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1. Louis (louis@emacs.ch)'s status on Tuesday, 09-May-2023 15:20:40 JST Louis

   I disagree with the current CEO of Mastodon about his stance on mid-sized instances. We don't want to be run in isolation, we are part of the Fediverse. "Normal users just want the default", he can repeat that as many times as he wants, it doesn't make it true because of that.

   Diversity is the DNA of the Fediverse and Mastodon is just one part of the whole. Thousands of people spend their time and money to make it successful. Anyone who dismisses that and single-handedly tries to market the Fediverse as a Mastodon brand and use "crowding out" techniques to prevent users from even being encouraged to choose an instance from a diversity will ultimately fail.

   I am super disappointed with the direction Mastodon Corporation is taking. If there is not enough headwind here soon, then sooner or later it will lead to a schism.

   #Mastodon #MastoAdmin #fediverse

   • Aral Balkan repeated this.
   • Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Tuesday, 09-May-2023 15:20:38 JST Aral Balkan

     in reply to

     @louis Sadly, Eugen has allowed himself (and mastodon.social) to become a centre. Mastodon was already built on a Big Web stack, inheriting its scaling characteristics and inherent success criteria so the only hope was for social pressure to keep instances small. And that’s clearly not happening. Instead he’s going for vertical scale. And, sadly, Eugen’s going to discover the hard way (and very soon) that a German not-for-profit cannot compete with Silicon Valley on that.

   • Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Tuesday, 09-May-2023 15:27:24 JST Aral Balkan

     in reply to

     @louis Mastodon.social will be dethroned as the largest instance within roughly a year (and almost overnight) by Tumblr or Mozilla or some other Silicon Valley entrant. At that point Eugen will have zero recourse but to accept it because he’s already made giant instances socially acceptable. In time, he’ll likely be brought into the fold as Tim Berners-Lee was by the Big Web and maybe eventually launch an initiative to Reclaim the Fediverse. It’s not like we haven’t seen this before.

   • Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Tuesday, 09-May-2023 15:32:28 JST Aral Balkan

     in reply to

     • Ivory by Tapbots :emoji_wink:
     • Dmitry Tantsur

     @creepy_owlet @louis You know what people who don’t care that much use? Twitter.

     Round-robin the default instance and you solve the problem. Heck, you don’t even need that. Look at how @ivory does it. Beautiful experience that gives you options while also educating you. Or are you going to tell me the Tapbots guys don’t grok design?

   • Dmitry Tantsur (creepy_owlet@mastodon.online)'s status on Tuesday, 09-May-2023 15:32:30 JST Dmitry Tantsur

     in reply to

     @louis It's not him discouraging the users from picking an instance. It's the fact that it's actually hard combined with the fact that most users don't care that much.

     Take me, a pretty technically advanced person who still ended up on the default instance after getting tired of choosing. And then a few friends simply went where I went.

   • Christian Tietze (ctietze@mastodon.social)'s status on Tuesday, 09-May-2023 15:34:21 JST Christian Tietze

     in reply to

     • Aral Balkan

     @aral @louis I had expected the big web/tech shift to adopt ActivityPub to have finished by now, esp. with Tumblr after their announcement. That would fold the requirements of social media for a large group of people into Tumblr, making Mastodon and Pixelfed instances superfluous for them.

   • Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Tuesday, 09-May-2023 15:34:21 JST Aral Balkan

     in reply to

     • Christian Tietze

     @ctietze @louis This.

   • Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Tuesday, 09-May-2023 15:38:33 JST Aral Balkan

     in reply to

     @louis The most strategic thing Eugen could have done was to keep mastodon.social small and make it socially unacceptable for instances to grow beyond a certain size. That would’ve been a poison pill against the infinite growth death cult of Silicon Valley. Maybe not a permanent one but it could have delayed things a little. Instead we’re welcoming them with open arms and equating their interest with success. Like sheep flattered by the gazes of wolves.

   • Arindam Basu (arinbasu1@social.arinbasu.online)'s status on Tuesday, 09-May-2023 16:30:11 JST Arindam Basu

     in reply to

     • Aral Balkan

     If that happens, let it be. The ‘verse needs to grow, if it isn’t mastodon.social, well let’s say not even Mastodon for that matter but some other app on the ‘verse, the better for it.

   • Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Tuesday, 09-May-2023 16:30:11 JST Aral Balkan

     in reply to

     • Arindam Basu

     @arinbasu1 Ideally, we’d just have one instance and it would be run by Google. Hey, a girl can dream…

   • Emon (emon@h4.io)'s status on Thursday, 06-Jul-2023 23:25:11 JST Emon

     in reply to

     • Aral Balkan
     • Arindam Basu

     @aral @arinbasu1 I don't get it... How can Eugen not see the problem of having one super node in a decentralized network, when he's the one that brought it up in a first place ? What's his stance on this ?

   • Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Thursday, 06-Jul-2023 23:25:11 JST Aral Balkan

     in reply to

     • Emon
     • Arindam Basu

     @emon Well, for a few more days he’s going to be in charge of that super node. And then Mark is.

     🤷♂️

     @arinbasu1

   • Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Thursday, 06-Jul-2023 23:46:46 JST Aral Balkan

     in reply to

     • wampastompa

     @cardboard haha, let me give you a hint…

     @louis

   • wampastompa (cardboard@tiny.tilde.website)'s status on Thursday, 06-Jul-2023 23:46:47 JST wampastompa

     in reply to

     • Aral Balkan

     @aral @louis "make it socially unacceptable for instances to grow beyond a certain size"

     i cant tell if youre joking or not lol