In many ways, Mastodon feels like rewinding the clock on social media back to the early days of Twitter and Facebook. On the consume side, that means that your home feed has no algorithm (this can be disorienting at first).
Practically, it means that you see only what you want to see and only see it linearly. You never wonder “why am I seeing this and how do I make it go away?”. Content can only enter your home feed via your followed tags or handles and the feed is linear like the early days of social media.
Preach. I hate the “bubble” that curated / sponsored feeds try to wrap everyone inside of.
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Put it simply I just hate ads. Anything that puts in ads is terrible. Including Sync for Lemmy who seems to have completely missed the point of getting the hell away from Reddit.
The next terrible thing is automatically generated content and bots, but I guess those are also really just ads.
Wrong. The next terrible thing is mass-AI-generated propaganda and disinformation. Like in the “dead internet” theory
Next? I think you misspelled “current”:-D
My bad. But I think we haven’t seen the full extent of it yet
Tbf, it seems like the current “mass-AI-generated propaganda and disinformation” has actual humans behind it i.e. state-sponsored disinformation as part of modern warfare, as opposed to just sheer random BS pooped out of an algorithm designed to maximize short-term profits for the person trying to use enough buzzwords to get their algorithm bought out by someone dumb enough to fall for their pitch and short-sighted enough to not realize the wider implications… or worse yet, if they realize, who simply does not care.
It reminds me of the story behind the USA tax preparation software companies who intentionally went on a campaign to confuse military veterans and students (seriously!? what kind of evil mfers…!?), and while they got caught and even punished & fined, it was something like a decade later and ofc the original CEO and also the next one etc. had long since received their fat bonus checks, leaving the company holding the bag (liability). Thus it was “a smart move”, so long as you entirely disregard ethics. What was presented as a “free gift”, to generate good PR for the company, was in reality predating upon people that they deemed would be highly trusting or at least minimally likely to sue them… and they were correct. Now, watching interviews of these tech-bros, I get the same vibe as in like who cares so long as I get mine.
Web of trust solves this problem, until people start intentionally trusting AIs as much as they do other humans, at which point it’s no longer a problem.
Including Sync for Lemmy who seems to have completely missed the point of getting the hell away from Reddit.
If there is one reason to support ads, only one reason, is for using Sync for Lemmy.
What allows this particular piece of software to implement an egregious dark pattern and have it be ok?
Because although it is in a very early state compared with Sync for Reddit it is also a great product.
I use Sync for Lemmy, Voyager and Summit and overall I think Summit is a better client as of now, but Sync doesn’t fall too far away.
What dark pattern for real lol, we users asked for it, the dev didn’t even care nor know about Lemmy if it wasn’t for us, he listened and now he is present around here with a very competent client.
Would the world be better for you if Sync ceased to exist LMAO.
The amount the world would be better if Syncs ads didn’t exist would be negligibly minuscule to be sure, but it would be better. Every time someone was displayed an ad it made the world just a tiny bit worse. Even if it is the equivalent of a grain of sand on the beach. Perhaps overall there was a net positive, but my only point is that ads are bad and only doing it a little bit doesn’t mean it is good.
Like killing one person to save 10 doesn’t mean killing one person was good in of itself. The stakes are obviously quite low in the case of ads in this particular piece of software, but I still don’t agree with it on principle. If all ads on the internet were eliminated then the whole experience would be greatly improved.
Every time someone was displayed an ad it made the world just a tiny bit worse
By what metric?
Anything in particular I’m missing with sync?
Bad content feels much much worse to me. E.g it is so infuriating to see those fake prank videos with tons of likes and positive comments. It kills my hope in humanity every time… At least an ad could be for some interesting legit product. 🫠
Are there ads on Sync? I’ve been using it exclusively for the last week or so and haven’t seen a single one.
I’m working on the app full-time and the ads / subscriptions cover development costs.
That isn’t a good justification to me. If it’s ok for you then it’s ok for the rest of the world too. You might believe ads aren’t bad and that’s fine. At least we can agree to disagree on that as our opinions aren’t reconcilable. If your app can’t exist without ads then I don’t believe it should exist at all. Or any other software in the world.
That isn’t a good justification to me.
You want developers who spent years studying design and development, to spend months developing an app, to just give that app away for free?
