As many users seek alternatives to X, rival social network Mastodon says that its official app downloads are up 47% on iOS.
Mastodon founder Eugen Rochko says downloads on Android are also up 17%, while total monthly sign-ups rose approximately 27% to 90,000.
The open-source X rival functions much like its competitor, the site formerly known as Twitter, on the outside. However, unlike the centralized Twitter, Mastodon consists of thousands of different social networks, which are integrated into a web it calls the “fediverse.”
Proud to be part of that 47%
Does anyone know good people to follow? I’d rather not join Bluesky.
I joined bluesky because the weather group I followed on Twitter moved there, so deleted twitter and follow them on BLuesky now. Is there a reason not to join bluesky?
No, just a personal choice.
The biggest reason is that it’s centralized.
Fantastic! I’m reducing my dependency on for profit entities every day, and federation is a great means to that end. Let’s welcome those moving over during the exodus!
Make sure to actually understand how those “non-profit” websites and services are functioning.
It costs money to power servers and to maintain them. Most of the fediverse instances like to claim they are run on donations and so forth. But… think about how angry people get at the idea of tipping for ANYTHING and then wonder how many of those are throwing significant cash at your favorite lemmy or mastodon instance per month.
Everyone is always shocked when they find out how social media or a “free” vpn or whatever is funded and where there information is going. But hey, I am sure it will be completely different this time.
You can be against the US’s tipping culture while at the same time being someone who donates to things lol
But yeah, definitely. For a lot of these things the funding has to be coming from somewhere and there’s no way donations are enough.
hink about how angry people get at the idea of tipping for ANYTHING and then wonder how many of those are throwing significant cash at your favorite lemmy or mastodon instance per month.
a) it’s not significant amounts, it’s quite cheap, per user, to run lemmy, e.g. lemm.ee is one of the bigger instances and costs 200 Euro a month, b) tipping 20% on a bill that doesn’t even include any service is not the same as donating to a service you like. This is more like a patreon which doesn’t lock anything for non-donating users.
Make sure to actually understand how those “non-profit” websites and services are functioning.
Generally speaking if you aren’t the customer then you are the product. Individual Lemmy and Mastadon instances are getting around this for now because they are small enough that their operational costs can be covered by the ideologically motivated instance admins and users. If Lemmy or Mastadon ever gains wide popularity this will change.
But hey, I am sure it will be completely different this time.
Exactly.
The guy who runs the instance I’m on sends out a statement every month, detailing how much he’s received in donations, what everything has cost, and how much there is leftover. Accounting for a small buffer to allow for emergencies, he donates the excess to Alzheimer’s research. We’re a Pritchett focus instance, so everyone’s happy with that.
I’ve paid far more to my Masto admin than I ever did to Twitter.
iOS friends, check out the Mastodon client Ice Cubes.
It’s free (beer and speech) and it’s very good IMO.
Also, after you settle on a server, consider setting up a recurring donation to your admin to help with server costs. The way I see it, it’s that or ads and enshitification.
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The weird thing is that it doesn’t matter what instance/server your friends are on. If they follow you, they’ll get all your posts in their feed. The best advice I can give anyone starting out on Mastodon is to follow tags instead of people in order to surface interesting posts, then you can follow people as they come up on feeds.
That’s good news. Odds are that some of those people will go back to closed media platforms after ~2 months; but the ones who stay help Mastodon and the Fediverse to grow.
Good to hear at least some upside for Mastadon from the recent rise in Bluesky users.
Hopefully this trend will continue and and Mastodon can retain at least a solid percentage of those why try it.
