It’s a bit of a joke post because a lot of the coverage around Mastodon gets really into the weeds with Federation, ActivityPub, etc. and journalists often describe it as “too techie” for “normal” users.
Well, “normal” users don’t care about the technical backend of Twitter or Facebook so it always felt a bit disingenuous to me it was presented this way. Hopefully my post can dispell some of the confusion!
People don’t care about the tech stack of Big Social, but they’re not talking just about ActivityPub. When they go to Facebook and Twitter they do not have to select an instance. They create an account and boom. It would be disingenuous to compare and state that Mastodon offers the exact same. That’s more what people means that it’s too techie.
It’s not just frictionless. Plus, due to the maturity and the fact that the communities people care about are already on those platforms the ends justify the means for users.
It’s a bit of a joke post because a lot of the coverage around Mastodon gets really into the weeds with Federation, ActivityPub, etc. and journalists often describe it as “too techie” for “normal” users.
Well, “normal” users don’t care about the technical backend of Twitter or Facebook so it always felt a bit disingenuous to me it was presented this way. Hopefully my post can dispell some of the confusion!
People don’t care about the tech stack of Big Social, but they’re not talking just about ActivityPub. When they go to Facebook and Twitter they do not have to select an instance. They create an account and boom. It would be disingenuous to compare and state that Mastodon offers the exact same. That’s more what people means that it’s too techie.
It’s not just frictionless. Plus, due to the maturity and the fact that the communities people care about are already on those platforms the ends justify the means for users.