I don't think there is any "killer feature" we could add. Of course there is a TON of things we need to do to improve the platform. My point is that I don't think any one feature is going to make a mass migration happen. This is a game of centimeters, not meters.
Post
Replies:
0
@scottjenson the unfortunate reason is the same as to why Linux is still not used by the majority of people on their devices.
That said, I never had a Twitter account, and I will never create an account on any social network controlled by a private company. So I'm the exception here, somehow, but for me the only reason for being on Mastodon is that it's decentralized and not controlled by a private company. I'm also not really bothered by any of the shortcomings people mentioned in the past.
I don't think there is any "killer feature" we could add. Of course there is a TON of things we need to do to improve the platform. My point is that I don't think any one feature is going to make a mass migration happen. This is a game of centimeters, not meters.
@scottjenson I don’t think Fedi need to be giant to be of value though! Sometimes smaller things are good too!
Like ☕ and Marmite, the Fediverse is very much an acquired taste an effort is needed to start appreciate.
An ever more challenging task the shorter the median attention span has been cut since the age of the Internet began.
@tsvenson I'd like to think we can lower the bar just a bit. It's never a bad idea to reduce friction.
I think so too. The thing I've been pondering with myself about is how much that bar is "the open source mindset."
In the sense that of all those who got enough of Twitter/X and Facebook looking for an alternative less toxic and tried for example Mastodon, 9/10 expected to find a Twitter clone. Couldn't grasp the decentralisation and much more. Tried Bluesky and it was easy to get going in a new "home" as in the old place...
1/2
I'm thinking back to the first eXodus waves, when Mastodon was mentioned even in traditional media as a potential X killer.
Out there in the public the mindset is very much about who will slay the dragon and win it all.
How much did that affect those who gave Mastodon and try, and then mostly got confused?
Because here we think think less in winner/looser, instead in sharing and caring, and quality before quantity. And are not controlled by techbro's with mega corporations.
2/2
@scottjenson Making it easier for people to boot up there own services and showing why you should run your own instances through Raspberry Pis and other means would be a great thing to happen, It just needs to be done in such a way that someone can run it without much knowledge about code and configuring these sorts of systems.
The other way would be discoverability, we need to make it easier for people to discover what they want instead of the spam of bots on Mastodon.social
@scottjenson One killer feature for #Mastodon would be that #newcomers could find such an easy-to-understand #guide like https://fedi.tips/ by @FediTips directly beside the join button!
Coming from a centralized platform, the biggest obstacle is to understand how this decentralised stuff works.
The offical Mastodon sites are "too tech", too complicated.
I only stayed thanks to this great guide!
@scottjenson While it is by no means zero, my experience is that the toxicity factor in the fediverse is a fraction of those on other platforms, with Bluesky running a distant second and X somewhat further out than Mars.
That's the killer feature, and I believe it's based on moderation by humans who care about the experience here. Our vulnerability is that those human moderators burn out; that good instances shut down for lack of funding. We're going to need to work out how that becomes sustainable, how we build a culture of donating to our instances when we have the means.
I think it's going to take some time to work that out, because it's a cultural concern, not a technological one. I also think we should be patient and continue to grow organically until we're past that point, or we'll just continue to burn out admins and see good instances shut down.
@scottjenson I think the ecosystem and environment that caused people to search for other platforms away from Twitter/X has changed and evolved over the last few years. So what caused people to pick bluesky over mastodon isnt necessarily whats keeping them on bluesky and not consider switching to mastodon
@scottjenson one of the main pressure points for bluesky currently is there adherence to age verification laws, as well as content moderation guidelines. thats the main thing i could see people consider going back to mastodon for
problem is that "we make it easier to circumvent legal requirements" is in fact a good sales pitch but not a particularly great thing to say out loud as the org yourself
@laurenshof @scottjenson well, a little late for that: https://techcrunch.com/2025/08/29/mastodon-says-it-doesnt-have-the-means-to-comply-with-age-verification-laws/
That said though, the real question with Mastodon and age verification is "what would age verification gate access to?", because unlike Bluesky, we don't know what is or isn't adult content, and we don't have an explicit DMs feature, which are the two things Bluesky age-gates for jurisdictions that require it.
@thisismissem @scottjenson heh yeah the "not particularly great to say out loud" was kind of a reference to that haha
@laurenshof @thisismissem @scottjenson I would also say it's becoming easier to have a home on more than one "microblogging" platform — I tend to use Mastodon as my primary a/c, but I like checking in on Bluesky for more hobby-related things (e.g. there's a good electronic music community there). I'm hoping Bridgy Fed and third-party apps that let you track across various protocols will also continue to help and improve. So I guess I see the 'winner takes all' mentality fading in social media.
@ricmac @laurenshof @scottjenson there's also likely some effect of "signup for a bluesky account, and you've automatically got flashes, skylight social, tangled, etc."
That's something that Fediverse could have had, but instead everyone decided to build monolithic servers instead of figuring out how to do client to server & have our version of PDSes
(I've been quietly working on a prototype of an ActivityPub PDS like thing)
Like one account gets you all these apps: https://techcrunch.com/2025/06/13/beyond-bluesky-these-are-the-apps-building-social-experiences-on-the-at-protocol/
@scottjenson I think it is harder to build reach here and a lot of people want to see the follower number go up quickly.
The lack of an algo here also implies that they will get less interesting content here than elsewhere. Some people _want_ an algo (even if they say they dont).
@ike One of the clever things BlueSky did was they had a few types of "algos" you could choose from. They were simple and optional. It feels like a good compromise. One of the biggest problems with new users is finding content and this seems like a reasonable direction.
