nope

Wait, wait, wait, hold up.

I’m sorry.

For months now, I keep thinking, you know, there’s probably something legitimate about the fact that ActivityPub and its long history and Mastodon and how well-developed it is, and how right now and for years, ActivityPub is the social web dream.

It’s the configurable one.

And just thinking, well, you know, it’s money.

Money’s not behind it.

It’s a non-profit, and that’s, therefore, invalid, because social services have to make money.

How did I, and yet I know, Twitter didn’t make money for a decade?

How did that disconnect exist in my mind until just now?

It’s not fucking valid! Because nobody has made money from social.

And by nobody, I mean platforms.

And by hasn’t made money, I mean, at scale, quote-unquote, nobody’s figured out a way to do it where the users are also happy.

And I say nobody.

I’m thinking of specific examples where that doesn’t apply, but no.

No, that’s not valid.

Yeah, and what I’m talking about specifically is just, I don’t, you know, there’s a long history now of, I try to get my friends to move to Mastodon, quote-unquote.

Basically, a large part of my social life, social existence, I almost said heritage, was this list of about 100, 120 people.

It was a Twitter list that people lit, many of whom I had known for 10 years or more, and I, that was my social web.

And I, you know, tried a variety of ways to figure out how I could retain that list by getting them to move to Mastodon, because I didn’t feel secure on Twitter.

And that was reasonable.

So when last year, my Twitter account got suspended, I should have been prepared, except I didn’t get anybody to move to Mastodon.

And I had this perfect consumption experience, but none of my friends, none of my old friends on Mastodon.

And the crux of this particular dilemma is that many of those friends, a majority of those friends are independent, God, the word creators is the word we use now, fucking hell, but they’re artists, musicians, video editors.

Many of them have freelance in more than one of those.

And so they depend in some way on their social presence to turn that into connections and money, etc.

It’s a business thing.

And Mastodon just doesn’t translate into business.

That bit and money, because people have been making money and seeking money and seeking employment, etc, etc.

It’s been a business consideration on the user end for as long as the social web has existed.

I don’t understand, though.

Other than, like, I can’t figure out other than hype.

Oh, yeah.

So many of those friends, and I empathize, but I don’t understand.

Many of those friends were like, the sign of experience is just too confusing for Mastodon.

But fucking Blue Sky, many of those same friends have gone on Blue Sky.

I say many, a few of those friends have successfully managed to start Blue Sky accounts.

And I, again, I can’t figure out like what the disconnect is.

Because, I mean, I literally, I can’t think of a better onboarding experience.

And I have the capability of imagining that, because I, believe it or not, had no idea what the fuck Mastodon was for when I signed up.

And I just did not understand federation.

Decentralization was a word that I’d never seen.

Yeah, I’m getting too far.

But I don’t understand, like, Blue Sky is, is it really just like the one, the one instance?

I mean, I treated Mastodon when I signed up for this account.

Mastodon.social, I just, I was just like, oh, that’s the most popular one.

So I’ll sign up for that and see what happens.

I’m guessing, I’m guessing that’s what my thought process was.

I very well may not have understood that Mastodon.social was only one instance.

So there’s my qualification.

But I think that, I still think that that is okay, given how literally just 100% portable every single Mastodon account is.

In a process that is ridiculously quick, you’ve no idea.

Anyway, I don’t understand.

But yeah, the, I guess I didn’t actually say anything other than the idea that the platforms, okay, there seems to be some legitimacy in just the hype.

It is just the hype.

That’s what I was trying to get around to saying.

Literally, Blue Sky, it is just hype.

There is no, no practical justification.

It doesn’t make any sense.

None of the arguments that I, that I’ve heard from folks who have tried Mastodon, tried to sign up for Mastodon, and found the experience undesirable for whatever reason.

No, those, those arguments, I guess, weren’t the real problem.

I swear to God, Graber, I’m coming after you!