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Every 12-24 months there’s a five mile long line for the soapbox so all the computer nerds can get up and tell us that they’re putting a line in the sand and that federation is the only answer. Now, just as always, the world will continue spinning without them and this sort of idealism that seems completely blind to reality that for all the Smart People that have put their mind to federated / decentralised social networks, none of them are any good. Now, as always, all that make this claim will inevitably succumb to the reality that their vanity is worth more than their ideals, and will make their way back to Twitter.

Don’t get me wrong. I hate and despise both Twitter and Musk. But to act like Mastadon or any of the other attempts at this stuff appeal to people that aren’t tech / privacy wonks is tone deaf. And as much as Twitter is a ‘platform for elites to disseminate their thoughts that’s pretending to be a social network’, “publishing books” is certainly amother step in that direction.




Don’t forget, it’s not a choice between Twitter and a federated alternative. You can happily use neither.


Search doesn't really work on Mastodon and it's full of boring content. It only works if you can get all your friends to use the same server. That's impossible these days. Nobody is going to install and figure out an another app just to be on your personal mastodon instance.


> It only works if you can get all your friends to use the same server.

I'm the only user on my server and I have a bunch of (not on my server) friends on my timeline. I'm not sure what you're suggesting isn't happening?


> I hate and despise both Twitter and Musk.

how could one get to a level of “hate and despise both Twitter and Musk”?


That seems like the default position for both those things? How could you not unless you’re an alt-right shitposter?


Years of trouble and misbehavior coming from both of those would seem to explain it, no?




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