@taylorlorenz Picking servers adds to the perception that it's a complicated or a "tech" thing. There are good mobile clients - I've been using ivory for ages. Some of the default designs on the web feel dates and overly complicated.

@taylorlorenz the concept is confusing. Join a server, but you're connected to other servers, and if you get booted off a server you can still use another server... I think for a lot of people it sounds like a thing for people who are into tech.

I reckon the way to bring people over is at the community level.

Forget the fediverse, forget the tech, just come and join community X/Y/Z over here, its just like signing up for any other social platorm and it's not owned by a megalomaniac tech bro.

@taylorlorenz so much good stuff mentioned in this thread. Had we had groups similar to Facebook groups, I see how one could move lots of people to the Fediverse. You'd set up your profile for friends and family to follow you and you them, and you'd join groups similar to what's been locking people into FB. Here in Sweden FB groups for your local town or city district is the number one reason people who hate FB stay there. That and birthdays/parties.
Most people don't want to "toot" everyday.

@taylorlorenz It's simply dopamine. 🤷

It's like trying to convince people to drink water instead of alcoholic beverages: Water keeps your mind clear and sharp, but alc gives you a "good" time.

@taylorlorenz in no way do I want ads on Mastodon! But that is the issue I see. On other platforms it is possible to monetise your posts so the big names are not going to move away and lose money. One of my family members used the TikTok shop all the time, buying stuff influencers post about and earn commission.

@taylorlorenz I think it’s the need to choose an instance. With the other things you just sign up and that’s it. Really, it’s just a marketing problem, yeah?

@taylorlorenz

Recommending Mastodon as a TikTok replacement is nonsensical; like saying "I'm sorry your Honda Accord has died, but you can get a street sweeper."

@taylorlorenz i am so glad I didn't get tiktok account now.

@taylorlorenz Other than leaving friends and family behind, I'd say it's because it is harder to get down in the mud and wrestle with the pigs here. To me, that's a desirable feature, not one to "fix."

@taylorlorenz
I know it will sound weird, but I dislike the name. Mastodon. It evokes very negative words and concepts in my brain.
This is not a strong argument, but it is one I haven’t seen in the other comments.

@taylorlorenz The user base is growing. But not to the inflated growth of -say - Threads, which manipulated its user base. It's a good thing that it's opaque here. Especially what we need now that data+ machine learning + biometrics is used to create the perfect panopticon. It's ok that the fediverse is a sanctuary of sorts. We need it.

@taylorlorenz I still like a centralized yellow or white pages sort of speak. People are still stuck with everyday store apps. I guess a start would be offline channels that skeb or misskey have for external yellowpages.

@taylorlorenz the refrain I hear from friends who tried and left is it feels too complicated and clunky.

I think part of the reason blue sky had more success despite being just as complicated is they hid most of that from the user.

A single website portal, like how bsk.app works, would help immensely

@taylorlorenz please stop telling people about Mastodon. They might actually listen one day and all come here and ruin it for us hahaha

@taylorlorenz
Never came across mastodon before. After trying to find a European browser came across this. Exploring it

@taylorlorenz
I fear that the changes required to attract the masses to Mastodon would ruin it for those of us already here. Let them enjoy their nazi bar.

@taylorlorenz Some of the earlier issues and complaints have been addressed (like quoting). Discovery is still a big barrier, but being worked on. And one of the big issues is following a link to a mastodon post on the web and not being logged in because it’s not your server. I imagine only browser/extension support could solve that one.

@taylorlorenz big names to follow. It's a shame that I keep seeing threads on Reddit about how social media is so corporate and nobody mentions the true anti-corporate platform.

@taylorlorenz

the barriers are the perception that it's for smart people + also no addictive algorithm, these are not things we want to change

IMHO it's worth remembering that not everything has to be for everybody

right now Mastodon is perceived to serve & actually does serve high intelligence / high caring people

we don't want to change to court the majority of people who believe high intelligence / high caring brains are abnormal or even diseased

@taylorlorenz bluesky ruined mastodon I feel like, I used to have the bluesky app and honestly I thought mastodon was just another app that would never take off, I'm not sure what made me want to use bluesky more than this app but once I got tired of most USA platforms I read on google that mastodon was a European app so I thought to myself maybe I should join it

I am so tired of all the billionaires in America controlling everything without giving a damn about our privacy etc

@taylorlorenz hot take: smaller communities of intended audience is fundamentally betted than this town crier model of social media. In models like Discord (or the forums and IRC of old) because communities are smaller and separate from eachother, shared interests and values result in generally more intimate relationships where users still feel responsible for themselves as social community members. Large networks necessarily create massive hubs, individual users with many orders of magnitude more reach than the average user. The resulting emergent phemena are almost always negative for the user base and human behavior as a whole. Smaller networks like a discord server more closely resemble historical human communities and by being smaller, hubs (central popular people) are less common and held accountable by the small village of users they interact with, and are necessarily not orders of magnitude more popular than anyone else.

