On the "All Hands on Tech" podcast, Mat Mancha did a review of Mastodon.
It's seems like he's not a big fan.
Specifically, he doesn't like that Mastodon isn't conducive to passive zoning out. He wants a service you can use without thinking.
However, to me, the appeal of Mastodon (and the Fediverse) is that this is social media that requires you to turn on your brain.
Mastodon is a bicycle for your brain.
For me, Twitter became "enshittified" when the service became about passive consumption.
And I get it. Some people just want to turn off their brains and zone out.
But not me.
I'm here to talk to people, have a conversation, and test out new ideas that could change the world.
Once you go down the "passive consumption" route, social media stops being social.
Instead it becomes television. And television sucks.
It's a one way window where a talking head speaks to you -- but you can't speak back.
Why would anyone want this -- and pretend this is in any way "social"?
"Social" implies a two way conversation. If it's one way, the "social" is a facade.
Now in terms of "Can Mastodon be more user-friendly?"
Sure.
Everyone knows this. And yet people must remember that Mastodon is run by a very small non-profit with minimal resources.
So I, personally, am willing to give it slack in ways that I wouldn't for Silicon Valley startups.
And hell, I have given @Gargron lots of feedback on improving usability already.
However, I think it's also fine to say, "Mastodon is not all things to all people."
Mastodon will never appeal to people who prefer centralization.
If you hate the notion of servers and URLs, then yeah, Mastodon is not for you.
Which is completely fine.
For me, decentralization is a non-negotiable.
+1 esp when other services just integrate really nicely.
