One unique selling point of #Mastodon which we need to push more is how easy it is to move servers.
I mean, how often have you heard about people being scared away from Mastodon because they have a hard time picking a server? This is not a condemnation of their hypothetical lack of technical aptitude - it's just that every other social media platform outside of the #Fediverse makes leaving as difficult as possible. You tie up a _lot_ of your online identity with a specific account, especially if you are a heavy user - and if you decide to leave an account, then you have to give up pretty much all of the connections you have made.
Thus, picking "the wrong server" is something that can trigger considerable anxiety for those who've had to abandon social media platforms in the past - what if they pick badly, and need to start over?
But even a lot of long-term Mastodon users don't know how easy it is to move - not only takes the process a mere half an hour or so, but you can also take all of your followers with you - their servers are notified, and they automatically move their subscription from your old to your new account without having to so a thing!
I think this kind of easy account transferral is almost unprecedented with online services (and I can't think of any other examples - can you?), so it's not surprising that people don't think about this when facing the choice of picking a server.
https://fedi.tips/transferring-your-mastodon-account-to-another-server/
@juergen_hubert yeah, I think you're getting this exactly backwards.
#Mastodon/#ActivityPub makes it way too hard to move instances. It's unfortunately a core problem with this platform, but we shouldn't pretend it's not.
Other platforms like #BlueSky make it much easier, but #Fediverse is behind on this one.
We need to recognize that as a rough edge, a legit reason users might choose another platform.
For one thing, there is the issue of moving to non-mastodon instances on this platform.
For another thing, a lot of people complain about not having a lot of their stuff moved, weather through buggy instances or one instance not cooperating in the migration or whatever other reason.
It's unfortunately a core problem with this platform, but we shouldn't pretend it's not.
It's being worked on, though, and it has been since 2023 when @silverpill wanted to implement nomadic identity in Mitra, but without moving to the Nomad protocol.
Current status as far as I'm informed:
Mitra has at least got support for nomadic identity via ActivityPub in a development version.
(streams), a Hubzilla descendant by Hubzilla's and Friendica's creator, has had support for nomadic identity via ActivityPub in its stable release for months. It doesn't rely on it, though, because it uses Nomad for that.
Forte, a (streams) fork by the same developer, is the first Fediverse server application to actually rely on ActivityPub for nomadic identity. It's still experimental and a "closed alpha", though.
The building blocks of nomadic identity as implemented in Hubzilla, (streams) and Forte are being cast into ActivityPub FEPs such as FEP-ef61 "Portable Objects".
The long-term goal is to make nomadic identity available for everything that uses ActivityPub. Unlike now, moving instances and cloning and sharing identities shall not be limited to within the same project, but all across the whole Fediverse. But even if this should become stable one day, and I'm pretty sure it will, the next obstacle will be adoption by the various Fediverse projects.
CC: @Jürgen Hubert
#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #Mitra #Hubzilla #Streams #(streams) #Forte #NomadicIdentity #MovingInstances #MovingServers
@volkris Speaking as someone who has moved Mastodon instances twice, I am curious: In what way do you find the process difficult?