@taylorlorenz I think one of the best ways is to recommend specific instances to people, that helps with being overwhelmed with options, etc. I've recommended this one I'm on (c.im) to several people and have had a couple join up that way.

@taylorlorenz and
Another thing
People are already feeling displaced when they realize they're in a nazi bar, so when they sign up on a nonsustainable server like mastodon.social and then discover they need to now migrate to another server, it can feel like further displacement. This is when it's easiest to give up on this platform. The first landing spot immediately feels hostile. Eventually we all find our alt accounts with beige jorts infosec and such, but it's only with sincere perseverance, a major journey and multiple side quests that we find a scroll worth interacting with.

@taylorlorenz I think part of it is the pr campaign other platforms have waged against it, saying things like there's some sort of eldritch signing-up process that involves Byzantine bureaucracy, and part that we need cool people to show the way, as we saw in the case of #forkiverse their audience in.

@taylorlorenz I also think it would be cool to be able to see interactions I've shared with other users. Let's say someone requests to follow me but I don't remember if I've interacted with them before, I'd love to see what posts we've spoken on.

@taylorlorenz I don't think many servers are courting users. "If you built it they, will come" hasn't worked that well for the #fediverse

We should learn from the rapid growth of the #forkiverse server, which was due to courting new users via a joint podcast.

@taylorlorenz something i remember vividly is an influential account that i followed on twitter back in 2018 or so openly mocking mastodon users as ugly dorks, and discounting mastodon out of hand for that reason. and i really do think that many people who still avoid the fediverse because they don't want to be seen associating with "those people"

@taylorlorenz the biggest barrier to join Mastodon is having more than two functioning neurons.
You know that's becoming rarer and rarer.
Ask yourself if you do really want the hordes of monocellular organisms to flood in?

@taylorlorenz In USA it is for sure artists and sports, it's a religion basically.

@taylorlorenz Lack of search. Inability to click on a user’s follows/following and see who they follow/are following.

@taylorlorenz Mastodon's biggest barrier is network effect, a budget to attract users, and it not being, or wanting to be, the new Twitter. Bluesky has the first two, which has given it the advantage on the first, but not yet enough to overtake old Twitter.
The future for Mastodon is to continue not being the next Twitter, but pull in users that should naturally prefer decentralized and non-profit, like government organizations and sane people. That and journalists adding it to their byline.

@taylorlorenz Mastodon's biggest barrier is network effect, a budget to attract users, and it not being, or wanting to be, the new Twitter. Bluesky has the first two, which has given it the advantage on the first, but not yet enough to overtake old Twitter.
The future for Mastodon is to continue not being the next Twitter, but pull in users that should naturally prefer decentralized and non-profit, like government organizations and sane people. That and journalists adding it to their byline.

@taylorlorenz
🇪🇺 🇪🇺 🇪🇺
“At this historical moment, I’d value the fact that Mastodon is made in the #europeanunion. I’m a new user myself who joined as part of a Trump-led US boycott campaign, so I was looking for a #EU-made alternative—Mastodon seemed like the most structured one anyway.
#EU #buyeuropean we should follow the Canadians’ example #buycanadian”
🇪🇺 🇪🇺 🇪🇺

@taylorlorenz It lacks an addictive algorithm.

@taylorlorenz just like substack

@taylorlorenz Mass produce the stuffed mastodons and get them in every Wal Mart, etc. in the world, with a QR link on the tag.
Bam.
Done.

@taylorlorenz I think famous people need to get on here, most people I've spoken with regarding Mastodon or Fediverse is that they follow news and gossip mostly on the commercial platforms.

If the people come, the people will follow

@taylorlorenz vorrei si potessero scrivere post anche più lunghi, senza che si mostrino per intero fin da subito in home. Rendere più comoda la pubblicazione di immagini, vedendole piccole in anteprima nei post in home e poi soffermandosi sul post per leggerli avere l'immagine a grandezza di pubblicazione. Trovare i post pubblicati con immagini raggruppati in una sezione apposita all'interno ogni profilo...Che l'apprezzamento ai post e il salvataggio con la stellina fossero due opzioni separate.

@taylorlorenz the name

@taylorlorenz It's just a case of it being not as trendy. Mainly a marketing issue. Even when a product is identical there is no guarantee of equal market share because of human nature to judge anything based on social cues, especially when a product isn't novel or offering something significantly different. (short term material gains).

