Raw numbers are perhaps not enough to get across just how bad the centralisation of the Fediverse by mastodon.social is.
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p.s. For anyone wondering why this centralisation is a problem, here's an in-depth look at why mastodon.social's increasing percentage of the Fediverse is dangerous: https://fedi.tips/its-a-really-bad-idea-to-join-a-big-server/
p.p.s. I'm not saying join any random server! I run a website at https://fedi.garden to recommend good alternative servers. My point was just that in terms of size, no other server is anywhere near as large as mastodon.social.
p.p.s. If anyone currently on mastodon.social wants help moving to a different server, there's an easy-to-understand step-by-step guide at https://fedi.tips/transferring-your-mastodon-account-to-another-server
Let me know if you have any difficulties with any particular step
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Raw numbers are perhaps not enough to get across just how bad the centralisation of the Fediverse by mastodon.social is. I've done a chart to show this visually, hopefully this will make the situation clearer?
Given the circumstances, getting people to join other servers except mastodon.social would greatly help decentralise the Fediverse. It's no longer big vs medium vs small, it's more like supergiant deathstar mastodon.social vs everyone else
#Mastodon #Fediverse #MastodonSocial
Thank you for putting this together. Interesting discussion point.
One aspect I would like to highlight here is the visualisation. The bar chart makes the issue seem huge. Would you mind creating a pie chart?
30% isn’t a centralisation, is it?
Yes, we have a dominant instance. And yes, we need to work against centralisation. But the bar chart feels misleading to me. -
Thank you for putting this together. Interesting discussion point.
One aspect I would like to highlight here is the visualisation. The bar chart makes the issue seem huge. Would you mind creating a pie chart?
30% isn’t a centralisation, is it?
Yes, we have a dominant instance. And yes, we need to work against centralisation. But the bar chart feels misleading to me.Going from 15% to 30% in two years is very much centralisation.
When it goes over 50% (which it will do on current numbers) it will be bigger than all other servers put together. It is most of the way there now.
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Going from 15% to 30% in two years is very much centralisation.
When it goes over 50% (which it will do on current numbers) it will be bigger than all other servers put together. It is most of the way there now.
Yes.
But I tend to think that the focus should be on growth right now.
I also started on mastodon.social and moved to another instance later.I am not saying that the point that you are making is wrong. I am just not sure whether this should be priority. For new members, convenience is highest priority, I think.
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p.p.s. If anyone currently on mastodon.social wants help moving to a different server, there's an easy-to-understand step-by-step guide at https://fedi.tips/transferring-your-mastodon-account-to-another-server
Let me know if you have any difficulties with any particular step
@FediGarden
I think one of the main problems is you can't transfer your posts to a new account. But I heard that @jonny was maybe working on finding a fix for this! So, one can hope that if this gets fixed it will be much easier for people to move out of mastodon.social.PS: thank you for all your great guides
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Yes.
But I tend to think that the focus should be on growth right now.
I also started on mastodon.social and moved to another instance later.I am not saying that the point that you are making is wrong. I am just not sure whether this should be priority. For new members, convenience is highest priority, I think.
There is nothing more convenient about mastodon.social for new members though.
New people joining e.g. mas.to would give them an experience that is just as easy without centralising the network.
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@FediGarden
I think one of the main problems is you can't transfer your posts to a new account. But I heard that @jonny was maybe working on finding a fix for this! So, one can hope that if this gets fixed it will be much easier for people to move out of mastodon.social.PS: thank you for all your great guides
If you follow the guide, your old posts will remain in existence and help redirect people to your new account
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K Christopher shared this topic on
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If you follow the guide, your old posts will remain in existence and help redirect people to your new account
I recently did a poll, and nearly half of all people who voted said that it bothered them that their posts didn't migrate with their accounts.
I have to admit, I was quite surprised.
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J Jürgen Hubert shared this topic on
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There is nothing more convenient about mastodon.social for new members though.
New people joining e.g. mas.to would give them an experience that is just as easy without centralising the network.
