification either so far, barely any new features being added TBH
The rest of your comment seems to be pure speculation, so.
Mastodon is independant, each instance manages itself, some are bad, some are good, you can even host your own, that's the power of decentralization.
Why aren't the general public using the original first 'instance' which is Mastodon if it is just another node?
> Mastodon is independant, each instance manages itself, some are bad, some are good, you can even host your own, that's the power of decentralization.
I think this is where it falls apart.
Nobody wants to waste their time host your own, moving from a rouge instance, trying to search for users to follow and the worst one:
Choosing which instance to sign up to.
It is no wonder that even Bluesky is more active than Mastodon.
If I was going to tell someone what social media to sign up to other than X, it has to be either Threads or Bluesky.
Biggest turn off and a killer feature depending on who you ask is a lack of Algorithm. That's why people who move away from Twitter feel disoriented, but people who were never on Twitter in the first place are alright.
Yes, many people don't understand the point of Mastodon.
This includes many of the hundreds of users who tried to make Mastodon work as an X alternative but failed because it was too hard to use.
Decentralisation, Federation, self hosting and choosing an instance isn't enough of a point for many people to use it.
So? I don't use social media to receive curated, hourly dispatches from Barack Obama or Taylor Swift (or, more likely, their account managers). And it might feel important to get the latest rage bait and memes from Elon - it's almost like being friends with the world's first trillionaire - but is it really a good use of your time?
I think a healthier way to use social media is to have two-way interactions with some reasonably stable social circle; less about "people who matter" and more about "people who matter to you". Mastodon certainly has the critical mass to make this possible.
A "main instance" is contrary to the whole idea of a Fediverse anyway.
This obviously is total nonsense.
Countless cute kitten pics. Minimal hate or bigotry in my feed. Don't have to log in. Don't even have to sign up. Finite scroll on the homepage.
So that you don't have to move from Mastodon instance to Mastodon instance over a petty owner disagreement after they delete the entire server with all your data.