As distasteful as it is to me what is missing in this case is high profile celebrity endorsement. People go where their idols are. What does Taylor swift use?

@taylorlorenz effective action against misogyny and racism would help, as well as toning down the reply guys and OSS liturgy perhaps.

@taylorlorenz
They aren't spoon fed Mastodon like all the other corporate social media.

I hope Loops takes off due to TikToks new maga ownership but last time I tried it out the android app wasnt a very good experience.

@taylorlorenz The network effect is working against adoption of more decentralized social networks like Mastodon or Nostr. These networks tend to attract certain type of users and do not cover wide variety of subjects that would attract wide base of users. This is both a positive and negative thing depends how you look at this.

At the same time it is refreshing to join a network like Nostr where you have full freedom to express your opinions and there is nobody that can censor you.

@taylorlorenz Mastodon isnt "a product".

@taylorlorenz There are a million little friction points for non-technical people. Example: somebody links somebody else's post, I click on it and I am brought to their server. Which means I am no longer recognized as logged in and can't follow/comment/like etc.
To me this is a minor bump on the road, and in two clicks I can sort it out. For my mother it is an impossible wall of confusion (my father gave up on understanding any technology that appeared after the '80s).

@taylorlorenz recommending a server is always a barrier but https://fedi.garden/fediverse-servers-sorted-by-topic/ helped in my recent fedi-evangelist efforts

@taylorlorenz
Not having a multi-billion corp/national govern't pushing it.

@taylorlorenz The selection of server still seems to be a big deal.

@taylorlorenz People the world over are fantastic. I'm certain there are many people at present who are missing that would make this place better. However, we can't corral people -- that's corpo crap. And, having ALL the people also invites a lot of... uh, crap. If there is less friction people won't slow down to assess a new environment. If there is too much on-ramping people bubble and never seek new ideas. I can only use a few characters. Arts, tech, and inclusivity is always a small set.

@taylorlorenz People just dismiss it right away, and I never understood it why. Worst case they come up with excuses that they maybe heard from a person who heard it from another person's cat that it was cumbersome.

"It doesn't work, I hate it" has been a response from people with exactly 0 experience too many times and I cannot fathom why. They haven't even given themselves a chance to get angry at clumsy federation and they're already dismissive :P

@taylorlorenz In my opinion the major "problem" with Mastodon is the lack of many sources that are present on Twitter. I'm Italian and on Twitter I was following many journalists, newspapers and politics, while here on Mastodon there are really few of them. The same applies for other kind of accounts

@taylorlorenz
An advertising budget

@taylorlorenz I think joining Mastodon is really easy, especially with all the amazing join(this, that) .org
What could be improved is making self hosting easier and more accessible. I think that will make this beautiful project more attractive to communities (local or digital). Small self-hosted instances of people who know each other will probably be more active and engaging and thanks to the fediverse they'll connect with inspiring skeletons and the rest

@taylorlorenz The Fediverse is impossible to censor, no one can buy it, it would negate. Its the future. The ability for anyone to spin up a server and there being no suggestion algorithm are features that ensure it will eventually dominate the web.

Bluesky and Upscrolled still have much of the same problems of the major SMPs. Centralization always ensures eventual enshitefication. RSS, Wikis, Federated Platforms, these are the true tech marvels of the internet.

@taylorlorenz the big two seen to be the decision paralysis surrounding choosing a server, and the mastodon hoa shaming new users for stuff

@taylorlorenz capitalist realism. People (even leftists) refuse to understand that these apps don‘t exist to "compete" with the big monetized platforms. This place has been so good for my mental health because it‘s designed with freedom in mind!

@taylorlorenz I think it's because the fediverse, for me at least, works more as a social network than social media. And because of that it needs a network effect...but if you're joining without knowing anybody it's hard to get into a circle like that. It's a catch 22.

I was lucky on my main account to find a server for a common interest and everyone in that cluster of servers knows and interacts with each other. In a way it's ended up feeling more like old school facebook than twitter?

@taylorlorenz I love Mastodon just like I love my local owner-run vegan cafe. The decor definitely has a DIY vibe, the staff flaunt an array of tattoos and beanies, and who knows what might be on the menu on any given day. The coffee and cake is to die for.

Tried taking the family there once. The kids complained the hot chocolate was "too chocolatey" and the Quorn dippers weren't "chickeny enough"

So McDonald's it is still with them. Nothing like the buzz of a McFlurry and Chicken Select box

@taylorlorenz Onboarding is still the biggest hurdle. Asking new users to pick a server, understand federation, and think about migrating later is a lot. Better defaults and clearer explanations would help without breaking decentralization.

