Why Mastodon?
It's like Twitter, but decentralized and open source. Which means that it is the future of social media.
I’ve received some questions about why the digitalepibook.com website only links to Mastodon but not Twitter.
In a nutshell, I have found the Twitter experience to degrade quite dramatically in the past few months. Vice versa, I have found the opposite on Mastodon.
But there are also some bigger reasons why I think Mastodon is the future of social media. In many ways, it is like Twitter, but open source and decentralized. This has a number of important consequences.
Open source = Enormous creativity
The creative work in the Mastodon community is just incredible. Do you have a better idea for a Mastodon phone app? No problem - go ahead and build it.
When I first looked at Mastdon in 2017, it felt terribly outdated. The default website looked like a bad copy of a sad Twitter clone (it still does, IMO). I thought, well, if that is Mastodon, I don’t think I will have a future here.
Fast forward a few years, and many people - especially those active in areas I care about, like science - have moved to Mastodon. As I became a more active Mastodon user, I began to experiment with different apps, which appeared on an almost weekly basis. My favorite at the moment is Ivory on iOS. A fantastic free alternative is IceCube.
Since I spend most of my time on Mastodon on mobile, the experience is essentially identical to the Twitter app, but without ads.
Having a choice is fantastic. At Twitter, you’ll have to eat whatever they serve you, whether you like it or not. For example, if you are concerned about privacy, take a look at what data the Mastodon app Ivory collects:
None.
Compare this to the official Twitter app:
On the desktop, I access Mastodon through a web interface called Elk. It’s super smooth and feels just like the Twitter website:
In terms of user experience, Mastodon is now just as good as Twitter ever was. In fact, given the absence of ads, it is even better. And I assume that it will only improve over time, as more people and more developers join the network.
Decentralized = No one has control
Mastodon is decentralized. Quite simply, it means that there are many Mastodon servers, not just one (as is the case with Twitter). As a consequence, you will have to choose which server you want to be part of - see here for a list. While this choice can matter, you can still follow anyone on any other server. You can also have multiple accounts on multiple servers.
For I example, my main science account, where I post mostly about science, is on the server https://mastodon.social/. My username there is marcelsalathe, and so you would find me at https://mastodon.social/@marcelsalathe. (That’s the one I link to from the Digital Epidemiology book website).
On the other hand, I have a more local (i.e. Swiss) Mastodon account, where I post in German, mostly about Swiss things (including politics, which I avoid like the plague on my science Mastodon). I am doing this on a Mastodon server at https://swiss.social/, where my username is also marcelsalathe, and so you’d find me there at https://swiss.social/@marcelsalathe.
Once you have someone’s Mastodon address, you can just add them to your app(s), and you’ll see their posts, as you would on Twitter.
Similarly, almost all apps, mobile or desktop, are made for mulit-account use.
While decentralization makes discoverability a little harder (a problem people are working on), it is a crucial feature. Nobody has control over the entire Mastodon world. Nobody can say, “I want to take control of all Mastodon servers”. In a centralized system, you just need to take control of one system. That’s simply not possible with Mastodon.
On the other hand, the rules of a Mastodon server are up to the people who run the server. If you disagree with the rules, you can just go somewhere else, and take your followers with you.
It’s still niche, with pros and cons
Let’s face it: Mastodon is still niche. As of today, there are over 1.3 million active users. That’s, of course, still a far cry from the Twitter active user base, let alone Facebook, Instagram, or others. If you want to be where most people are, Mastodon is not the right place for you. But if you are reading this, I assume you are looking for specific content and are interested in science and technology. In that regard, Mastodon is very interesting.
I sometimes post the exact same content on Twitter, Mastodon, and LinkedIn. Of those three, Twitter has become almost entirely useless. I get almost no comments, and at best a few retweets - despite having over 20K followers on one of my accounts. I get at least as much engagement on Mastodon, where my main account has not even 700 followers yet. In other words, the engagement on Mastodon is about 30x higher than on Twitter. And it’s typically very good content.
In addition, the tone is generally quite pleasant. I have so far not had any negative or rude interactions. However, I’ve looked at the timelines/content of some well-known people, and it became clear that you can have an absolutely miserable experience on Mastodon if you start following the wrong kind of people 😅. Like on Twitter, I suggest using the mute/block/unfollow functionalities heavily. Your timeline is your garden - it needs your attention, and you’ll reap what you sow.
Like Twitter in the early days
Mastodon very much feels like Twitter in the early days. I joined Twitter in 2008 when most people were still confused by the little bird site. But there was a lot of creative energy there, with many developers creating amazing apps. Step by step, Twitter began shutting down these experiments. I stayed because there were no real alternatives. Today, there is a great alternative with Mastodon.
Of course, some people will feel very hesitant to abandon their massive follower counts on Twitter. So this transition will take some time. But if you’re like me, you’ll notice that you only need about 1/30 of the followers to get the same engagement. What’s more, I feel rather confident that decentralized social media is the future, and so I’m starting to invest my time there.
If you are still on the fence, I hope this short overview has given you the motivation to try it out. See you there!
I'm loving Mastodon. Much better interaction and exponentially getting better every day.
I've pretty much banned all corporate-based social media, including Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and TikTok. The manipulation and 'enshittification' of these sites is repulsive!