Liam @ GamingOnLinux 🐧🎮
People on Twitter are using the shutting down of the mastodon.lol instance, to mean that Mastodon “is not a viable model”. Hard disagree. A strength of Mastodon is that if one instance is shutting, you can easily move to another. It’s quite literally a strength of decentralised systems in action. 79 comments
Liam @ GamingOnLinux 🐧🎮
Oh your email provider “totallysecuremeails124” is closing. Clearly email is not a viable model. Oh wait.
Grath
@gamingonlinux So in a decade, there'll be a Google mastodon instance that's got a dominant userbase and defederates most other instances, effectively centralizing the service? 😜 
Rassilonian Legate
@Grath 
Lunar 🛸 ♾
@Grath @gamingonlinux To be honest, this is my major concern. All it takes is one big provider to say, for example, "the new social network from Google" and that's it. One can only hope that having all other instances defederated from it will strangle it enough that it doesn't get off the ground... 
Simon Brooke
@lunarloony @Grath @gamingonlinux all that's really required is for the EU to legislate that all social media apps must use #ActivityPub as a common data interchange standard, and large instances must federate. I think it's plausible that the EU could actually do that. 
Cassidy James :eos: :gg: :fh:
@Grath @gamingonlinux “most other instances” is a stretch if you are referring to Gmail. You can go sign up with practically any email provider or host your own and interact just fine with Gmail. Email loses value when you can’t interact with others—the same is true of social media.
Grath
@cassidy @gamingonlinux My understanding is that there are non-negligible problems with gmail deciding that self-hosted/smaller-provider email services are spam, cutting them off from interacting with a large portion of email users. (But the 😜 is also meant to indicate that I'm exaggerating slightly for comedic effect.) 
Chris (Master of Potate) 🥔
@cassidy @Grath @gamingonlinux Hosting your own email service is a pain in the butt. At the same time that setting up the software got way easier, it got so much harder to get your email delivered to every mailbox. There is a number of services that have whitelist only services. And even if they are not whitelist only, you have to build reputation and pray that the IP of your server was never used for spam. Be prepared that your emails will just land in the spam folder. Email hosting is pain.
Simon Brooke
@Grath @gamingonlinux that's pretty much what happened to #Usenet. Google Groups is all that remains. 
Julio J. 🀲
@simon_brooke @Grath @gamingonlinux And Jabber, although it's still in use when Google defederated its Chat was a big hit  
The Man Who Sold The World
@gamingonlinux The joke is that people, regardless of identity, wanted to talk about the Harry Potter Game, thus the irony is that as other servers tried to pull users in the wake of .lol closing, they failed to realize they may be attracting the say people that wanted to talk about the Harry Potter game, going full circle where a server then has to deal with a melt down. It's dumb, and I think everyone's over me beating a dead horse, myself included. https://newsie.social/@Manwhosolditall/109838086759225590
Lilyth :v_trans: :v_lesbian:
@gamingonlinux It can be flipped on them really. Anyone on birb app is turbo f*cked really as their data and all the work they put into building themselves there will soon be gone thanks to Elmo. Also if they don't like the Extinct Pachyderm app they are free to open their own microblogging apps. :P
Shannon
@gamingonlinux Vine and Periscope are great examples. Both killed by the same company ironically 
Mackaj
In this specific case though it was a confluence of factors: a large instance not having a strong admin+mod team (it was a one man operation) being vulnerable to pressure and coercion from a group of very motivated individuals. It's a heads up to other instance admin/mod teams that they need to structure themselves so they don't suffer the same fate. Mastodon as a whole may emerge stronger as a result of this. 
Victoria De Capua
@gamingonlinux there’s an issue with being able to just dump your community and fail to protect them, though. It also discourages growth which discourages diversity. Every time this happens the core group gets fragmented because the community identity does matter. There needs to be a mandate for large instances not to rely on a single ego, and to have protection in place. It’s why people go to mastodon.social first, because it feels stable and it has community moderation as part of its identity 
Matthew Miller
Except — 1. you can't move if the first server shuts down unexpectedly 2. It doesn't move your past posts, just your follow list and followers
Liam @ GamingOnLinux 🐧🎮
1) true but misses the wider point about one instance not being the entire service
uzayran
@gamingonlinux Those are probably the same people who complained that Mastodon is insecure because it is moderated by random people and the admins can read your DMs. As if that isn't the case for Twitter also.
