Make no mistake, Mastodon is making history right now: At this point no matter what happens next many many people will stay in the fediverse. Interesting times!
> At this point no matter what happens next many many people will stay in the fediverse.
i'm very skeptical. it has that "use a linux pc" feeling.
let me put it like this: does anyone believe it will dethrone tiktok? or whatsapp? or facebook? or even twitter? unless something major changes (e.g. a single node that has everything and everyone on it) i'd wager there's a 0% chance of that happening. but more people will surely use activitypub. the problem is the numbers will still be tiny.
There might be hundreds of millions active users for the big apps, but I have been a part of an active and lively social network (general, not specialised) site with a few thousands users and one could already see powerful network effects emerge. Which is why I think mastodon does not have to dethrone anyone. The only thing that is needed is to acquire enough users that it will be self-sustaining. That would probably need a few million active worldwide users. It's not completely impossible, because right now there are enough people sensitive to one-platform problems, thanks to Zuckerberg and Musk.
If that happens, the big platforms have a big problem.
It's not like Mastodon is some new upstart where we can only speculate on its sustainability. I've been on there for years and there's always enough going on to keep me coming back.