@FediGarden @davidbeck
So much of this is almost certainly sign-ups from the official mobile app, and the whole "choosing a server, or understanding even slightly what the fediverse even is is too complicated!" thing.Unfortunately, centralization happens because people don't actually care about centralization, or how that enables bad actors to control them. They happily trade liberty for convenience.
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I recently did a poll, and nearly half of all people who voted said that it bothered them that their posts didn't migrate with their accounts.
I have to admit, I was quite surprised.
@juergen_hubert you were surprised that it wasn't more? Or less?
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@juergen_hubert you were surprised that it wasn't more? Or less?
That it wasn't less.
I mean, for me #Mastodon is #microblogging first and foremost. And in microblogging, posts are ephemeral and soon forgotten. Personally, I don't really _care_ what I posted a year ago - unless I bookmarked it. And even then, the old posts arent even _gone_ unless the old instance closes down.
But evidently, a very large number of Mastodon users feel very differently about this.
Jürgen Hubert (@juergen_hubert@mementomori.social)
In the past, I have frequently mentioned how easy it is to move from one #Mastodon instance to another. I have done so twice in the past, and I generally recommend that people use that feature to get away from the big instances (such as Mastodon.social) and to one of the smaller ones so that the #Fediverse is more "spread out". However, there are always some people who object to this, noting that while you can migrate your follows, followers, bookmarks, blocks and so forth, you _cannot_ migrate your old posts. This has never bothered me since Mastodon is essentially a #microblogging system, and I see microblogging as "fire and forget" in nature - any given post might be shared for a few days, but is soon forgotten unless someone bookmarks it. Besides, it's not as if the posts are actually gone from the old instance unless it closes down. But many see this as a major obstacle to migrating instances, and thus I want to know: Does it bother you that you cannot migrate your posts when migrating Mastodon instances? #Fediverse [ ] Yes, it bothers me [ ] No, it doesn't bother me
Memento mori (mementomori.social)
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That it wasn't less.
I mean, for me #Mastodon is #microblogging first and foremost. And in microblogging, posts are ephemeral and soon forgotten. Personally, I don't really _care_ what I posted a year ago - unless I bookmarked it. And even then, the old posts arent even _gone_ unless the old instance closes down.
But evidently, a very large number of Mastodon users feel very differently about this.
Jürgen Hubert (@juergen_hubert@mementomori.social)
In the past, I have frequently mentioned how easy it is to move from one #Mastodon instance to another. I have done so twice in the past, and I generally recommend that people use that feature to get away from the big instances (such as Mastodon.social) and to one of the smaller ones so that the #Fediverse is more "spread out". However, there are always some people who object to this, noting that while you can migrate your follows, followers, bookmarks, blocks and so forth, you _cannot_ migrate your old posts. This has never bothered me since Mastodon is essentially a #microblogging system, and I see microblogging as "fire and forget" in nature - any given post might be shared for a few days, but is soon forgotten unless someone bookmarks it. Besides, it's not as if the posts are actually gone from the old instance unless it closes down. But many see this as a major obstacle to migrating instances, and thus I want to know: Does it bother you that you cannot migrate your posts when migrating Mastodon instances? #Fediverse [ ] Yes, it bothers me [ ] No, it doesn't bother me
Memento mori (mementomori.social)
@juergen_hubert
I see! Indeed I am more on the side of "permanent repository of my thoughts", I often search my old posts for some link, poll or info that I know exists in the past. I wouldn't want to migrate instances if it meant loosing my post history. I'd rather loose my follows / followers - you can always find then back - than my posts.I guess I probably also have some trauma from when I had to leave twitter to join mastodon and had to say bye-bye to all my precious tweets.. Not ready for that to ever happen again!
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That it wasn't less.
I mean, for me #Mastodon is #microblogging first and foremost. And in microblogging, posts are ephemeral and soon forgotten. Personally, I don't really _care_ what I posted a year ago - unless I bookmarked it. And even then, the old posts arent even _gone_ unless the old instance closes down.
But evidently, a very large number of Mastodon users feel very differently about this.
