<![CDATA[Growth has slowed on the open social web.]]>Growth has slowed on the open social web. We can’t win fighting Big Tech on their own turf: we need to move sideways. New ‘holdfasts’ won’t grow from protocols alone: we need to build communities.

There are no concrete answers yet. Only emerging ones.

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Moving sideways: paths to growth on the social web

Network resilience on open social networks is emergent, writes Laurens Hof. Riffing on this, and looking beyond the recent DDoS attacks, the feeling of becoming and emergence is what I love about decentralised social networks. The wave of new users and servers on Mastodon in November 2022. The explosion of

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Paths & Patches (www.blog-pat.ch)

]]>https://board.circlewithadot.net/topic/720031b9-c319-406c-9f37-905a55f48ba5/growth-has-slowed-on-the-open-social-web.RSS for NodeFri, 15 May 2026 08:05:04 GMTTue, 28 Apr 2026 12:30:50 GMT60<![CDATA[Reply to Growth has slowed on the open social web. on Tue, 28 Apr 2026 14:39:15 GMT]]>@ghostinthenet yes agreed, growth in independent, engaged communities is what matters

]]>https://board.circlewithadot.net/post/https://backend.newsmast.org/users/michael/statuses/116482844603017275https://board.circlewithadot.net/post/https://backend.newsmast.org/users/michael/statuses/116482844603017275Tue, 28 Apr 2026 14:39:15 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to Growth has slowed on the open social web. on Tue, 28 Apr 2026 14:13:43 GMT]]>@michael It's a good beginning to the discussion. My 2¢? We've been sold an empty bill of goods with respect to the expectation of growth in the social space. If growth is a consideration at all, it's secondary to independence and community engagement.

]]>https://board.circlewithadot.net/post/https://hachyderm.io/users/ghostinthenet/statuses/116482744221169908https://board.circlewithadot.net/post/https://hachyderm.io/users/ghostinthenet/statuses/116482744221169908Tue, 28 Apr 2026 14:13:43 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to Growth has slowed on the open social web. on Tue, 28 Apr 2026 14:13:03 GMT]]>@michael I worry that the technical arguments for decentralized social media are being overshadowed by the quality of the existing communities.

People who come here and encounter regulars who are screaming that Joe Biden drinks the blood of children probably aren’t going to stick around, and may even conclude that the open social web is identical to Twitter.

If the existing communities pushed back harder against its bad actors, maybe more people would see that, and engage more.

]]>https://board.circlewithadot.net/post/https://mastodon.social/users/mister_shade02X2/statuses/116482741610065094https://board.circlewithadot.net/post/https://mastodon.social/users/mister_shade02X2/statuses/116482741610065094Tue, 28 Apr 2026 14:13:03 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to Growth has slowed on the open social web. on Tue, 28 Apr 2026 12:35:09 GMT]]>Big thanks to @laurenshof, @kissane and @j12t for inspiration 🙂

]]>https://board.circlewithadot.net/post/https://backend.newsmast.org/users/michael/statuses/116482356643480611https://board.circlewithadot.net/post/https://backend.newsmast.org/users/michael/statuses/116482356643480611Tue, 28 Apr 2026 12:35:09 GMT