I have a suspicion that a lot of the defensive maneuvering on Mastodon is happening because Mastodon fans know that the network absolutely cannot compete on user friendliness and basic social functionality, so they’re leaning hard into the things it does get right—and then, in some cases, trying to shame people into not even thinking about trying a competing network.

Notices where this attachment appears

1. Chris Trottier (atomicpoet@mastodon.social)'s status on Monday, 01-May-2023 17:26:40 UTC Chris Trottier

   Some might call me a “Mastodon fan”—but for a fan, I tend to critique it a lot.

   Nevertheless, let me give my perspective on my “defensive maneuvering”.

   Bluesky has a better onboarding experience. User friendliness, not so much. But most people forgive this because it’s in “closed beta”.

   The real unease is that Bluesky is VC-funded, is following the Silicon Valley hype machine by the book, and still hasn’t decentralized.

   Yeah, I’m leery. So are many others.