But then nothing else really changes outside of that. He still owns the trademarks. The official apps still get people signing up on m.s preferentially. m.s becomes another corporate silo.

Sure, the rest of us would be rid of mastodon.social, but if that instance is really that big then all we've done is turn them into another birbsite, and then there's the rest of us.

Defederation isn't as big a threat as it sounds, because if m.s is that big, it's self sustaining. It doesn't actually need the rest of the Fediverse.

Respectfully, I am not sure this would have the effect you desire.

If the few try to silence the many, this often fails and they are in turn silenced. Witness the myriad open source projects that decide to fork and then simply die from lack of contributors.

Defederating a server just because it's popular is saying "I don't want to receive emails from Google or Microsoft", which is just crazy sounding.

For providing tips on how to use Mastodon and the Fediverse, you're actively leveraging your platform to spread opinions and propaganda, removing your status of being purely an informational service to the community.

I see a lot of people complaining that Mastodon adoption is limited by its complexity. It's a valid criticism in itself, but I feel that too many people fail to understand that the complexities are a deliberate design choice, because simplicity is a facade for empire and domination.

Computers and communication are inherently complex, and apparent simplicity means you're being deceived and manipulated.

thank you for this vital information.🧡

I'm happy I moved my backup account from mastodon.social to a smaller independent server a few days ago.

I really don't feel like bird situations over here.🙏

Sheesh. People weren't kidding when they said Mastodon is a hostile place for newcomers!

"Come to Mastodon where we'll ban you for... coming to Mastodon."™

Some notes on this position:

1. Probably a lot more of mastodon.social accounts are junk than you realize, come visit our local timeline, lol.
2. The app leans into a default server because it's the top reason people just... don't join the fediverse at all. Server choice is hard, and we should onboard people and *then* convince them to move.
3. Medium, Flipboard, Facebook's P92, etc. will absolutely dwarf anything Eugen controls as they grow into the fediverse.

Mastodon ≠ Fediverse. Why are you so concerned? Money buys eyeballs for advertising but it doesn’t work on the Fediverse, or Mastodon as it’s not a walled garden.

You provide a valuable service yourself, don’t dilute that.

Step 1. Block all emails coming from gmail.com.

Step 2. There is no step 2 because you wont do it.

Apparently, the admin regarding rule-breaking and such is not keeping up with the influx of users as is.

I agree that the trend is not good. Too much in one place and too tempting.

If I ran a server with the name mastodon in it now, I would be looking for another URL.

I think this is a very important point.

It makes a lot of sense to start talking about what is required of platforms to be considered good fediverse citizens.

AFAIK, both Pixelfed and Lemmy actively encourage people to diversify into multiple servers.

Without a good set of ideas around what’s required, and why, it’s pretty meaningless to just get upset and predict nightmare scenarios. You need thought out principles and consequences.

☝️This is a good start.

This is probably the only strategy that would work, but at 50% you're way too late. At that point, network effects plus the huge control over the ecosystem as you describe lets them just say "pff, go ahead, don't need you".

I think 20% would be a much better target - and I realize it's getting close now.

Maybe I should write a bot that just posts instructions on how to move your account to an independent instance, and point it at hashtags related to mastodon.social...

+9001%

just like with #Cryptocurrencies the #Fediverse should guard itself agaist "#51PercentAttack|s"...

I really don't like the decision to make mastodon.social the only default server (suggesting one at random from a larger pool would be better), but I don't think I like that response either.

It's my position that general-purpose public servers should only defederate for being a source of content incompatible with that server's policies. A federated communication network where much of the network is inaccessible to many of the people using it loses its primary utility.

I just lost my 20k+ tweets on the #BorgSite. I'd hate to lose a similar number of #toots again.

In order to prevent your, alas not unlikely, scenario, migrating #toots/#posts would be my utmost priority regarding development.

Regarding the limited features on #Mastodon, I'd give #Akkoma a shot. This would possibly give the #Fediverse an additional boost, as the limited features on rival platforms are always an issue.

I hope that developers take notice of this scenario.

"The...

I think 50% is way too late. At that point if everyone else defederates, then going where there's the most community means going to mastodon.social rather than to the fediverse at large. If we're going to defederate to prevent over-centralisation, it should be at 1/4 or 1/3 of the fediverse, not 1/2.

"Fog in channel; Europe isolated"

Why not, instead of defederation, introduce a rate limit? .. let's say, just x% of all msgs exchanged may be exchanged with a single instance. This will have to grow organically and may make users move to other instances if a central one suddenly feels unwell ...

@scy

p.s. Today I've had several people telling me that VCs would never make an offer for Mastodon gGmbH. But according to Eugen, "more than five" offers have already been made.

Here's what Eugen said in an interview with the Financial Times in December 2022:

"Rochko told the FT he had received offers from more than five US-based (venture capital) investors to invest 'hundreds of thousands of dollars' in backing the product, following its fast growth."

ft.com/content/de808736-2e05-4… (paywalled)

One risk which concerns me is a "catch and kill" from Facebook, Twitter, or Trump's "Truth Social."

Mastodon.social being sold is one thing. Not good, but survivable.

Mastodon gGmbH or its assets such as the code being bought means serious problems.

Calling having independent federated servers an "ideology" rather than an essential feature, talking VC talk about "onboarding process" and so on, I think the ship has already sailed.

Leaving mastodon.social is the best early response

@feditips