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Meg

@torb I think this is really complicated and there aren't just two categories of people in the world. I follow quite a few people I wouldn't classify as more tech savvy than average and I wouldn't actually find this place very interesting if I didn't.

Honestly the most aggressive "it's too hard" people I've ever seen are also way above average techies. And then they go and set up some DNS records to get a name on bsky and talk about how it's the best thing since sliced bread because AOC is there.

Most other people bounce for more mundane reasons IME. Usually simple (but hard to solve) network effect and/or abuse stuff.

Techies can be the most ridiculously cynical people about what "normal people" can do imo. People will jump through a lot of hoops to go where the people are, and that remains the real problem for every nascent social network, including the fediverse.

4 comments
Torb 🦋

@megmac It’s a combination of things for sure. The network effect stuff just makes it even more important that it’s relatively easy to get into.

As for implying it’s cynical to recognize that it’s difficult, I couldn’t disagree more. Frankly I found it a bit difficult myself at times.

But mostly my impression is based on people telling me it’s difficult. I think it’s reasonable to believe them!

I will say things have certainly improved tho! I feel like I can tell people to sign up to Mastodon and peope have a pretty good chance of signing up.

@megmac It’s a combination of things for sure. The network effect stuff just makes it even more important that it’s relatively easy to get into.

As for implying it’s cynical to recognize that it’s difficult, I couldn’t disagree more. Frankly I found it a bit difficult myself at times.

But mostly my impression is based on people telling me it’s difficult. I think it’s reasonable to believe them!

Discographette's Rerun Era

@torb @megmac the issue is in part stuff like *this*- simply me trying to reply to this means loading up my *actual* residence instance just to reply.

the dns record thing- i agree with, but that's not why people prefer bsky. they prefer bsky because it feels like a "best hits" of twitter UX, vs Mastodon's incredibly functional suite (if you have the time to learn all the offputting quirks that introduce tremendous friction for no reason and have no obvious solution)

Discographette's Rerun Era

@torb @megmac I use both! I think mastodon is cool! I also think its full of people I don't really *click with* no matter the instance. whereas on bsky ive found my perfect mix of intelligent shitposters & tired techies *immediately*, like, within HOURS of starting. a feat I haven't pulled off on Mastodon despite putting in *hundreds of hours*

I tried! really did! but I barely touch this place except to read/write a response to a post like this. It's just *so clunky* for me, not sure abt a fix

Discographette's Rerun Era

@torb @megmac I say this as someone who loves some of the worst, least user friendly software on the planet (old blender, weird text editors like obsidian, etc)

just to be clear tho, I agree with masto's mission + the OP really strongly

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