Mozilla exits the Fediverse and will shutter its Mastodon server in December(techcrunch.com)
techcrunch.com
Mozilla exits the Fediverse and will shutter its Mastodon server in December
https://techcrunch.com/2024/09/17/mozilla-exits-the-fediverse-and-will-shutter-its-mastodon-server-in-december/
122 comments
IMHO this is an absolutely fatal design flaw. It means that if it were to become very popular eventually the largest instances would take over the network due to network effects. ActivityPub has eventual centralization baked in.
Nostr is closer to a real decentralized social network, though it has other problems. Chief among these is trying to be Twitter, which has always been a model of interaction that lends itself to obnoxiousness. This was also a problem with Mastodon. If we're trying to do better, we should not be trying to duplicate a toxic environment. Still Nostr is architecturally superior.
Nostr is closer to a real decentralized social network, though it has other problems. Chief among these is trying to be Twitter, which has always been a model of interaction that lends itself to obnoxiousness. This was also a problem with Mastodon. If we're trying to do better, we should not be trying to duplicate a toxic environment. Still Nostr is architecturally superior.
Can you expand on the Nostr problems? Honest question. I mostly see it trying to offer another (architecturally better and robust to censorship) mechanism for group communication.
I think (hope, TBH) that Nostr can fill the niche of the Usenet of the past where some groups did slide into obnoxiousness but others maintained intelligent and thoughtful discussions for many years. My 2c.
I think (hope, TBH) that Nostr can fill the niche of the Usenet of the past where some groups did slide into obnoxiousness but others maintained intelligent and thoughtful discussions for many years. My 2c.
I always liked the reddit post-scarcity solution to this -- make it as easy as possible to fork / start a new community.
Users will vote with their feet.
What was required to start a new usenet domain? (a bit before my time)
Users will vote with their feet.
What was required to start a new usenet domain? (a bit before my time)
> What was required to start a new usenet domain?
Assuming you mean a new newsgroup (discussion forum for a single topic e.g. comp.lang.lisp):
- If you wanted it in the Big 8 hierarchy, you had to campaign for it and get support and prove it would have traffic.
- If you wanted it in alt.*, you just posted a control message (and then everyone ignored your group)
Or you could make your own hierarchy but it's up to each individual server which hierarchies they carry.
Assuming you mean a new newsgroup (discussion forum for a single topic e.g. comp.lang.lisp):
- If you wanted it in the Big 8 hierarchy, you had to campaign for it and get support and prove it would have traffic.
- If you wanted it in alt.*, you just posted a control message (and then everyone ignored your group)
Or you could make your own hierarchy but it's up to each individual server which hierarchies they carry.
Nostr is not trying to be Twitter; Nostr the protocol is more generalized than that. It just so happens that a lot of people want a Twitter alternative right now, so that's a popular Nostr webapp to make.
There is also Nostr chess, Nostr podcasting, Nostr marketplaces, Nostr data vending machines, Nostr blogs, and more. See https://nostrapps.com/ for a sample of what people are making.
There is also Nostr chess, Nostr podcasting, Nostr marketplaces, Nostr data vending machines, Nostr blogs, and more. See https://nostrapps.com/ for a sample of what people are making.
Don't be a digital serf, run your own instance.
Personally I would start here, not because it is good but because it is simple.
https://humungus.tedunangst.com/r/honk
Personally I would start here, not because it is good but because it is simple.
https://humungus.tedunangst.com/r/honk
Why would you go through the trouble, when nobody else is doing that, because the success of the system is highly dependent on network effects?
These things have first-mover disadvantage, and last-mover advantage.
These things have first-mover disadvantage, and last-mover advantage.
But it's not dependent on network effects, you can follow people and they can follow back even if you run your own server.
You miss being in the explore tab but I don't think that's the main source of traffic, and various bots or groups that re-share toots will likely spread your account far and wide.
You miss being in the explore tab but I don't think that's the main source of traffic, and various bots or groups that re-share toots will likely spread your account far and wide.
This kind of attitude is the reason Mastodon will never be attractive to a lot of people who might otherwise be interested in it.
The same people who have their whole lives on a free @gmail.com account with zero plan for what to do if that account goes away? The problem is real in any event, it's just a question of whether you care enough to do something about it. And if you don't care enough to do something about it for email, then you might as well not worry about it for Mastodon.
My understanding has been that the design of Mastodon is such that this is not universalizable—if everyone ran their own instance every instance would end up with too much traffic and drown. Is this understanding wrong?
You can't expect most people to run their own instance, there needs to be a more user-friendly way to migrate accounts.