People like you are why more and more developers join big corporations for salaried position rather than trying to make it by themselves in the indie scene. Because they know they can’t make it in the indie scene because you are too cheap to pay for their apps (either by buying the app, or by consenting to see ads)
If your app can’t exist without ads then I don’t believe it should exist at all.
Sync for Lemmy exists as a paid, ad-free version. The ad-supported version only exists for people who don’t want to, or can’t, buy the app.
The second ads are required the customer stops being the users and starts being the advertisers. This starts the enshittification
snowballshitball, Randers.It’s a good thing you have the option to pay to remove ads and stay the customer, then
I hate ads too, but devs have to eat so why should we not pay them when we use an app or service they spend countless time making and maintaining?
Sync is a one-time payment of £17.99 / $20 to remove ads and for the amount I’ll be using this app, I think that’s absolutely fair. I’ll spend more on one takeaway pizza on a Friday night.
Sync is garbage. I’ve tried every Lemmy app and settled on Voyager. It’s no Relay but it’s one of the most developed Lemmy apps available.
(I’m still upset that Relay’s developer decided to play along with Spez’s new rules and start charging users for API access. It was such a good app and I’ll miss it dearly)
AFAIK pretty much all the lemmy apps are decent. There’s no reason to bash on any of them just because it’s not your preference
I just paid the one time fee for no ads. Works for me.
This is only FOSS bros making a bigger deal than it should, I like FOSS I use FOSS but they need to chill a bit.
When’s the last time you developed and released a full fledged software project for free?
You are currently using full fledged software projects that are free to use for anyone in the form of Lemmy and the ActivityPub protocol.
(Disclaimer: I am not opposed to developers funding their projects with ads or paid subscriptions or whatever. Just pointing out that it is possible to work with passion (and optional donations) alone.)
Lemmy has gotten quite a bit of money in grants. It’s safe to say that without the grants allowing the lemmy devs to work on it full time, it wouldn’t be as functional as it is now. Getting grants really isn’t easy and that shouldn’t be the barrier to whether or not you can be compensated for your work.
Edit: Nvm, just realised you’re not OP
If you are suggesting ads are the only way to fund software then you are mistaken. For example you can sell it for money to consumers.
Which… Sync does. So why are you bashing on it?
It still has ads. It can’t take the moral high ground of selling software if it also has a free with ads version to try and convince people to subscribe. Get rid of the ad version and only sell the software and then it will actually have some integrity.
Wait… So you’re arguing… Less options is BETTER? That somehow if they took away the choice of seeing ads and made payment mandatory, instead of giving users the choice, that would be more moral?
WTF?
Obviously less options isn’t better in all circumstances. When of the options happens to be predatory then yes obviously it is better to not allow such a thing.
Imagine you have two options. You can either pay a one time fee of $50 or you can borrow the $50 and pay back $2 a month with 75% interest. Is allowing people the option to accidentally pay 5 times the amount something is valued better? Not that this situation is completely analogous to what is going on with Sync, but the point is to demonstrate that there exists a circumstance that less options is better for the consumer. Or at least a circumstance where having the only option has more integrity.
The best option I see for Sync that doesn’t implement ads at all and thus being bad is to have a less featured version for free and then sell premium features. Or of course just sell the whole thing with no free version. There is also a the concept of a limited demo so you can try before you make your decision to purchase. There are so many things you can do that don’t involve ads.
Yeah, no. I think that’s a ridiculous opinion to have. FOSS is all about personal choice, yet here you are arguing that choices should be limited because you personally don’t like one of the options. We’re just going to have to disagree on this.
Jerobi is great.
Pretty much all the Lemmy clients for Android are great, and I think the iOS clients are very competent too.
I disagree. I hate ads with a passion too. But as long as we can pay a sum to remove it, it is fair to have a free option with ads. A kinda unlimited “demo”.
We are fools for thinking anyone would give away their own time and effort for free forever. We have completely lost the perspective of how much things should cost because of how much we’ve taken for granted that was paid for with our personal data. And the biggest fools is those who think most software developers and server admins can live reliably on donations alone.
Though Youtube is taking the ads a bit far, maybe. One shouldn’t scare away users before they have even become customers.
Agreed, but even if free ad tiers exist, web trackers have to also exist to track everything you do, just in case you use the ad tier again.
Privacy shouldn’t be something unaffordable.
Um Linux and FOSS, kinda show you wrong in that many people are happy to see others use their work for feee.
We are fools for thinking capitalist solutions are the solutions we need.
