@GossiTheDog Why can't computers be perfect?

@GossiTheDog that’s really why I like the place. It reminds me of internet of yesteryears

@GossiTheDog threads has joined the conversation.

@GossiTheDog It does use a couple of cookies, of course. How else do you think it remembers that you're logged in?

@GossiTheDog 🏆

@GossiTheDog On my phone X it takes 168 Mb, clearing cache frequently. Bluesky takes 135 Mb, same frequency of cache clearing. Moshidon only 14 Mb, does not accumulate excessive cache and absolutely no tracker.
I definitely prefer Mastodon, without malicious algorithms and with much less toxicity.

@GossiTheDog @sysop408 I don’t wish to be argumentative, but it’s not completely free to use. Someone is paying, even if you’re not.

@GossiTheDog with a web interface with zero cookies, 🧐

@GossiTheDog Yeah, it really feels like something different.

It's a shame that it isn't growing as fast as some alternatives, but the slow but sustainable growth alongside the evolution of the technology makes it feel much more like "technology as infrastructure" than the "technology as capital" we've had for the past decade.

Now if only we could diminish the number of reply guys with "actually it does have cookies or else the login wouldn't work...", we could really make it perfect.

@GossiTheDog we need #MastodonGold to improve the experience

@GossiTheDog

i also like the "human" touch.

not everything needs to be a worldwide, millions of customers success.

sometimes that wonderful bread you can only get at that one bakery or that band that plays regionally, etc.

by, of, and for the folks actively using something has real charm.

@GossiTheDog This is why I support my local instance and a friend's by giving them $$ monthly through ko-fi.

https://ko-fi.com/infosecexchange
https://ko-fi.com/sfba_fedi

@GossiTheDog For everyone reading this, not just the OP : Sure, Mastodon is nice as it gave Fediverse some well-deserved boost years ago, but in general and especially for geeks/nerds I would like to see credit and more attention for similar software like Akkoma, Sharkey and others as well. https://activitypub.software/TransFem-org/Sharkey

@GossiTheDog that's why we have to make all we can to keep it going.

@GossiTheDog And seeing how Bluesky is already being abused, I'm glad Mastodon isn't cool for many of the bots and porno babes who've just popped up on there.

@GossiTheDog Bluesky has a chief executive while Mastodon is a herd of cats. I'm more of a cat person.

@GossiTheDog Hear! Hear! ❤️

@GossiTheDog Preach. Almost as if things people build together are way cooler.

@GossiTheDog

it also points to a better possible world of sustainable media and digital services. even platform cooperatives to replace companies like Amazon. we just need to make paying people directly easier. a fiat payment open protocol perhaps.

@GossiTheDog yep! Many thanks to folks like @jerry

@GossiTheDog

Also no nagging about using an ad-blocker.

@GossiTheDog It's the freest place on the internet. Where you can scream at the top of your lungs and nobody will yell at you for it.
of course you'll probably be hoarse the next day, but there's always a price for rebellion.
Now I'll go crawl back into my hole.
Yes, Mastodon is way too cool. May it always be thus!

@GossiTheDog donate to your server administrator if you have the means. That's what a community does.

@GossiTheDog You’re so right. I just made a recurring donation to .world. Thanks for reminding me to do the right thing.

@GossiTheDog
Part of why we should all use and support, to the best of our abilities, #FOSS.

@GossiTheDog maybe I'm pedantic for this, but I specifically really enjoy that the fediverse is actually decentralized and a w3org standard. It's like email, or IRC; it isn't carried by a single company, even if Mastodon GmbH explodes overnight others will fill the gap. If this happens to literally anything else (e.g Bsky) it'll be completely and irreversibly gone.

@GossiTheDog
Agee and not just Mastodon. It's only a tiny part of fediverse. There are pixelfed, friendica, gotosocial, misskey, etc that are free to use without selling your data or employing algorithm.

Fediverse is better than those walled gardens.

@GossiTheDog

I keep explaining to IRL people why I'm on Fedi, and that there's no "Engagement Engineering" so ofc I put it down after a while, naturally.. THE WAY IT'S SUPPOSED TO BE..

Weaving my (own, personal) social network with "tools" is so much more healthy than being on a corporate attention treadmill with "products"!

Volunteer to help your local admins, and/or contribute. It's worked for public radio, it can work for public internet..

✌️

@GossiTheDog Completely agree.

@GossiTheDog

I've always been a fan of XMPP for everything you said.... Then I came across the Fediverse. Hell yeah, I had to build it 😍😍😍

@GossiTheDog It's also nice to post without getting a warning message that I may have violated their so-called "community standards."

@GossiTheDog it is amazing.

