I’ve been asked on TV hits and interviews lately to explain why decentralized social media is better, especially re: Mastodon.

[krupo@infosec.exchange]

@futurebird @livcomp I mean the world is bigger than the US. Federal or Confederation, to think in Canadian, is considered a good thing elsewhere

[momo@social.linux.pizza]

@alessandro
You mean kinda like Bezos owns Amazon (with Amazon Prime Video) and the Washington Post?
@taylorlorenz

[juergen_hubert@mementomori.social]

@taylorlorenz

I tend to argue with the infamous Enshittification cycle:

Commercial platforms are initially good for users until they capture the market. Then they make things worse for users in order to sell them out to other commercial interests. Then they make things worse for their business partners too in order to make more money.

Decentralized, non-commercial media avoid this trap:

They have no financial motive to make the user experience worse.

And if a specific instance does get worse, their users can move elsewhere and take their social media connections with them.

Thus, decentralized, non-commercial social media can actually get _better_ over time, while commercial "walled gardens" will only get worse over time.

[krupo@infosec.exchange]

@futurebird @diraquel @utopiarte notifications from my closest friends are my solution too

[dp0@mastodon.social]

@catnip @taylorlorenz Interconnectivity, the way the internet was meant to be. No matter which provider, client, or technology you're using, you still can connect an communicate with everyone.

Corporations want to achieve that through monopolies, whilst the fediverse (of which Mastodon is part of) does so by using common and non-proprietary standards.

[nomenloony@nomenloony.com]

@dannotdaniel @taylorlorenz my version is that it can't be bought by billionaires, and if a billionaire sweeps in and buys a large server we just fediblock that server.

See also Bluesky.

[eniko@mastodon.gamedev.place]

@taylorlorenz i would personally focus on how fedi, by its nature, is moderated by real people with a real stake in their community. i think much of why this platform is better than corporate platforms is moderation via social contract

[livcomp@hachyderm.io]

@krupo @futurebird for sure it is, and the USA is also kinda deflating these days.. i think all roads should lead to 'fediverse' as the place we are and the place to be.

[wolvericcatkin@tech.lgbt]

@taylorlorenz Tbh, the most challenging benefit to highlight, is how much abusive content your admins are probably protecting you from... The one experience of harassment I have had since I started using Mastodon was also pretty cool, as after I reported the account, their instance administrators almost immediately handled it, by deleting their account... Maybe they'd just been going under the radar, but I guess they didn't like their extensive history of that sort of behaviour...

[reddog@syzito.xyz]

@ScottGrimmett @taylorlorenz I have one to sell.

[cmconseils@mastodon.social]

@wiredfire @taylorlorenz @krupo meme tunnel

[krupo@infosec.exchange]

@futurebird @livcomp my long term project is to move some volunteering work to this platform and this mega thread has been a useful well of ideas on how to justify the move to the rest of my team.

The almost resolved question that has been my main personal stumbling block has been deciding on which instance to select.

[aesthr@wandering.shop]

@haubles @taylorlorenz that first one really isn’t true though. The fediverse has harmful parasocial and group dynamics just like every other social space. And the concentration of power in instance admins sure adds to that.

[wolvericcatkin@tech.lgbt]

@weezmgk Did you go into the settings of your existing account, and point it to your new account?

[weezmgk@mastodon.social]

@WolvericCatkin probably not since I don't know how to do that

[wolvericcatkin@tech.lgbt]

@weezmgk Yeah, it's been a core part of the platform as long as I've been a user (since 2022...?), but it's a process you need to actively initiate. I don't remember where it is exactly, but if you open the web app, there should be a section in your account settings, to initiate a migration and deactivate your existing account...

[weezmgk@mastodon.social]

@WolvericCatkin ok

[jonchevreau@mstdn.ca]

@davew @benroyce Sarcasm Alert!

[lillyherself@mastodon.social]

@taylorlorenz @User47 I'm not sure I want the typical Blue sky user here on masto, do you? Bluesky is full of pompous blowhards using it as push media. They don't want engagement, they just want to broadcast self promotion.

[ck0@tech.lgbt]

@taylorlorenz I've actually though of how to describe Mastodon in a short way to non techi-people, while keeping in mind what prevented me to join any federated network before.

The whole point of Mastodon is to put back controls of their social networks to the users. That means it's not design around advertisements and unknown way to select content for you. Instead people run servers around given thematics. There is no need to have algorithms which choose for you content you might be interrested for, instead you find a server which have a community around the same interrests or localisation, and your local timeline will be filled of content from people of the same server, which have the same interrests.
But as it's federated, nothing prevent you to read content from other users. Because an account creation is easy, you can also have alt-accounts to discover other communities, and follow people from there on you main account. Most of the Mastodon apps can manage multiple accounts.