@taylorlorenz There is also the problem of retaining people. @davidallengreen, a UK lawyer with solid takes on pretty much everything, just went on an extended fedi break because the purity police didn’t like him using substack and he got bored of the hassling. Lovely own goal reply guys, the only behaviour you changed was his posting on the fedi. This is a people issue not a tech issue, which I’m not quite sure how to get around. He’s not the only one either.

@taylorlorenz Just a couple of politicians, influencers and journalists using Mastodon as their primary medium would do wonders. Dutch news routinely refers to posts on X/Twitter.

@taylorlorenz
Getting them to stay is the harder part. How many abandoned accounts are there that post a couple of times. Dont get followers, dont connect and never come back.

Welcoming people.
Answer their questions
Give them tips
Help them connect to other with similar interests.
Explain how it works
Suggest content or people

@taylorlorenz I think ultimately it boils down to the crux of human nature; being in groups. On Facebook, Instagram, TikTok etc., you'll find that's where most of your family and friends are and so naturally it's very hard to migrate to a newer, "unknown" platform. Do we remember how hard it was to get a parent, or grandparent, on Facebook? History repeats itself like that, except this time, we're the boomers!

@taylorlorenz 👍👍👍

@taylorlorenz this is very chicken/egg, but I think it needs a more heterogenous user base. if you’re into programming or leftish politics, there are many users to engage with. if you’re looking for discourse around a major sport like football/soccer, there’s almost nothing here.

@taylorlorenz Explain that the Fediverse cannot be bought by some tech bro millionaire. It is ours.

@taylorlorenz
in a brief explanation: It's a matter of breaking the habits by themselves...

@taylorlorenz the network effect, for sure :)
Big fan of your yt channel btw 🙌

@taylorlorenz We should market the Fediverse as fun, not only as virtuous. It’s like praising your fruit as „healthy“. True, but I buy where it says „sweet“ 🍇

I think the #Forkiverse got this right.

And, as always, do write alt-texts, do not harass new users who don’t.

@taylorlorenz honestly, the people that love (are addicted to?) Tiktok and Instagram *want* an algorithm feeding them, or at least want the option. Additionally, Mastodon simply doesn't have the same addiction-based behavioral design... When most of your time is spent reading text or viewing a static image, the endorfin hit is just much smaller and spread out. In that way neither does Twitter, but the last ingredient is siloed rage. Fewer people with more consistent views means less excitement.

@taylorlorenz transparency/trust on legal & effective free speech protection; commercial content instances (de)-federation; lack of visibility for famous accounts; lack of context for posts; lack of any algorithm.

And additionally the fact that commercial social media to everything to maximize engagement and time on the platform, while Mastodon tries to keep the protocol and the initial instance up, running, and minimally sane.

@taylorlorenz Maybe too confusing to know which one, since there are so many

@taylorlorenz I believe the problem is that there is not a lot of information about Mastodon. I just joined yesterday because I wanted to get away from TikTok and just happened to stumble upon this platform by searching for No Tracking Social Media.

@taylorlorenz .. it’s all about interactive communication.. people want a news feed page where they can share an opinion of feelings and thoughts and have it available to interact.. Facebook is very good doing so, that is why it is so popular.

@taylorlorenz if Mastodon had exploded at the same time as Twitter back in the late 2000s, I don’t think there would be an issue. As much as people complain though, I think they generally prefer algorithmic, simpler alternatives.

@taylorlorenz
I think the biggest barrier is that it is just a social network. It is missing commercialisation. You can just be here. So it doesn't work for the majority of influencers, that make money on advertising. It works for the ones that have an interest in a topic and earn their money otherwise. But Mastodon will never develop the drive as other platforms and I think that is good...

@taylorlorenz when I explain mastodon to people they are thrilled to join. I haven't ever enjoyed FB like this platform. Give it time. The word is out!

I encourage anyone to try LARPING as a potential mastodon user who has experience with other social media but not Mastodon. For example, let's say they're a new user that likes reading books and wants to find posts about books. Or sports. Or anything. Mastodon tells such a user at multiple checkpoints that it's closed to them or that it's a ghost town and no one here is discussing such things.

@taylorlorenz Perhaps nothing needs to be changed and Mastodon's strength lies precisely in its decentralised nature and the abundance of choice it offers. As the saying goes, good wine needs no bush.

@taylorlorenz I just joined and I have no idea what I’m doing. So, there’s that.

@taylorlorenz Very often, it's a matter of not knowing the platform and ignoring the benefits of a decentralized social network, without algorithms, advertising, or profiling, and above all, with a real chronological timeline. When people begin to understand this, they'll realize the benefits. It's just a matter of time.

@taylorlorenz

Use it & Spread the word ✅

@taylorlorenz
At this point? Fully automated migration. Let me explain: