Hi there. In these times, folks are becoming more aware on how the social media companies are tracking their activity online, and selling the data for AI training purposes. They're getting tired of being sold to third parties as a product, instead of being the customers or users of these platforms.
Sadly, Mastodon is losing its chance to become a real alternative to this business model. Why? Because the majority of users, me included, are no less sick and tired of online radical politics, regardless of orientation, being forced 24/7 upon them. They just want a friendly conversation on life, job and hobby topics... and perhaps also opt-in from time to time on the denser subjects of social and political issues. Mastodon claims to be ad-free... but in fact, the majority of contents over there can still be considered political ads disguised as personal takes.
An example: I went to instances.social, picked up spanish language... users and content were just the default. And this was the very first entry coming out:
"Todon.nl is een radicaal linkse anti-autoritaire Mastodonserver. Wij verwelkomen anarchisten, socialisten, (klimaat)activisten, LHBTQIA+-personen, milieubewuste mensen, intersectionelen, antiracisten, antifascisten, antikapitalisten, veganisten, piraten, mensenrechtenactivisten, enz. Als ze maar radicaal, links én anti-autoritair zijn".
The default instance on most of the Mastodon apps for the phone, is equally focused on radical politics in the feed, and its not reflective of the interests of the general public as a whole, but rather alienating. This is a boon to Zuckerberg and Musk... not to the majority of users, open source, or internet privacy. It is not surprising, given this fact, that Mastodon moderators have repeatedly tended to ban the users for the most perplexing reasons (likely because of not being politically radical enough). Regardless, not the way an alternative to the mainstream social media should ever be.
Everybody should be able to enjoy a conversation in a wide array of controversial topics if they desire to, but users should be able to opt-in, not being forced-in. Unless this changes, so that Mastodon becomes a truly welcoming site (even for the people who're sick of ideology being fed into their throats, which are many), there's no chance for it to become the alternative to commercial social media that it aims to be.
The OP has a point. It is difficult for non-technical users to find the content they are seeking on Mastodon. Hopefully the new search features will help, but there are not enough instances on the version that allows for the extended search (beyond hashtags.)
There is also the issue with the anti-capitalism culture on Mastodon that limits the exposure of posts from creatives. The feeling seems to be anything promotional or that promotes posts is bad. Why shouldn’t there be a way to discover what others are favoriting? Why not have a “top posts” feature or other way of discovering great content from across the fediverse?
I think this is especially true with communities, like the kink community, that get shunned on many other social networks. (And yes, ensure minors are protected.) The CW isn’t enough because it isn’t specific enough for filtering and must be applied to each post (or all posts automatically.) There needs to be a way to designate the general type of CW that is filterable & searchable (ie politics, violence, sex, etc.)
It isn't. I agree there is a steeper learning curve to Mastodon, but content tailoring isn't one of the biggest hurdles. It's the equivalent to Mac users suddenly struggling with a two button mouse on a PC; yeah, its different, but not that hard to get used to once some very mundane new muscle memory kicks in.
Fair point. It’s the difference between “I don’t want someone else’s arbitrary algorithm determining what I see” vs “I don’t want anybody to use someone else’s arbitrary algorithm.”
Personally, I prefer simple reverse chronological order (modulo my filters and blocklist). If somebody else prefers a fancier algorithm, that’s their choice.
Yes! I think the problem with complex algorithms is that they can be exploited, yet they are helpful for content discovery. The trick is to identify the content as organically as possible with as few ways to game the system as possible. Of course, now I’m getting way off my original comment. In no way do I have any expertise on algorithms and how easy/difficult they are to implement. I’m merely observing that they may serve some use to simplifying content discovery for less tech savvy users.