Is #Mastodon really viable for the small to medium-sized operator?
We assert, "NO!"
We did something simple. With a Mastodon tab open we hit Ctrl+Shift+E to get the Network Tab. With an inactive thread open in Mastodon, we went to another website to read an article.
An hour passes and what we discovered shocked us. Mastodon somehow justified sending us 55MB of data. The #NetworkTab said 55MB over 1500 requests (53MB transferred).
It's also socially irresponsible as smaller operators struggle to cope with M'don's demands. Our instance for example is being forced to shutdown due to being unable to handle the $40/month cost.
It means more #centralisation. We're back at square one, because most users tolerated M'don bringing anti-features to #Fediverse.
In 29 minutes, while typing the above, 62MB sent over 1200 requests (61 MB transferred).
Mastodon is a problem.
In an announcement our admin team did say that with a donation they may be able to shift to a different type of server, and we think that that is probably the most sensible thing to do. Ideally a type of server that respects the planet. Here's hoping that some funds appear.
@dsfgs resource use is an issue with the mastodon codebase, it's not a #block on using but is an issue to think about using a different #activertypub codebase
With Mastodon going down the #ngo path and wedded to feudalism as "governance" common issues for most tech projects.
@dsfgs
If I understand correctly (been a while since I've used mastodon), you're saying that the federated timeline is using a ton of data and requests?
I'll say I'm not too shocked because if images load by default that adds a ton of traffic just passively moving along.
This leads me to an interesting argument against de-federation.
In terms of pure wasted energy redundant bots, (or even redundant accounts) is a huge waste of everyone's resources...Forcing many large instances to subscribe to a different NY Times bot multiplied by every influencer or institution that people want updates from...would just be madness.
I think you're right that explore feeds and other mechanism encourage bad behavior, but I think it's the behavior that causes the waste not necessarily the way it all works. I'm sure that specific scenario could be mitigated a ton by the server serving a very lossy compressed thumbnail that people can opt in/out of seeing by default.
@gabriel
That's some solace, but unfortunately Misskey does require downgrading the security of TorBrowser, so we are regrettably 'back at square one' there.
It would be good to look at a number of code bases as a semi-tired(sic) developer to try to improve them, in exchange for a donation to our instance (given the looming 8 Oct shutdown). We have a way of using git (not github or gitlab) in our somewhat fragmented setup that seems to work.
@dsfgs@gabriel@witchescauldron
Not so vandal compared to crypto mining and blockchain sharing. Imo social network software doesn't have any anti-features, Mastodon is federated.
If you don't like sharing resources, defed from everyone and live on your own instance alone then.
See our toots about the #ExploreTimeline and displaying boost counts, which encourage botFarms that game the algorithm, and create feedback loops to get user interactions based on perceived #popularity. We warned of it years ago (see #PopularityModel).
Forced Javascript is an anti-feature. Until about a year ago, Mastodon had basic functionality without Javascript.
So many unseen resources being fetched. Cryptomining at least secures the network.
See our recent toots about "Sir" (#)MontaguNorman, head of the (#)BankOfEngland who gave money to Nazi Germany. His quote is damning. Basically since 1914 when Central Banking started they have been able to lead us into #wars constantly, mostly just using inflation.
@dsfgs@gabriel@witchescauldron
Oh, so you mean #crypto solves all the problems? What about the massacres in #Almaty back last year? It was because of increasing natural gas prices. But why resort to massacres then? Because of Bitcoin miners who use up natural gas to get cheap electricity for mining crypto. Mind you #Kazakhstan was amongst world's top crypto mining countries.
And all those blockchains being hosted on central servers run by rich jerks, because noone downloads blockchains?
@yakovlevegor@gabriel@witchescauldron
Fiat currencies (and gold) are responsible for much more abuse and death but you will not hear about that because the corporateMedia are experts at omission, ie. restricting the frame of discourse.
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