@GossiTheDog On that note, if you're able to but not financially supporting your favorite server and the people who are toiling to keep it healthy, shame! Fix that now!

@GossiTheDog 🙇

@GossiTheDog I think it's perfect. I heard about it only a few weeks ago, got myself my own server and in I am. The conversations and interactions I am getting are real and genuine. Just need to convince more friends and family to jump ship :)

@GossiTheDog

Surely it costs something to host an instance!

@GossiTheDog
What is the opposite of Enshittification, Alex, for 1000?

@GossiTheDog the #fediverse has such a strong product offering compared to the hellscape that is corporate owned #socialmedia - it’s not even close.

@GossiTheDog
for those reasons and more, is why mastodon is my only social network. I don't use it as frequently as I had other platforms in the past, but I use it how I want to use it, and it doesn't use me.

@GossiTheDog

Federal government agents probably post illegal porn on such websites so they can arrest the administrators for failure to take down such porn

That is why administrators should block illegal porn and why I am opposed to people posting illegal porn

But the porn laws are there not to protect society but to have an excuse to ban servers

The government probably wants to eliminate things like mastodon if they can not subvert them

Just owning a server for anything is dangerous

@GossiTheDog well articulated, that’s why I’m here

@GossiTheDog I'm glad the tech gods ignore Mastodon.

@GossiTheDog isn't that the equivalent of public sector vs private sector?
I don't hear many people complimenting the government and their services but they certainly compliment the private sector more.
Gov't has the bare minimal but private business have the fancy bells and whistles.🤔

@GossiTheDog Of course, human beings are not perfect, so human works certainly cannot be perfect.

@GossiTheDog And yet they still are flocking to Bluesky. Why I'll never know

@GossiTheDog@cyberplace.social I love the last phrase, especially in these dark times.

@GossiTheDog crazy that it’s free. People spend time and money hosting servers. So that’s valued at 0.00?

@GossiTheDog I agree with everything you've said and add that community makes progress

@GossiTheDog yes and please people stop telling me about bluesky "it's not just the new twitter"
yes, yes it is

@GossiTheDog@cyberplace.social
Lets not forget there is also the #fediverse

@GossiTheDog@cyberplace.social Ditto with all the other Fediverse services, of course. But Mastodon was my entryway, my gateway drug to the ActivityPub-powered Fediverse, as it will be for many people.

As for where I am now?

Hello from CherryPick (a fork of Misskey)!

@GossiTheDog

It reminds me of something I hear folks in the Vintage Toy collecting hobby worl , cosplayers, software writers, instrument repair community, etc etc etc say

"The fans are doing the best work"

Mastodon fits right in.

@GossiTheDog it is good but if it becomes like general it can be toxic gift too lol

@GossiTheDog I am/don't wish to be the harbinger of doom, when twitter started it was amazing too. I think the major difference isn't the impending scalability issue, it's the biggest thing holding it back, self hosting your own server/too much choice...

Most people want a town square not a choice of pubs..

I love mastodon, I've been using it for ages over multiple servers, lost so many posts migrating between instances..

@IngeMH20 that is why I donate every month a little to my mastodon server and annually some to the Mastodon software.

@GossiTheDog

@GossiTheDog

what is perfect anyway?

@GossiTheDog This observation is spot-on. Mastodon's ability to operate efficiently with minimal resources highlights the potential of community-driven platforms. It also sheds light on how bloated and mismanaged larger corporate social media platforms can be. Sometimes simplicity and purpose outweigh massive budgets.

@GossiTheDog
Very nice. My only issue is that the #Fediverse is not confined to #Mastodon although it is the most prominent implementation
@selea

@GossiTheDog most people complain about fediverse a social network that is build in most peoples free time and they compare it against commercial for profit services. This is a generally unfair comparison, especially because people can not really demand anything for a service they are not paying and someone is offering for free. We can discuss and point out ways of improvement but we can not really demand anything.

@GossiTheDog it just needs to deal with the creeps

@GossiTheDog
Well, that's because it's a _social_ network and not a data-collecting software. 😉
@quinta

@GossiTheDog

I hate people complaining about Mastodon all day. Like God damn, take the source and fix it. If you can't stfu.

@GossiTheDog It was never about perfection it was all about federation i love the platform 🫰🫰🫰 love Fediverse the concept of openness

@GossiTheDog I mean, hosting an instance does cost money.

You're right on most counts, but it's only add free here because admins are paying their own money to host, not just their time.

@GossiTheDog Preach it brother! Big thank you to Mastodon devs and other FOSS developers and big thank you to the people who host these servers!

@GossiTheDog

Check the sponsor list at

https://joinmastodon.org/#:~:text=Learn%20more-,Supported%20by,-Sponsorship%20does%20not

It is a big effort of many individual and corporate supporters.

