Happy ninth Mastodon Won't Survive Day to all who celebrate!https://mashable.com/article/mastodon-wont-survive

@rysiek 1 reason Mashable won't survive

@MikeFromLFE @RoyHorace @mxchara @rysiek

I think you have tech-related interests and hobbies, but what you put together tends to be considered "shadow IT" in the industry (even though its now more widely used).

I suspect a lot of those aged 50-70+ do now have greater tech skills than younger generations as they *had* to learn a bit more about how the computer works (such as file and directory structures) and until 1990s computers with GUI weren't that commonplace..

@rysiek Lance Ulanoff has been and always will be an idiot.

@Eeveecraft @rysiek He might be right in terms of what happens (I'll take your word for it) but to me, that's not a negative thing.

Personally I find that growth almost always happens at the expense of people already at the platform or who are customers because growth focuses on everyone who is not there and not to those who are.

@hamatti @rysiek

My issue is that a platform the size of Mastodon isn't going to encourage sweeping changes to how the internet is inhabited. People keep talking about how the Fediverse is going to revolutionize things and fight back against ensh!ttification and centralization, but if the biggest platform on the Fediverse can hardly maintain 1m monthly active users after about a decade, then it's not doing its job very well at inspiring that change.

It's great that the people already inside the Fediverse are having a great time, but that's not stopping the rapid ensh!ttification of everything outside it. I don't really want the Fediverse to solely be a nerd's club because only nerds use it, that wasn't the point of it. Like, if the Fediverse is so good, why wouldn't we want to share it with more people and encourage them to adopt it and get away from algorithm/slop hell?

@rysiek It's funny that it has been and will continue to be here much longer than anyone predicted. To me, it sounds like a complaint that it's not like Twitter or Facebook, and because of that, it will die soon. So, next year and the year after that, someone could write this again and again, but then, after a decade, it will still be here with all its users.

@Eeveecraft @rysiek I'm all for Mastodon to improve to be more approachable to new users but I don't see the slow or stagnated growth as such a big problem.

Anectodal but most of the time when I hear people in my circles talk about why they don't like Mastodon, it's all about the lack of features like which I'm escaping the Xs and Blueskys and Threads and Facebooks of the world.

Algorithmic feeds filled with content you didn't choose to follow, centralised governance, lack of choice.

@dec23k @rysiek @chrisp same. I found so many wonderful & creative folks on google+. I'm still salty about how google ruined it.

And I'm so happy to have found fedi.

@chrisp @rysiek I already soft quit Mastodon once and came back, seems pretty stable.

RE: https://hachyderm.io/@dalias/113729648181583141

@paninid @rysiek @dgodon No, really, move slow.

@xinit @BenjaminNelan @rysiek I have to admit, it does sometimes feel like the 00s, 10s and 20s have been a slowly worsening series of time loops as everything slow crashes. So maybe it's only been 10 long time whimy years.

@Eeveecraft @rysiek Also, from what I've seen in the Mastodon community, the preference is that there wouldn't be a main instance that keeps growing but rather that Mastodon would promote other instances in the sign up phase to spread the people across different instances.

@rysiek Know-it all newbies have a Dunning-Kruger vibe to them, at least Mastodon is not a Nazi-bar!

@vfrmedia @RoyHorace @mxchara @rysiek
Shadow IT - I like that!

Yes, I could program a Commodore PET computer in Basic and a ZX-something-or-other.
The PET was at work in about 1981 and we used it to print laboratory results onto labels which avoided the errors from our nasty handwriting!
The HTML stuff was on a Mac of some shape and I was given a lot of encouragement by one of our consultant pathologists. In that job I also had to learn how to fettle a big DEC thingy with tape cartridges that ran a medium sized network.
At home I had a Prestel terminal and a home PC that I was happy to get into the insides of. (The first of those was an Amstrad PC1512 that's still in the loft)

So, yes, lots of IT background but none of it •directly• relevant to the 21st century.

@Kalshann I have been watching old Law & Order TV shows, and then the 90s feel like the 1890s. I don't remember having hair or clothes like this.

@BenjaminNelan @rysiek

@rysiek@mstdn.social nine years later, Mastodon just made even better and #Misskey is giving Mastodon a hand.

@donelias @rysiek i didn't know mashable was still around, has anyone figured out what it is for?

@rysiek Ah yes. Opinions on new tech and services of those who have drank the Koolaid. Gatta love the fact the article just sits there frozen in time, while the rest of the world continues to move forward. The internet truly never forgets.

@rysiek Ulanoff got stuck and can NOT evolve past his scant understanding of the "internet", beyond Web2.0

He never had a single tech opinion that was not handed to him, with a check, by some corporate PR douchebag.

Always consider your sources.

@rysiek I started following this Lars Ulanoff, if he's such a big cheese. Couldn't find William Shatner though.