Mastodon Archives - DanThornton

It’s been more than 25 years since I first started regularly using the internet, and some of my previous experiences explain why I’m choosing Mastodon over Bluesky, Threads and X. Both for work, and as an information junkie, Twitter was my main social network of choice, but it’s a less pleasant and appealing option every day.

Disclaimer: Everyone has their own individual priorities, preferences and opinions. I’m not suggesting that anyone is wrong if they choose to focus on other social networks, try to juggle all of them, or stay on X because they have a community there. I just wanted to share my thought process and decision making, in case it’s informative for anyone. And so I can look back in 10 years and see if I made the right decision (ironically, some of the most press attention I got was by being wrong about the growth of 3D printing back in 2011)

Many years ago, I loved ‘microblogging‘ so much that I started a reasonably popular site devoted to it, during the first boom period in the 2000s. And I saw Twitter and Tumblr grow, Plurk survive as a weird outlier for Western internet users, and the likes of Jaiku, FriendFeed, Pownce and more fade out of existence. Often after being acquired by the likes of Google and Facebook. Or more recently in 2023, Ello.

I’ll still play around with other social networks, including Threads, Bluesky and anything else which appeals. But along with this blog, you’ll mainly find me here. I’m not quitting X cold turkey, as I still need to use it for client work, but I’m slowly building up my personal projects on Mastodon as well and transferring my focus.

Why I'm choosing Mastodon over Bluesky, Threads and X — *Why I’m choosing Mastodon over Bluesky, Threads and X*

One positive benefit of Elon Musk taking over Twitter has been a resurgence in interest in microblogging, and the rise of credible alternatives beyond the alt-right. So we’ve seen Threads launched by Facebook, Bluesky Social by people including Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey, and a sudden re-emergence of Mastodon, which actually originally launched in 2016.

I did sign up with Mastodon and play around when it originally went live. But for various reasons I didn’t feel like I had the time to start building up profiles on a new social network. After all, we had Twitter, and there was no need for an alternative. What could possibly go wrong?

Why Mastodon now?

Unlike the onboarding experience, it’s pretty simple. We’ve seen what happens when a platform is bought by another company or individual. We’ve also seen what happens when microblogging is a spin-off from the main business (Google Buzz and Google+ for example), so that’s a concern for Threads. And while Bluesky is a Public Benefit LLC, that’s still a for-profit corporation. So out of all the main options, only Mastodon, created by Eugen Rocko, is maintained by a non-profit (Mastodon gGmbH).

It’s also crowdfunded, which means it doesn’t need advertisers or sponsored content. While I have nothing against advertising in general, and continue to use it on some of my personal projects, or for client work, it often creates issues within community-driven projects which differ from publications or business, for example.

And part of the reason Mastodon feels a little more complicated initially is that it’s an open source federated service. This means that anyone can offer their own ‘instance’ on the platform, with their own rules. But you can still interect with everyone across the whole network, and indeed any other service using the ActivityPub standard.

In plain language, that means I could easily move my profile from the Mastodon.social instance where it’s currently located, and onto a .danthornton instance if I wanted. All my content and followers would transfer with me, and I’d then be able to set whatever rules I wanted for anyone wanting to join me. That seems a lot easier if I disagree with the decisions of my current community than switching to an entirely new network.

And along with that, I’m also able to easily export, back up and archive all the public information from my profile, or any instance I run, so if it ends for any reason, I can re-establish it elsewhere. Looking at the comments on my Ello blog, it’s so sad to see how many people have potentially lost years of art, photographs, and words. Especially for the historian in me.

I can also integrate activity elsewhere, including from WordPress, Pixelfed (a federated image social network similar to Instagram), Lemmy (similar to a Reddit aggregator), or any other existing or new service which uses ActivityPub to allow cross-publishing and interaction.

It’s similar to WordPress, which I use for all my personal projects, and the majority of client work. There are valid and effective alternatives when it comes to blogging, publishing and eCommerce, such as Squarespace, Wix, Shopify, etc. And they all generally have less time overheads to run, in exchange for a monthly cost.

