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Op-ed: Why the great #TwitterMigration didn’t quite pan out

https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2023/06/op-ed-why-the-great-twittermigration-didnt-quite-pan-out

The flight from Musk's Twitter to the "free" fediverse never really took off.

I've been using fediverse stuff (Mastodon and, most recently, Calckey—I'm just going to use "Mastodon" as shorthand here; purists can bite me) for over a year now and have been doing so full time for about six months, following Elon Musk buying Twitter (since on principle, I decline to give Elon Musk money or attention). This latter part coincided with the "November 2022 influx," when lots of new people joined Mastodon for similar reasons. A lot of that influx has not stuck around. Everyone is very aware at this point that active user numbers of Mastodon have dropped off a cliff...

12 comments

misterbassman

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I think the issue the Twitter migration had was is very dependent on people with large followings moving, but they are obviously some of the least likely to move for the same reason.

It's far easier for reddit > fediverse because you just need people willing to post links and have discussions.

KTVX94

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That's a very interesting and useful read, albeit also really long, but worth it. I think that the mindset of people coming from Reddit (myself included) is different than the people from Twitter. Reddit itself is a weird paradoxical "huge niche" of people who tend to be less conforming and slightly more educated on tech. However, it is true that the Fedi community should make some compromises to really be welcoming and support newcomers, and the tecnical side should change to make it more viable in the aspects that this post outlined. Perhaps some under the hood optimizations and centralization compromises where smaller instances can depend on bigger ones like a tree instead of connecting to every single other instance.

My point is, the Fediverse will probably never be mainstream, but has a shot at being "big enough". However this shot depends significantly on the people running it and the community at large making compromises at least as big as the ones newcomers make wheb joining to find a middle ground, which may not happen.

miked

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Yes, the percentage of Twitter users that moved to Mastodon was small BUT the numbers of users was a huge increases over previous users, Yes, many instances came up and went down BUT they had small user counts. Finally, many people tried out Mastodon but didn't stick around BUT the Average Mastodon Active Users by Month (first line chart) increases in the last period.

I'm sticking with Mastodon (and Lemmy). Besides, I know John Mastodon.

Smokeless7048

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its a good read.

I'm not sure how much is directly applicable to Reddit>feddiverse, since i found the transition quite easy, and the only problem is communities not yet active enough.

fer0n

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Some communities migrated, but definitely not everyone. I wonder what kind of impact instagram‘s rumored mastodon compatible Twitter alternative will have.

Emperor

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As it exists at the moment, Mastodon functions essentially as Twitter did in around 2008. In some ways, that's nice. The userbase is calmer, and the DiscourseTM does not get spun up as easily.

But the thing is, functionality-wise, Twitter in 2008 existed in 2008. We are now in 2023, when someone can use the Twitter of 2023. From a functionality standpoint, Twitter in 2023 is quite good, with some of the alternative Twitter-style frontends (e.g., Misskey and Calckey) being at about parity.

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There are less computationally intensive server packages—Pleroma, Calckey and Misskey—but Mastodon is now, for better or for worse, the standard. It's what people expect, and its feature set and API are the key driving forces behind the feature sets and APIs of the others.)

My takeaway from that is that, even compared to other Fediverse microblogging services, Mastodon is worse in both the front and back end.

Like a lot of people, I joined Mastodon in November 2022 then didn't do much with it. Thanks to Lemmy, I am much more enthusiastic about the Fediverse and want to add a microblogging platform into the mix but I am wondering if I should try Calckey before I commit to one.

ZIRO

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I genuinely would like to know: what is the appeal of microblogging, such as Twitter and Mastodon? How does one get the most out of it?

Heastes

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I think generally speaking, you can make the distinction between something like lemmy/reddit and something like mastodon/twitter as putting interest/community first or putting the individual first.

Lemmy/Reddit is great if you want to follow a specific topic and don't necessarily care about what the individual users think. I don't know about you, but I barely ever read or acknowledge someone's username on those platforms.

Mastodon/Twitter is great if you want to follow specific people for their opinions. Like seeing what certain politicians or analysts have to say about developments in Ukraine. Things that might be interesting but not quite newsworthy, or putting news into a different context.
For any given interest you have, there are probably some voices who you care about hearing from more than others, be it just because you know them personally or because they are experts in their respective fields. Microblogging platforms are built to support that individual-first approach.