Jürgen Hubert (@juergen_hubert@mementomori.social)
In the past, I have frequently mentioned how easy it is to move from one #Mastodon instance to another. I have done so twice in the past, and I generally recommend that people use that feature to get away from the big instances (such as Mastodon.social) and to one of the smaller ones so that the #Fediverse is more "spread out". However, there are always some people who object to this, noting that while you can migrate your follows, followers, bookmarks, blocks and so forth, you _cannot_ migrate your old posts. This has never bothered me since Mastodon is essentially a #microblogging system, and I see microblogging as "fire and forget" in nature - any given post might be shared for a few days, but is soon forgotten unless someone bookmarks it. Besides, it's not as if the posts are actually gone from the old instance unless it closes down. But many see this as a major obstacle to migrating instances, and thus I want to know: Does it bother you that you cannot migrate your posts when migrating Mastodon instances? #Fediverse [ ] Yes, it bothers me [ ] No, it doesn't bother me
Memento mori (mementomori.social)
@juergen_hubert @elduvelle @FediGarden Yeah, there are definitely very different ways of seeing this. I also see my old posts as irrelevant and have set them to auto-delete. Of course, having my history reset to 0 on a move is a little annoying, so I guess a way to move say up to 5000 posts (or some cap selected by the server admin) would make sense?
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@juergen_hubert @elduvelle @FediGarden Yeah, there are definitely very different ways of seeing this. I also see my old posts as irrelevant and have set them to auto-delete. Of course, having my history reset to 0 on a move is a little annoying, so I guess a way to move say up to 5000 posts (or some cap selected by the server admin) would make sense?
@veronica @juergen_hubert @elduvelle @FediGarden
And then there is me ... having a copy of my Twitter archive since 2009 ... -
@veronica @juergen_hubert @elduvelle @FediGarden
And then there is me ... having a copy of my Twitter archive since 2009 ...@me @veronica @elduvelle @FediGarden
...out of curiosity, how often have you actually looked at it since you downloaded it?
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@juergen_hubert
I see! Indeed I am more on the side of "permanent repository of my thoughts", I often search my old posts for some link, poll or info that I know exists in the past. I wouldn't want to migrate instances if it meant loosing my post history. I'd rather loose my follows / followers - you can always find then back - than my posts.I guess I probably also have some trauma from when I had to leave twitter to join mastodon and had to say bye-bye to all my precious tweets.. Not ready for that to ever happen again!
@elduvelle @juergen_hubert That’s the exact dividing line between the two opinions: some people feel that their posts are precious, others that they are naturally ephemeral. Personally I think anyone in the “precious” camp needs to have their own website. It is easy and inexpensive, and you are not subject to losing everything just because a random individual server owner quits (or sells out to someone terrible).
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@elduvelle @juergen_hubert That’s the exact dividing line between the two opinions: some people feel that their posts are precious, others that they are naturally ephemeral. Personally I think anyone in the “precious” camp needs to have their own website. It is easy and inexpensive, and you are not subject to losing everything just because a random individual server owner quits (or sells out to someone terrible).
@Moss @juergen_hubert
A website is really not the same purpose as an interactive communication platform like Mastodon / Fedi though. It doesn't have the same reach - people have to go and read your website. The interest of the posts on here is not just the posts content but the discussions that come with them.
It's also not that easy to set up, you have to figure out a host, make the website, regularly update the website, probably pay for the domain name etc. (I never made a website, there are probably a lot more steps). It's a good thing to have but certainly not a replacement for social media. -
@Moss @juergen_hubert
A website is really not the same purpose as an interactive communication platform like Mastodon / Fedi though. It doesn't have the same reach - people have to go and read your website. The interest of the posts on here is not just the posts content but the discussions that come with them.
It's also not that easy to set up, you have to figure out a host, make the website, regularly update the website, probably pay for the domain name etc. (I never made a website, there are probably a lot more steps). It's a good thing to have but certainly not a replacement for social media.It's possible to split the middle, though. For instance, I am running a #WordPress site - and turned it into a #Fediverse server with the #ActivityPub plugin.
Now people can search for individual blog posts on their Fediverse instance, and read it and comment on it as if it was a Mastodon post (for instance).
There are also quite a few other Fediverse-based blogging solutions that allow people to blog right into other people's feeds.
