When I joined the #fediverse via my own Mastodon instance back in 2018 (and with an identi.ca, status.net, pump.io history going far back), I never thought of it as a Twitter, Facebook etc alternative. I saw it as a new planet. A fresh approach to build a real social network. I still look at it that way. I want to explore new possibilities. Try new things. Escape the gravity well of the "old", centralised networks. Find a better orbit. That is why I block threads.net on my instance. #justsayin
>> I never thought of [#fediverse] as a Twitter etc alternative. I saw it as a new planet. A fresh approach to build a real social network. I want to explore new possibilities…That is why I block threads.net on my instance
#justsayin I’m so glad that #mastodon.social does not block threads.net. It allows me to see #Biden posts directly. A “real social network” should not exclude parts of society that want in. No one who wants to “explore new possibilities” should shut others out
@rameshgupta I might change my position once threads.net really supports the fediverse. Right now it's a one-way street. Posts from threads.net get pushed to our side, but we cannot send posts or replies to their side. So threads is shutting us out. To which I react accordingly. But other instances are free to decide otherwise. That's also part of our freedom here.
I wanted (and still want) it to be different. Where I would reconnect with people that felt the same (and many of us still fondly remember Google+ and its predecessor Orkut ;) but also connect with new people that made the jump for whatever other reason. I hoped (and still hope) that we can explore new ways. To boldly go where no social network has gone before :) Discussions around threads, bluesky are a distraction to me.
Maybe you now understand why I don't really care about the growth rate of the Fediverse. Or how it could overtake BigCentralisedThing and what changes MUST be made to achieve that. I don't want the fediverse to be a better Twitter or Facebook etc. I want the fediverse to be a wonderful experience for those that value it and iterate over it to be an internet of people, not an internet of algorithms and monetisation, is all. Let's build from that position, if you agree.
@TheDailyBurble Oh, my instance isn't open at all. It is reserved for family members. I booked it as a managed instance at the wonderful @mastohost and I really hope that more people set up many more mini-instances for friends and family. That's the best way to grow the fediverse. Decentralised.
The fediverse makes me feel better about my online presence. I define my experience here. And as I run my own instance, I also make bigger decisions like which instance gets suspended. Which users get an instance-wide block for the (currently) two users on my instance. (just to be clear, my instance is reserved for family only, I don't accept new users. I do hope you all set up many more small instances because decentralisation :)
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