I disagree. Paying to remove ads is one of the core problems with ads. If the only way to develop your software is either to frustrate them enough to pay to remove ads or have ads then your software shouldn’t exist. You don’t get to do something bad just because there is an option to pay them to stop doing that bad thing. That doesn’t make it right. The whole concept is basically like a really mild protection racket.
This is such an unbelievably naive take. People’s time is worth something. Relying just on donations from a small percentage of users here and there is not going to cut it for someone who is developing the software full time.
Absolutely agree with your comment.
I don’t really know the solution either… I can’t afford to pay for all the things I enjoy online.
I was considering supporting 1 Twitch streamer I enjoy until I saw subscription cost. And if I paid that for every streamer or YouTuber I enjoy, I’d be broke in a single day lol.
I get so much incredibly good info and discussions online about my hobbies, all for no charge.
I used to subscribe on Patreon to my most useful resources/people, but in the end I just could afford it and had to cancel all my Patreon
I hate ads but I don’t understand how the internet would function without ads. No one could afford it
It would take some adjustment, but ads and data harvesting are the core problem to the enshiftification of the entire internet. You can’t have it both ways. We have this endless game of cat and mouse where we keep moving to the next platform after the last one becomes unusable due to ads and data harvesting.
You have to draw the line somewhere to end this pointless cycle and it is either pay for software and services or have people do only what they want to when they want to (FOSS). It really doesn’t cost that much if it isn’t attempting to compete with other software that grew with ad and data harvesting money.
Yeah, I’m not rich enough to pay for every site and service either. A site like rockpapershotgun I left when it paywalled most of its contents, it wasn’t important enough to me to pay for. I’ve never paid for reddit, but i probably should have by how much i used it. Not that I will do that after what they’ve pulled lately. I donate to a fediverse server to put my money where my mouth is and at least pay for what I want to keep alive.
Fuck advertising. Sorry not sorry. I actively try to avoid products advertised …it’s not really possible but I try. Fuck advertising…I blame Pepsi
Mastodon will never “show me only what I want” without the content being there. I mostly used Twitter to keep up with pro wrestling. All of the wrestlers, journalists, and most of the fans are still all there. I just have to wait until Twitter gets bad enough that even they all end up moving off.
I’ve been trying to find my way on Mastodon with little success. Can anyone recommend ways to find or follow ? Also, I see that I can follow Lemmy/ Kbin sites on MAstodon but I can only see the title text. No images or comments come over.
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That’s a great tip. thank you
Mastodon is cool, and I’d use it more if I could get used to the format. The Lemmy/Reddit forum style is my preference.
I just don’t understand how people find accounts they like to follow.
I started by just following a bunch of hashtags and my feed was already quite interesting. Over the next few days I started following a few people who seemed to consistently post content that I found interesting.
how people find accounts they like to follow.
The low-hanging fruit is sometimes checking out posters that show up in your feed because someone you do follow boosted their post. This sort of amounts to having the people you follow nominate people for you to also follow.
(fwiw, boosting a post just shares it to your followers, liking it just notifies the poster that you liked it)
A big part of it is just choosing the right instance. If you have any niche hobbies or interests, try to find an instance catering to that. My first mastodon account was on mastodon.social and I really didn’t like the experience, since most posts seemed to be about American politics and IT.
But then I found an instance catering to heavy metal fans, and the experience has been much better. When you find a good instance, you can find interesting accounts to follow just by visiting the local timeline. Then, as other said, there are hashtags. And sometimes, you can open the federated timeline too, and just look randomly.
I really like that aspect of Mastodon because it feels like the old old Internet where you found interesting stuff mainly accidentally and by searching for things you’re into.
Now that I’m mentioning the very old internet, I’m reminded of StumbleUpon and I wonder if some implementation of that would work on the Fediverse for finding communities and accounts. Basically you’d tell the system your interests and then it would give you random stuff based on that.
How did you find a good instance?
First, it’s important to find an instance that caters to your interests, especially if you have more niche hobbies. Once you’re set up, search for and follow hashtags related to your personal interests, and use those to find accounts you like. Use hashtags in your own posts so that people can discover you more easily, and browse users that follow you to see if they’d be interesting to follow back and expand your network out. Keep an eye on the local and federated timeline for interesting posts, which includes all posts from people on the same instance and from all federated instances. Eventually, as you build up a follow list (and especially as you follow highly active accounts) your followed accounts will start introducing you to new accounts themselves through boosting posts.