Lightfighter
@gamingonlinux with the number of products Google has shut down over the years, I guess they aren't viable either...smdh
Travis Newton 👨💻
@Lightfighter @gamingonlinux The main reason why I try not to use any Google product. I’m honestly surprised they haven’t shut down Gmail already.
☄️~Stardust Diving~🌌
@gamingonlinux twitter undergoes mastodon.lol moments on the regular and it doesn't have the decency to shut down; this place is plenty viable.
Esteban
@gamingonlinux When an instance goes down, you can migrate to another one, or even another platform. When BirdApp goes down, pandemonium is ensured. 
Dr. Guillermo Power :verified:
@gamingonlinux and wait till Elon shuts down Twitter. 🤷♂️ that will show a few people that centralised services are perhaps problematic.
Belghast
@gamingonlinux I also view it as a strength that so many instances threw out the welcome sign making sure folks who were going to lose a home knowing that they had one elsewhere. 
Nick @ The Linux Experiment
@gamingonlinux Id anything, it should show its reliability: shutting down one instance doesn’t take the whole social network down! 
raphael
@gamingonlinux yup. the one thing mastodon can produce are instances so big that they become almost impossible to defederate from without severely affecting the network overall. however, in a centralised network, there is, by design, only the too-big-to-fail instance, and nothing else. classic case of seeing an unfortunate effect of a better model and using to declare the better model unviable, when the worse model is one entire adverse effect in comparison.
Angelic_Mew :ablobcatreach:
@gamingonlinux They are looking for anything to be an excuse. Mastodon instances have shutdown in the past but the service is still running... ...birdsite tried to add a feature and basically no one could use it for hours. Same mentality as Win users who still see Linux as a hacker/command line only OS. They won't change.
Danetteb
@gamingonlinux where do they go when Twitter shuts down lol. I just migrated over- pretty seamlessly too. But whatevs
Hot Cross Bunny❤️🐇
I think it would be really cool if people wouldn't be weird about other instances and arbitrarily say one or another is bad. Kids, that's what wrong with LIFE, don't bring that noise up in here.
Noxy 🐾
@gamingonlinux as if any of the decisions made at twitter in the last three months indicate anything viable or sustainable about that platform. as tired as I am of gushing about the virtues of open source, this really is a thing where the virtues of open source are at their best 
Chris Trottier
@gamingonlinux Google+ shut down. Nobody could migrate. And yet walled garden social media models persist.
Scott, present & accounted for
Princess Unikitty
@gamingonlinux LMAO as if their *ONLY* instance isn't having major problems constantly these days. 
Ferles
@gamingonlinux I actually have three Mastodon accounts with a fourth on the way. I had 4 on Twitter too, but they were all subject to whims of Twitter. I prefer this where I have four different instances. @noxypaws
JeanJaures
@gamingonlinux People on Twitter are Musk’s mouthpieces and ass kissers. Who cares what they say on fascist social media. The cult of personality there is strong. All hail apartheid boy!
꧁𝕮𝖊𝖆꧂:blobcatdj:
It depends. mastodon.ai has become inaccessible since 3 days ago... Decentralized *is* awesome. 
🏳️🌈Superdave! 😘🍷👨🦯
@gamingonlinux @ReticentTurnip I addressed this strength, yesterday, at my users' group meeting!
Niall O’Sullivan
@gamingonlinux it always seems to be Twitter users with a bit of clout who eagerly look for signs of Mastodon failing. They’re on the right side of the algorithm and don’t want their followers to go elsewhere. I almost feel sorry for them to be honest, because there’s no halting the slow death of that website. 
GJ Groothedde 🇪🇺
@gamingonlinux Let people on Twitter babble and sneer all they want. They are just that: people on Twitter. Latter-day Luddites, whose laughter sounds as hollow as their skulls are  
Simon W 🙄 🆙 ⚛️
@gamingonlinux there's the inconvenient truth that when you move instances you end up with your old posts still sitting on the old instance. And if that actually shuts down then you have lost all that history. Yes you can usually export old posts but you can reimport them. Someone correct me if I'm wrong on that.