I'm sorry but I'm 100 % involved in a big open source project (rebuilding google maps).
Why would I spend time hosting an instance of mastodon ? I'm happy to pay for it.
Bluesky says it's 10 cents per user per year. Happy to pay for this.
Why would I spend time hosting an instance of mastodon ? I'm happy to pay for it.
Bluesky says it's 10 cents per user per year. Happy to pay for this.
What exactly do you mean? I migrated from one instance to another without problem, and all my followers/followings came over without an issue.
You've lost your posts.
Of course keeping your followers is important. But having a new empty wall was a real problem for me.
I didn't know it. Nobody told me, from the people to the interface that I would lose my 3500 messages. It's like having your blog content on another domain in the hands of another host, that can shut your old page down when he wants.
It's the perfect walled garden in terms of content.
Also, the instance where I was had its backup feature down for months. Finally, the followers migration failed at 80 %.
Of course keeping your followers is important. But having a new empty wall was a real problem for me.
I didn't know it. Nobody told me, from the people to the interface that I would lose my 3500 messages. It's like having your blog content on another domain in the hands of another host, that can shut your old page down when he wants.
It's the perfect walled garden in terms of content.
Also, the instance where I was had its backup feature down for months. Finally, the followers migration failed at 80 %.
Is this doc page incorrect, https://blog.joinmastodon.org/2019/06/how-to-migrate-from-on...
> On this page you can also download a copy of your archive that can be read by any ActivityPub software. This archive includes all of your posts and media. So even if the instance that you are moving from shuts down, as is the case with KNZK, you will still have a copy of all of your posts!
> On this page you can also download a copy of your archive that can be read by any ActivityPub software. This archive includes all of your posts and media. So even if the instance that you are moving from shuts down, as is the case with KNZK, you will still have a copy of all of your posts!
The problem is you want all those old posts to be associated with the new (migrated) account on the new instance and be hosted there.
Sure, being able to get an archive is nice.
Sure, being able to get an archive is nice.
Presumably it's not a technical limitation, since an importer could be written and added by some instances, even if not accepted upstream.
If the lack of import is caused by policy conflict or cost for administrators to review bulk-imported content, does this encourage individuals to have a paid instance to aggregate historical content, e.g. https://masto.host.
If the lack of import is caused by policy conflict or cost for administrators to review bulk-imported content, does this encourage individuals to have a paid instance to aggregate historical content, e.g. https://masto.host.
This is just a legal requirement in the EU. Nothing more. It doesn't make this archive useful.
> You've lost your posts.
A couple of solutions: (a) post them on a website and put a link in your new Mastodon profile, or (b) use something like mastodon.py https://mastodonpy.readthedocs.io/en/stable/index.html to post them to your new account.
A couple of solutions: (a) post them on a website and put a link in your new Mastodon profile, or (b) use something like mastodon.py https://mastodonpy.readthedocs.io/en/stable/index.html to post them to your new account.
Does it copy over all the comments and interactions as well?
Does the old server redirect to your new account if someone linked to your old post(s) from somewhere else?
Does the old server redirect to your new account if someone linked to your old post(s) from somewhere else?
Only if your old instance still exists and cooperates.
I can totally see instance admins denying a transfer after banning you (because if they banned you they probably would like to punish you further).
I can totally see instance admins denying a transfer after banning you (because if they banned you they probably would like to punish you further).
Worse : my old instance had its backup down for months.
Also, no GIF support. I asked the admin if he was wanting to get my help, or some funds to help for the servers. Said no.
Imagine : to get GIF support by switching instance, I would lose my posts.
After I did the migration, we talked, the backup worked again.
Couldn't even see his answers nor thank him, since once the migration is acted you lose access to your past discussions.
Disclosure : my account was censored, I did not respect one of the "laws" specific to the instance.
Also, no GIF support. I asked the admin if he was wanting to get my help, or some funds to help for the servers. Said no.
Imagine : to get GIF support by switching instance, I would lose my posts.
After I did the migration, we talked, the backup worked again.
Couldn't even see his answers nor thank him, since once the migration is acted you lose access to your past discussions.
Disclosure : my account was censored, I did not respect one of the "laws" specific to the instance.
> Disclosure : my account was censored, I did not respect one of the "laws" specific to the instance.
In the early 2000s, hackers were staunch defenders of free speech. The internet was a safe space from an often conservative and religiously Puritanical "meat space".
Now that the pendulum has swung, a majority seemingly wants to shut down the things and the people that they disagree with. Moreover, the accepted social behavior encourages this kind of hate and range and spite. It's even been gamified.
In many ways, the future turned out a lot worse than I'd hoped for. This is certainly one of the things I loathe.
In the early 2000s, hackers were staunch defenders of free speech. The internet was a safe space from an often conservative and religiously Puritanical "meat space".
Now that the pendulum has swung, a majority seemingly wants to shut down the things and the people that they disagree with. Moreover, the accepted social behavior encourages this kind of hate and range and spite. It's even been gamified.
In many ways, the future turned out a lot worse than I'd hoped for. This is certainly one of the things I loathe.
In the early 2000s people were regularly banned from various phpBB forums because a moderator was a bit of a dick.
I run a Mastodon server and I'm quick to moderate things that I'd probably want a monolithic service like Twitter or Facebook to allow. We're a smallish community of like-minded people, and the people on my server repeatedly tell me they like my moderation policies. If they didn't, I'd change them to match the community's mores.
But here's the deal: while I can and do moderate what passes through my server, there's absolutely nothing I can do about how you run yours. I'm not telling anyone they can't say certain things. I'm telling them they need to say it somewhere else.
By analogy, it's probably closer to a message board. If I were running a board for physicists, I feel absolutely zero obligation to allow crackpots to post anti-science nonsense and yell at the scientists there. They can go make their own message board, or Mastodon instance, if they want to say those things.
But here's the deal: while I can and do moderate what passes through my server, there's absolutely nothing I can do about how you run yours. I'm not telling anyone they can't say certain things. I'm telling them they need to say it somewhere else.
By analogy, it's probably closer to a message board. If I were running a board for physicists, I feel absolutely zero obligation to allow crackpots to post anti-science nonsense and yell at the scientists there. They can go make their own message board, or Mastodon instance, if they want to say those things.
It would be strictly better without middlemen.
There is always going to be some percentage of interest overlap between users that gets destroyed by federated moderation. It's too coarse grained and ruins the decentralized possibilities of the internet.
That isn't to say that users shouldn't be able to filter out whatever they dislike. Rather, it would be best if that was a user's choice [1].
I participate in LGBT spaces, but I'm not going to block people for playing Harry Potter. I don't appreciate people stepping in my way to censor things they think I shouldn't see or hear.
To make an analogy with Reddit, if I make a comment in r/conservative (without necessarily even subscribing to their ideology), I get banned from dozens of other subreddits via automated moderation tools. That's a lot like how Mastodon thinks the world should work. But that's not how people are or should be.
Mastodon (and subreddit mods) think everyone should wear a membership pin or be emblazoned with a Scarlet Letter. That's incredibly harmful to people and is leading to increasing polarization in society.
[1] I'm sure that could even be done at scale by subscribing to community block lists. It shouldn't be a hassle, it just shouldn't be centrally planned and executed with no recourse from the end users.
There is always going to be some percentage of interest overlap between users that gets destroyed by federated moderation. It's too coarse grained and ruins the decentralized possibilities of the internet.
That isn't to say that users shouldn't be able to filter out whatever they dislike. Rather, it would be best if that was a user's choice [1].
I participate in LGBT spaces, but I'm not going to block people for playing Harry Potter. I don't appreciate people stepping in my way to censor things they think I shouldn't see or hear.
To make an analogy with Reddit, if I make a comment in r/conservative (without necessarily even subscribing to their ideology), I get banned from dozens of other subreddits via automated moderation tools. That's a lot like how Mastodon thinks the world should work. But that's not how people are or should be.
Mastodon (and subreddit mods) think everyone should wear a membership pin or be emblazoned with a Scarlet Letter. That's incredibly harmful to people and is leading to increasing polarization in society.
[1] I'm sure that could even be done at scale by subscribing to community block lists. It shouldn't be a hassle, it just shouldn't be centrally planned and executed with no recourse from the end users.
Here is another perspective: In the 2000s, many of us were children and teens. Now we’re not, and definitely don’t want our own kids to be exposed to the same Internet as we were back then…
People romanticize that time way more than it deserves.
I’m not a fan of censorship, but there’s a case to be made for reasonable adults deciding the ground rules. Case in point: Twitter.
People romanticize that time way more than it deserves.
I’m not a fan of censorship, but there’s a case to be made for reasonable adults deciding the ground rules. Case in point: Twitter.
> Now we’re not, and definitely don’t want our own kids to be exposed to the same Internet as we were back then…
Eehhh speak for yourself. I wish the young generation could experience the free and open and wild Internet that I did in the 90s and 00s...
Now they're stuck with ~10 websites run by giant megacorporations and "adults deciding the ground rules"...