It’s more work since you’re building the network yourself instead of having it spoon-fed to you by an algorithm, but it’s overall much more rewarding, and lets you tailor your experience to your own personal preferences.
Good explanation - thanks.
Can I export a list of accounts I follow and share that batch with friends?
Yes! your fedi client will spit out a text file (.csv format I think) of accounts you follow, or of accounts following you and I forget how many other kinds of information (like block or mute lists, etc). You can share that with others, or if you decide to migrate to a different instance, you can use that in your new account to automate following of everyone you followed in your old account.
Yep
just follow hashtags you like, that way you’ll see people who post about interesting stuff.
Same as really old old Twitter.
That’s the main reason why I’m half and half on mastodon (besides the terrible user search and onboarding). I believe the way hashtags are implemented in microblogging services is so inorganic, and I prefer having a little help finding cool posts and people through some kinda filter. Bluesky has been a better experience in those aspects for me so far.
I have the same issue on Lemmy, but at least there’s All. I can’t figure out where “All” is on Mastodon.
The equivalent to All would be the federated timeline, some apps don’t show it though, and some may call it something else.
I guess the official “Mastodon” app doesn’t show it, then. I’ll look at the other options.
If you’re on Android, I’m a big fan of Moshidon!
Agreed
I prefer pull vs push media. Less intrusive. I have a feeling lemmy users may also like RSS feeds for the control it provides. I know in mastodon you decide who to follow, but the whole culture to encourage re-blogging means a lot of potential unwanted crap in our feeds.
Agreed. I love decentralized social media, but I never liked Twitter and never really could adjust to Mastodon either.
I completely agree. I like the concept of Mastodon and like that it exists, but I just can’t get into the idea of following individual or organizations rather than topics. Thankfully Lemmy is a thing.
FWIW you can follow hashtags in mastadon If you know where to look you can see trending hashtags In other fedi clients (particularly firefish) you can configure antennae and channels to give you the ability to have pre-set feed filters and focuses (e.g. search by hashtag, keyword/subject, etc) You can also curate lists (can include people you don’t follow if you don’t want) in case you want to look at what the law or history or cycling people on fedi are talking about just now. Often when I want to change subject I’ll check to see what #lawFedi or #histodon or #biketooter have to offer today
If that sounds a bit like rolling your own algorithms, that’s probably because it sort of is
It sounds worth trying if people are good at tagging. I might have to try again.
I have the same problem as you with mastodon, I’m interested in topics not in people so the format just doesn’t make a lot of sense to me.
I’ve had very limited success with following hashtags, it sounds like a neat idea, but I’ve not found enough hashtags that I’m interested in with enough activity to make it worthwhile.
The nature of it also makes it more superficial - it’s short comments and posts on a topic rather than more in depth discussion.
In the end, I think mastodon is a really neat replacement for twitter - but I never had a twitter account for a reason, and those reasons are still there with mastodon, for me at least.
The problem is that #10 in this article is why 99% of people won’t leave Xitter for Mastodon. Most of the people with lots of followers on X aren’t on Mastodon. It’s really that simple. Some “influencers” need to be convinced to open up Mastodon accounts and advertise exclusive content on there for their followers. Until then, we will be stuck with a handful of journalists, Flipboard, and Stephen Fry.
Here’s an alternative question: Do we really want the fediverse to take off like big tech did?
I sort of like that this little corner of the Internet isn’t filled with a bunch of megacorporations and political bot farms trying to fiddle with our opinions to their benefit. Once it gets too big, it’s going to lose something really important. Also, I fear that it could become impossible for a little operator to run an instance anymore.
Solid point. Kind of goes back to what we want out of our social media. If we want to follow the celebrities we like, we’re probably stuck with Xitter & other data harvesters (outside of the enlightened folks like Mr. Fry). I honestly use Mastodon slightly more than I use(ed) Twitter. Barely more than not at all.
Please, just no. Keep those scum influencers away. It would immediately ruin the platform.
This is how I feel about Bluesky. It’s so good, but really needs more people.
Xitter
LOL, my brain read that as “shitter” and I found that pretty fitting.
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I really don’t think that Mastodon needs influencers. It’s just normal people talking about normal stuff. Don’t need any “I‘m so glorious, and here’s my product that will make you think you’re glorious, too” kind of influencers there, thanks!
