Summary

The author discusses their experience with social media platforms, from Friendster to Mastodon, expressing skepticism about the latest shift to Mastodon despite its decentralized nature.

Abstract

The article reflects on the author's journey through various social media platforms over the years, starting with Friendster and moving through MySpace, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, and Twitter. The author notes the pattern of users migrating from one platform to another in search of better features or in response to changes in ownership or policy. The latest migration trend is to Mastodon, driven by dissatisfaction with Twitter's new paid verification model and the controversial actions of its new owner, Elon Musk. While Mastodon offers the promise of a decentralized platform free from the whims of a single owner, the author points out the challenges of its complexity and the current lack of a significant user base. The author, who received a free Mastodon account through Medium, questions the true decentralization of the platform when Medium controls their access and wonders about the practicality of the platform when few contacts are present on it.

Opinions

The author is skeptical about the value of paying for Twitter's new verification model, considering it nonsensical to pay for a mere vanity feature.
There is a perceived lack of ease in using Mastodon compared to other social media platforms, which could be a barrier to its widespread adoption.
The author implies that the decentralized aspect of Mastodon, while theoretically appealing, may not be as advantageous in practice due to the involvement of intermediaries like Medium.
The author feels disconnected on Mastodon due to the small number of contacts and the broader user base's reluctance to migrate from Twitter.
Despite the drawbacks, the author has set up a Mastodon account, indicating a willingness to explore the platform further, albeit with reservations about its accessibility and user engagement.

ANOTHER TRUE STORY

I’m on Mastodon

Are you? And/or should we care?

Looks pretty familiar, no? Photo by author.

In two thousand-and-whatever, I was on Friendster. I was happy. It was fine. Good enough.

But one day, everybody just left. They were gone — to MySpace!

“It’s better; you can have a Top 8 friends list!” and “There’s music!”

You know what happened next. Facebook. Remember that three-month period when we didn’t hate Facebook? It existed, I swear.

Then we took a break from the social media musical chairs game. We had Facebook to keep in touch with Grandma while she fomented insurrection, Instagram to share pictures with our friends, TikTok and YouTube for videos, and Twitter for news.

I am playing fast and loose with the timeline, but it doesn’t matter because the detente has been broken.

And finally, we get to Mastodon.

Look, Twitter sucks; I get it. Paying $11 a month for anything that used to be free is nuts, especially when the only thing you get for your money is a vanity jpeg, 8 pixels square, right next to your name.

The new owner has been “problematic,” and pundits predicted an exodus from the site, which to my eyes, has yet to materialize.

I’m still there. I don’t feel great about it, but what are you going to do?

About a week ago, I logged into Medium and saw a message that I could get a free Mastodon account. I still don’t fully understand this platform, and you probably don’t, either.

As a knee-jerk reaction to Elon Musk’s ownership of Twitter, I downloaded the Mastodon app and then… did nothing.

It’s confusing. It takes a level of competency I could maybe achieve but lack the motivation for.

But now, Medium seems to have done the hard work of getting you up and running on a decentralized server for you.

That’s what drew many people to Mastodon, in theory.

“It’s decentralized, which means no evil technocrats can just buy the whole thing and ruin it!”

But Decentralized also means “hard.” Or, at least, “not as easy as most people want.”

So now I am on Mastodon, thanks to Medium. They have made it easy, but that goes both ways.

They hold the keys to my access, and that’s not really that decentralized, is it?

Plus, nobody’s on there!

Be my friend on Mastodon: https://me.dm/@ericfilipkowski