Give the kids some credit, they're smarter than you think..
Eehhh speak for yourself. I wish the young generation could experience the free and open and wild Internet that I did in the 90s and 00s...
Now they're stuck with ~10 websites run by giant megacorporations and "adults deciding the ground rules"...
Give the kids some credit, they're smarter than you think..
>I wish the young generation could experience the free and open and wild Internet that I did in the 90s and 00s...
Those were exhilarating and heady times for many teenagers and children, to be sure, but you don't have any children of your own, do you?
Those were exhilarating and heady times for many teenagers and children, to be sure, but you don't have any children of your own, do you?
I have kids and I wish they could have the old web, warts and all it was a much better place for learning and connecting than what we have now.
> I can totally see instance admins denying a transfer after banning you (because if they banned you they probably would like to punish you further).
This is the fucked up problem with federation and it's why we need true peer-to-peer social media.
Instead of corporate ideological kowtowing, now it's a thousand little fiefdoms of tiny tyrants deciding if you pattern fit to the ascribed dogma.
This is the fucked up problem with federation and it's why we need true peer-to-peer social media.
Instead of corporate ideological kowtowing, now it's a thousand little fiefdoms of tiny tyrants deciding if you pattern fit to the ascribed dogma.
I could see things swinging back to an IndieWeb-style setup where we have blogs that can ping each other. I have my own blog hosted on micro.blog for exactly that reason. I can follow other peoples posts as if they were posting to Twitter or something, reply to them, see their replies, etc., and ultimately I own 100% of my content and can move it to any other blog software at any time. Maybe this is the way.
That's sort of the idea with Bluesky isn't it?
Your profile includes your posts and all your data, and you are free to move it around, back it up, host it wherever you want, etc... But all the posts are federated together.
I haven't looked at it closely in a while but I know they're still growing slowly but steadily..
Your profile includes your posts and all your data, and you are free to move it around, back it up, host it wherever you want, etc... But all the posts are federated together.
I haven't looked at it closely in a while but I know they're still growing slowly but steadily..
Yes, I've switched to Bluesky. After investigating their protocols, Bluesky fits my needs way better. I'm quite convinced now Mastodon will never leave the tech sphere.
It's a migration for the future, not a migration of your past content - understandable because that past content likely has references from other instances and pushing those changes across would be a heavy operation, unreliable, and probably fraught with potential security problems.
I believe for retaining content it's pretty much retaining it for yourself by downloading an archive, though some instances may allow uploading that. There's also at least one browser-based web app that lets you open and view the content of that archive - otherwise it's kind of useless.
Edit: https://github.com/zero-mstd/mav-z
I believe for retaining content it's pretty much retaining it for yourself by downloading an archive, though some instances may allow uploading that. There's also at least one browser-based web app that lets you open and view the content of that archive - otherwise it's kind of useless.
Edit: https://github.com/zero-mstd/mav-z
> It's a migration for the future, not a migration of your past content - understandable because that past content likely has references from other instances and pushing those changes across would be a heavy operation, unreliable, and probably fraught with potential security problems.
Yes of course I'm getting the technical and conceptual difficulties as a developer, but it's awful UX. It's a real deal breaker once you discover it. You cannot use Mastodon as your primary content database anymore.
Yes of course I'm getting the technical and conceptual difficulties as a developer, but it's awful UX. It's a real deal breaker once you discover it. You cannot use Mastodon as your primary content database anymore.
It’s a social network. Do you expect Facebook or Twitter to be your primary content database?
But I do agree UX could and should be better
But I do agree UX could and should be better
I think most people expect their Facebook and Twitter posts to be around in 5 years.
I don’t. It’s naive to believe any social network is in it for the long haul. Too many have failed to believe they won’t as well. Particularly, exitter.
It’s best to assume anything you don’t host yourself is ephemeral.
It’s best to assume anything you don’t host yourself is ephemeral.
And yet, I have Facebook posts that will be 20 years old next year. The attitude that “I’m distrusting of social media, therefore this major adoption blocker is fine as it exists” is why only techies have managed to adopt Mastodon, and is why that will be the limits of its adoption.
It's then less like comfortable moving and more like fleeing or going on exile. You're happy to be still alive but you've lost all you had.
Migration for the future, LOL. Like stepping off a boat, with a suitcase and the shirt on your back. Except it's just another third world country, from which you will have to do it all over again.
For people fleeing the rise of extremist content on Xitter, that seems an oddly appropriate analogy.
Yes, unlike every other social network. Or email. Or SMS. Or any other chat. Etc.