But they’re also platforms owned by businesses who may change ownership, make changes or cease trading. With a self-hosted WordPress blog, it’s on a server I rent and have access to. And as long as I run regular backups, I can move at any time to a different location, or even run my own server.

Being open source, or indeed being federated, doesn’t mean a platform or service is guaranteed to be successful. But it does provide some insurance for the end user if it’s not. And after investing 16 years in Twitter, I think it’s worth having some kind of reassurance when I’m choosing a new social network to spend time and energy on.

I’m not planning to attempt a dramatic exit with a grand flourish, but I’ve noticed myself gradually stepping away from ‘big’ social. The changes to Twitter post-Musk are fairly noticeable and well documented, but I’ve grown increasingly tired of the constant baiting and absolutistism on all social networks. Even if I’m increasingly resisting the urge to reply, it’s hard to ignore the deluge of rubbish piling up in each scroll through social feeds.

Attention is money when you’re largely funded by advertising or paywalls. And it’s much easier to inspire anger and outrage, especially when you’re panding to a large audience of strangers.

From politics and religion, to the era of mass media, it’s always held true. There was a brief blip when the internet was niche enough that many people were more grateful to find like-minded geeks, than interested in notoriety and fame. Which meant a lower proportion of annoyance on a daily basis. But as mainstream adoption arrived, that changed.

It’s not about everyone agreeing with my particular world view, or beliefs. I enjoy respectfully debating with friends and contacts who have different perspectives, and hopefully learning things from each other, even if we’ll never find a middle ground that pleases everyone.

What gets to me is seeing people sharing blatant rubbish, dog whistles, and being offensive for the sake of it. There’s a different between being provocative for a reason, and running around like a toddler who has discovered swearing for the first time. And boosting your follower numbers isn’t a good reason.

I’ve always wondered why people needed to comment on things that were irrelevant to them. There are lots of TV shows, sports and hobbies that don’t interest me, so I don’t watch them or take part. But I’ve never felt any need to pursue their fans around, telling them why their personal choices are rubbish.

Which is probably good, seeing as they’d be armed with cricket bats and golf clubs. Both of which seem like a waste of a nice afternoon to me. But I can understand why people feel passionately about them, and would likely wonder why I’m happy standing on a grassy bank watching cars or motorcycles drive in circles.

But there’s another reason for stepping away. Social networks offer a similar promise to reality TV, with fame and potential earnings if you’re noticeable enough. And that means constantly striving to be in the top 1%, with the money dropping off pretty steeply towards the middle ground. Most of us will be average, by definition. So what’s the point in chasing a big view count or follower number?

The best projects and communities I’ve been part of all had fairly small networks of people working together for a common aim. Whether it was the editorial forum producing the Disposable Media PDF mag in the early 2000s, the team that came together for DPiP and Peterborough STEM Festival, the times when the MCN website was being run by just a few people largely ignored by the rest of the company, or Absolute Radio was launching new apps and tech every week as an upstart outsider. Or the Team ORD sim racing squad on Discord.

And the final reason is fairly simple. Sharing my thoughts online will probably never make me rich or famous. But when I share them here, they last for as long as the domain and hosting are running. And any benefits from notoriety, advertising, email sign-ups or connections will pass my way, rather than to Musk or Zuckerberg (or their investors and shareholders).

I’ll still use Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn etc, but mainly for private messages and discussions with people who have interesting opinions or views that I’ll respect even if I don’t agree with. I’m wary of sites in the midde ground of popularity, with the constant risk that they’ll be acquired and disappear overnight (like Ello). And I’ll continue to explore new options, like the federated networks which include Mastodon and Pixelfeed (I’m currently sharing my virtual sim racing photography on Pxlmo for example).

But from now on, I’m intending to focus on sharing more on my own sites, including the half-formed random ramblings like this. Or simple tweet or toot-length observations which ignore all SEO advice. And contributing in small communities with positive purposes and targets, whether that’s to help the local community, improve healthcare for marginalised groups or just get better at sim racing.

Why Mastodon now?

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