@GossiTheDog
And what about all the other services of the Fediverse Network?

@GossiTheDog it’s a long game for me. I promised myself never to join any new billionaire social network, no matter how cool it initially seems, as I’ve had to leave a couple and the networks have been taken off me by the capitalists. My networks. My relationships. My friendships.

Eventually I am convinced most people will come around to this way of thinking.

@GossiTheDog The amusing bit is that this kind of open, community-based, non-corporate social network has always existed, but wasn't mainstream. I am thinking primarily of IRC networks. Hosting a server in one's desktop computer at home was a thing in the early 2000s.

@GossiTheDog 💯%. humans are a naturally social and cooperative species. Take the politics and economic system narratives out of the way and you get nice. Take the pressure of constant competition off people’s shoulders and they’re much more likely to give their time and energy to collaborative social projects.

@GossiTheDog absolutely spot on, wonderfully put, inspiring and upbeat. Thank you 🙏

@GossiTheDog I read people saying the Mastodon user experience was shitty. I think in their evaluation they ignore those facts and the state of the world we live in.

@GossiTheDog

SOCIALISM !!!!!

@GossiTheDog that doesn’t require login for viewing stuff!

@GossiTheDog
> Mastodon isn't perfect.
> But the fact a social network exists that is completely free to use
> is - in my opinion - mindbogglingly cool, given the state of the world
> we live in. Not everything has to be shit. People make things better.

First social network was mailing lists. Everything after that was just better graphics.

@GossiTheDog this 🖤

@GossiTheDog Feels freeing isn’t it?

"free to use" - just like all other social media platforms, too - at last from a casual user perspective. But what is the difference? Influencer don't get paid here in the Fediverse (except of maybe some very rare ones for passive product placement). As a result, the "mainstream" influencers are missing - including their follower base. If this is a pro or con probably depends on the point of view.

@GossiTheDog

@GossiTheDog I say something strange now. If twitter ever open up a Mastodon Gateway, it can join freely. Because Mastodon is visible thru the web, there is no space for cheating and silencing.

@GossiTheDog Ja, und die Leute sind in großer Mehrheit freundlich und hören zu, und auch leidenschaftlicher Diskurs wird in der Regel mit Respekt geführt.

@GossiTheDog this is the real revolution in social media, and my goal is to get my family onto here and off corporate social media. Starting my long nudge campaign this Christmas.

@GossiTheDog basically the Internet before Google and what it represents - good and bad.

@GossiTheDog
And it has Moderators.

@GossiTheDog EXACTLY THAT!

@GossiTheDog It's only free to a person if they rely on others to contribute some money towards running it :)

@GossiTheDog I still have the feeling that a very pleasant environment where hosts depend on voluntary gifts to survive and have to spend all of their own time for, is not a sustainable way forward for an information platform that wants to play a significant role in the world. And if the reply to that is "that's not what mastodon wants to be", I guess most professionals will return to big tech, which would be a missed opportunity and very sad. Maybe time will prove I'm wrong in that indeed.

@GossiTheDog Please support your instance and make a small regular donation. I personally donate EUR 52 annually, that is EUR 1 for every week of the year. That sounds very fair to me and I encourage others to do likewise.

@GossiTheDog May I please screenshot this to post on fb? I can leave your handle out if you prefer. Thanks!

@GossiTheDog@cyberplace.social and Mastodon isn't all there is to the Fediverse! this was posted from Sharkey, and some of my friends are on Pleroma, Akkoma, Iceshrimp, and Misskey! the choice of what you use to interact with the Fediverse is the best part in my opinion, aside from the users.

@GossiTheDog @chris the most incredible thing about Mastodon’s 10,000 moderators on its shoestring budget is this news tidbit regarding the VC funded Bluesky from a few days ago:

"Bluesky plans to increase its number of contracted moderators from 25 to 100." 🤡

https://www.prweek.com/article/1898517/bluesky-quadruples-number-content-moderators-wake-brand-safety-issues

@GossiTheDog It truly is amazing isn’t it? :)

@GossiTheDog thats exactly the reason i rather spend my time and energy here than somewhere elso on social media 🖤

@GossiTheDog and it's a success story!

@GossiTheDog the only thing missing is impartial or neutral moderators.

@GossiTheDog esatto

@GossiTheDog Yes, and thank you for articulating this.

'with ten thousand server administrators who donate their time for user safety'. I'm regularly grateful for the fact that complete strangers, individual private people, all around the world, voluntarily run, maintain and moderate instances and servers on behalf of other individual private people. Both figuratively and literally, we can't put a price on the human-sized not-for-profit social media space they have created.

@GossiTheDog
Absolutely! Let's all appreciate some privacy and freedom on this platform.