Asahi 95 ✅ :tux: :fedora:
@gamingonlinux
Brett Kosinski
@gamingonlinux Eh, the problem is these aren't arguments in good faith. As Morpheus said of The Matrix, "many of them are so inured, so hopelessly dependent on the system, that they will fight to protect it." And that means grasping at any perceived flaw or failure in competing systems, even if those criticisms are baseless or irrational, because the point isn't to engage in meaningful discussion or critique, it's simply to maintain the status quo.  
Nihl L'Amas
@gamingonlinux @brooklynmarie Meanwhile, over at the Viable Model™ website...
Morgana
@gamingonlinux Exactly the point….. Yay all Fediverse and the patient hardworking instance admin. people!!!! 
Nicole Parsons
Migrating away from Twitter took me weeks. I was never fully successful in my migration away from other social media platforms. I just reduced my use substantially. Migrating to a new Mastodon instance takes minutes. My social media platform is finally portable and under my control. What a concept!
The Notorious Basement
@gamingonlinux Wait, Mastodon is shutting down? It's news to me; I haven't been on in a long time. 
Peggy Heinkel-Wolfe
@gamingonlinux I migrated from mastodon.lol to a community server in a few minutes. There are specific steps to follow, but they aren’t hard. But more importantly, now that I’m outside the walled garden l will never go back
sentient writing
@gamingonlinux I agree with this point for the most part, but it still kind of sucks that you can't take your posting history with you (and this ends up disappearing from public access if the original server shuts down for whatever reason)... Being able to take follows and followers with you to another instance is very very cool though
Woolfhound
@gamingonlinux exactly! I also don’t get the “it’s too complicated” thing. the signup process is simpler that figuring out the UI of most microwaves.
Tazor
It's okay, their tone will change when Twitter shuts down and there is no new Twitter instance.. 
CaptainSmartass
@gamingonlinux it's like saying email is pointless and we should all use AOL Messenger again because someone's mail server went offline. No, it proves the point: don't depend on just one company (or server) for a critical service.
Dudley of Yesterzine :sms:
@gamingonlinux @chipzel I get it, I had an email provider shut down in 1997. I haven’t checked but I assume no one ever used email again. 
Scimmia di Mare :unverified:
@gamingonlinux there is an hard campaign against Mastodon on different media; I think Elon started to act aggressive as usual but less confused
mivox :ri:
@gamingonlinux Formerly of .lol here, and even as a very newbie the account moving process was pretty easy. I'd still be on Twitter if there were another interoperable Twitter to migrate to after the tantrumming technocrat took over, buuuuut…
Sandra ΘΔ
@gamingonlinux Yeah, I was over there and could see the writing on the wall since last year but stayed until the 3 month notice. I'm on a friend's instance now. I don't imagine that their instance will last forever either but I can move to any instance I want.
Pi Fisher
@gamingonlinux q for people who know more than I do: Is it possible for me to migrate my account after a server shuts down? My guess is no. I also assume that, even if I migrate before it shuts down, people who are offline between when I migrate and when the server shuts down will no longer follow me. Is that accurate? 
Andrea Grandi 🦕
@gamingonlinux as most of the cases, truth is in the middle: while it's certainly easy to create a new account and carry over all your follows and followers, it's "nearly" impossible to migrate all you past posts. Content you may have spent time curating is lost forever. Mastodon is much better than a centralised system for a lot of things, but it's definitely not easy (nor painless) to migrate to a new instance, especially if the old one is completely shutting down.
Henry Cole
@gamingonlinux @Jdreben i’ve kind of thought this every time i’ve seen people whinge about something to do with the fediverse. If it’s content related, block that server, move server, start your own. If it’s software related, use another ActivityPub app or fork Mastodon. There’s not a great deal of things you can dislike that aren’t directly in your control..
Old Archillies
@gamingonlinux
Fiona Bianchi
@gamingonlinux I’ve been trying to persuade work to setup their own mastodon instance because this avoids some of the risk about losing your instance. There are a few orgs that already have their own instances (The Green Party, Thoughtworks are the ones I know of so far). I think a Mastodon is a far better model than Twitter |
Gregory's Server
It is also however a weakness in action, as any can shut down. However, that same thing is true of basically any service online ever - happens to online games plenty, they shut and people are locked out (which is why I always argue for being able to host your own servers…).