This, very much this. I’ve been having more pleasant discussions with random people replying to Mastodon posts compared to the brain parasites victim making their nest on xitter.
I mean, you guys are stuck with me as your only real celebrity for a while… (and the Debian logo design person.)
I remember back in 2000s 2 or 3 guys were so misinformed that Bruce Wills himself joined the comments and explained the movie industry doesn’t work that way. Of course they didn’t believe it was him and they ended up being video called by him to “prove” it is really him. I will find that page one day. In the 90s it was common that a famous actor/producer discuss ongoing things with the fans.
Wow. Finally got a reply from her! Big fan of what you’re doing (you know, the Barbie movie and whatnot).
A fine brief on mastodon but it hardly “rewound” anything.
The fedi had been around long before mastodon and even facebook.
Look it’s new to a lot of us ok??? 🫣
im sorry you forgot about the rest of the internet.
Apology accepted.
And you feel this attitude is correct in engaging with people new to the fediverse?
Hope you’re okay.
im genuinely not ok.
the fediverse is worse now than it was a year ago.
JoYo, I hear your plight.
This is, indeed, a terrible tragedy of death.
I’m one of the new folk around here as well and I can fully understand that kind of feeling once it feels like the flood gates have opened and your small community ain’t so small no more and people bring different vibes than what you’re used to / what you enjoy.
Genuinely, I’m sorry, it sucks.
So… taking social media to something that existed before Facebook isn’t rewinding?
I think they mean that fedi didn’t take social media back because it never left. It’s the users who went back.
Like if we all joined Myspace again we wouldn’t say that Myspace rewound social media. People forget that the fediverse has been around a very long time, it’s not new.
Older than Facebook and Twitter?
correct
seems kinda backwards, dontcha think?
(yes haha funny)
My timeline has always been this way. Third party clients man. They were so good.
Algorithmic timelines are toxic.
The virgin official app: NOOOOO!!! YOU NEED TO PAY A SUBSCRIPTION TO AVOID SEEING ALL THESE ADS DISGUISED AS POSTS!
The chad third party app: Hey man this whole thing is maintained by one dude so I gotta show a banner ad every now and again. I know that sucks so I’ll stop if you wanna make a one time donation of a buck or two.
Hot take: Algorithmic timelines are cool, provided we can (1) opt out from the default algorithm and (2) plug in our own algorithms
That would be awesome if people could just make their own algorithms, like when people say ‘just start your own instance’. Don’t like the way algorithm A does things? Try B or C, or make your own! I could see some weird filtering options appearing…
Yeah as long as I can filter by what I personally want I have no issues with the site structuring my posts for me.
Most people used Twitter and Facebook not as a social network but as a pastime. They didn’t create or post anything, but simply lurked and browsed random stuff on the platform to amuse themselves and keep up with trends. The random content in feeds that articles like these complain about were rather the main feature of those platforms for many. And this is a feature Mastodon fails to provide for its own good.
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People should stop having such high expectations for similar # of users on Mastodon then if it is not competing with Twitter.
One thing I want from Mastodon is to see the likes of people because I like to follow artists and see what they’re liking lol – but that might go against the intended usage, not sure.
That’s what boosts are for. You can see what others boost on their profile as a sort of repost. The like, is not a like, it’s there for feature parity with Xitter. But every app and instance calls it something different, but generally it’s a favorite button. So you have, boost, favorite, and bookmark. Boost are intended to be seen by others, favorites are for the original poster, and bookmarks are private for yourself. I’ve read that quote boosts are coming, but I’m not a fan of the feature. Find it to be really toxic. But we’ll see how it pans out when the feature is implemented.
You never wonder “why am I seeing this and how do I make it go away?”
I actually find myself wondering this a lot. Mastodon doesn’t allow people to add comments to things they’re reposting, so you’re left guessing as to why they elected to insert something from an unfamiliar account into your timeline.
Mastodon is also short on tools for discovering interesting new posts and accounts that aren’t already on your radar. In this regard I agree that it’s behind the times. Threads handles this much better, giving you a classic chronological feed of people you’re following plus an algorithmic feed that shows you things that are popular with people like you.
But I don’t want anyone to make assumptions about “people like me”. Those kinds of services are always ways off.
At best I could do with a feed from followers of my follows. But repost kinda does that already.
A comment to reposts would be nice though.
And it could do with an automated language filter. Because I’m getting a lot of German in my feed, would rather not.
Misskey translations coming in to save the day!
