So I've been away for a week. Boredom at work is the main reason I keep coming back here :).
The break changed my perspective on this place a bit. It's not as fun as it was. Even the memes feel worse/are repeats.
Haven't found a single topic the entire day I wanted to interact with.
Maybe thats just a coincidence.
@inertia honest question: have you tried changing instances? It'll shake up your exposure and also mastodon is a truly awful client once you experience any of the others.
@PurpCat@inertia mastodon is popular because its built for retards who want their experience to be retarded (I mean this in the literal definiton of retarded as in crippled). The features other clients have could be implemented but they specifically choose not to because of "harassment" that never seems to be a problem for anyone else
Mastodon was designed by people who weren't fleeing Twitter because it was censor happy, but because it did not censor enough. This is a problem inherent to any software designed by someone with this worldview. Big tech (see the Google "good censor" document, LFJ before the KF stuff, etc.) has a similar mindset that "if we can stop this from happening, we will". Both big tech and their detractors see everything that happens as their fault.
If something slips through the cracks, they will double down. This could recently be seen when searches for "Taylor Swift" were censored due to people making AI images as a joke, along with the massive amounts of pandemic era censorship.
As a result of this mindset, Eugen has avoided adding features like quote posts, a working search, and similar due to "harassment". He's avoided adding the ability to choose a favicon due to "branding". He avoided adding in captchas until later on due to "accessibility", and many instances lacking this led to two massive spam waves.
@inertia@PurpCat custom reacts, (not as broken) search, quote reposts, I think more choices on thread viewing. A lot of the network just looks broken or missing on mastodon
@inertia@PurpCat if you ever see a post that just looks like a stub with someone @'d and saying a random sentence theres a good chance thats a quote post that you can't see
@RustyCrab@inertia The thing with Mastodon is that it is the IE6 of fediverse, solely because of Eugen.
Eugen's entire vision for Mastodon is if he likes it, it goes in. If it doesn't, it doesn't go in. This is on top of the vague goal of "no harassment" and his other goal of "branding".
On top of this, there's also network segregation. Everyone laughs at bot, but on the Mastodon/fediblock side of the network you can draw some massive fucking numbers. So an unfortunate reality is that to draw the biggest numbers, you need to go onto a massive instance, and even moreso if it's not on a ton of blocklists like many of the instances on this side of the fedi are.
Then you either have to never say anything with the wrong kind of politics, or piss off someone to avoid being blocked.
@RustyCrab@inertia Not everyone got off. Since shitting on the trans community is now less verboten than it was 6 years ago especially after Elon Musk took over, those types still live there.
But Japanese artists, especially the lolisho ones, got the boot. This is who is expanding on this side of the fedi.
@RustyCrab@inertia Unfortunately, these days if you want to get massive on Mastodon you need to be a politisperg/reply guy. Think like Patrick S Tomlinson when he isn't telling random trolls to enjoy prison, or his bsky feed.
That post I made earlier of the OP posting a selfie and talking about being trans got more reposts than most of the recent posts on the account, which consist of stale safe "nerd humor/pun xd" memes made in Photoshop.
@PurpCat@inertia remember that these "big numbers" come from cancerous politisperg NPCs which is a gigantic chunk of the population. This is true on the right as well as left. You dont want those people here.
@RustyCrab@inertia That's why I think enthusiasm for bluesky in particular has burned out. Bluesky only appeals to bubble wrapped individuals, and the Patrick Tomlinsons of the world. You'll notice that despite hating Twitter, he doesn't use bsky as often because it's a dead site and there's nobody making jokes about his wife or the pepperoni grinder to make him continue engaging. He's also really fucking boring when he's not being prodded. https://bsky.app/profile/stealthygeek.bsky.social
Mastodon sucks for internet artists and communities who want numbers because it's decentralized. Closed source cohost or Neo-Tumblr as you could call it literally advertises this, that there's value of being in the "same place as everyone". This is also seen by how users end up clustering on a mega instance in order to get exposure, because likely your instance does not know about your posts on a self hosted instance on a server under your bed.
It's great if you're a nerd and want to post. It's bad if you want massive numbers that you can possibly get on Twitter.com if you don't get caught in a ban wave.
@RustyCrab@inertia In other words, on the fedi you have to choose between three options:
A massive fedi instance which might or might not have massive amounts of jannies and a hostile community (see the alt-text brigade, poasties, etc.)
A smaller instance which is either going to be jannied or blocked by many instances.
Self host and watch as you get blocked depending on the content of your posts.
@RustyCrab@PurpCat@inertia
ive switch to the tree view on pleromafe and I actually like it
its rubbish for browsing hellthreads/big threads but its something I dont get on mastodon
@theorytoe@PurpCat@inertia its situationally useful but I prefer flat view in most cases and pleroma has peeking too which really helps navigate big threads.
@RustyCrab I've been on a few others (none of the big ones like poast) a few years back. They all feel pretty similiar.
I like being together with pone enjoyers. And the client is fine.
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