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0 pointsdredmorbius3y ago0 comments

I'm pitching my explanation to the presumably technical audience of HN readers.

This is a world in which people are familiar with webmail (email access through an HTTP gateway), and of both Web- and App-based interfaces to services such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, SnapChat, and Reddit.

I'm reasonably comfortable in the thought that whether or not the Great Unwashed Masses think in terms of "HTTP Gateway" or Browser vs. App, they'll work through this particular Sysiphian obstacle without a great deal of effort.

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phailhaus3y ago· 2 in thread

Why is Mastodon still hoping that the Great Unwashed Masses will come up with an explanation for the technical guts of their platform? It's been six years and articles still fall over themselves trying to explain what it is, and usually land on a variant of "it's just like Twitter, but more complicated."

What I'm getting at is that Mastodon has a serious UX and communication problem, because they're not able to pitch the platform in a way that laypeople would care. Regular people don't care about the merits of decentralization. What matters is the experience, and Mastodon seems to be trying really hard to look as much like Twitter as possible. But that's a death sentence: Twitter is always going to be the best at being Twitter.

dredmorbiusOP3y ago

Novel social networks fail to gain traction for all number of issues, of which UI/UX is only one small part. Founding cohort and compelling case is the most critical issue, and tipping points may occur precipitously. The instances of Slashdot, Digg, and Reddit, or of MySpace and Facebook come to mind.

I'm not saying that Mastodon doesn't have significant UI/UX issues. I've written on several of these at length on Mastodon. I've addressed at least one in this thread. But its multi-instance aspect really doesn't strike me as a weakness. Anything but.

You clearly feel strongly and differently. I doubt we'll progress on this point here and now.

phailhaus3y ago

It's not just the multi-instance aspect, the problem is that Mastodon is trying to look like Twitter. Twitter will always win at the Twitter experience. There's no reason to switch away for normal people.

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