Wow, I had no idea. This means migration is next to useless.
The people responding to you saying this is expected are missing the point.
The people responding to you saying this is expected are missing the point.
> This means migration is next to useless.
Well not completely. Lots of people see microblogging as the daily rant, the cat pictures. For them, it's not a big problem.
But for people like me that use microbloging as a way to publish content, that use the search feature quite often to retrieve past thoughts, past links, etc it's a fatal flaw, like other users told it.
Well not completely. Lots of people see microblogging as the daily rant, the cat pictures. For them, it's not a big problem.
But for people like me that use microbloging as a way to publish content, that use the search feature quite often to retrieve past thoughts, past links, etc it's a fatal flaw, like other users told it.
Not to mention search itself being fundamentally broken in Mastodon - there is no way to search all servers at once, you will always only see what the instance you're searching on has ingested into its cache. There's no trending topics or if there is, it's outdated and/or unmoderated.
On top of that... instance mods powertripping is another issue. I don't care on which side of that godforsaken war in Israel/Palestine two different instance moderators are. But I do care when one of these morons drags in their user base into this bitch fight and decides to defederate from the instance ran by the other dude and suddenly I can't interact with a follower any more, I don't even get a warning "hey, you can't see posts from XYZ any more because their instance defederated from ours".
While I'd love to see Mastodon succeed at least in survival, it suffers from a bunch of very fundamental design and concept issues.
On top of that... instance mods powertripping is another issue. I don't care on which side of that godforsaken war in Israel/Palestine two different instance moderators are. But I do care when one of these morons drags in their user base into this bitch fight and decides to defederate from the instance ran by the other dude and suddenly I can't interact with a follower any more, I don't even get a warning "hey, you can't see posts from XYZ any more because their instance defederated from ours".
While I'd love to see Mastodon succeed at least in survival, it suffers from a bunch of very fundamental design and concept issues.
I strongly recommend looking at something like IndieWeb's POSSE. You post to your main blog, and some automation automatically crossposts it to Mastodon (or Twitter or ...).
The biggest problem with making Mastodon better is exactly that: anyone who dares suggest the way it's always been has a flaw will quickly be shouted down by people telling them that they're an idiot who clearly doesn't understand that the shortcoming is a feature.
But maybe for them it's a feature. It keeps the microblog content in a particular shape, like daily chat but not too-serious, long-term-valuable content.
Clearly there's a market for both. And maybe they could even be... confederated? That is, it might be possible to combine several sources in your stream, and accept identities across servers for easy commenting. Heh, this all awfully reminds me of the stuff that was already built in early 2000s, with RSS/Atom, the original OpenID, and no huge corporations interested in taking over these small potatoes.
Clearly there's a market for both. And maybe they could even be... confederated? That is, it might be possible to combine several sources in your stream, and accept identities across servers for easy commenting. Heh, this all awfully reminds me of the stuff that was already built in early 2000s, with RSS/Atom, the original OpenID, and no huge corporations interested in taking over these small potatoes.
We are on a forum, having a discussion. Not everyone disagreeing is someone shouting you down. Nobody called each other an idiot here.
Have you expressed disagreement with a duly sworn officer of the Mastodon HOA before? Because they definitely like to yell at and call people with whom they disagree idiots.
It is, frankly, a very unwelcoming place.
It is, frankly, a very unwelcoming place.
The migration issue is why I've never bothered with the "fediverse/mastodon".
The other one is choosing a server. That's actually a critical first step that most don't really understand about the "fediverse". Just looking over the "rules" of mozilla.social is insufferable and a non-starter.
The other one is choosing a server. That's actually a critical first step that most don't really understand about the "fediverse". Just looking over the "rules" of mozilla.social is insufferable and a non-starter.
The writing was on the wall anyway. With the news of the political struggles between Steve Teixeira (who was pushing for deeper integration with open social web) and Laura Chambers (who seems more interested in keeping Google happy to receive the fat checks) it was clear that the whole "Let's open an instance and call an experiment with new social media" was just a way to pretend they were doing anything in the space while not hurting any of Big Tech's feelings.
Back in May I wrote a series of blog posts about mozilla.social, ActivityPub and what I thought could be done instead. (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40428098)
Back in May I wrote a series of blog posts about mozilla.social, ActivityPub and what I thought could be done instead. (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40428098)
> [Steve Teixeira] began a new effort to explore Moz Social, an ethical social media product.
I don't understand.. was this "Moz Social"? What is "Moz Social"? Google believes its the forums of some SEO bullshit company. Did the "Open Social Web" have 300 users?
God knows they did that guy dirty, but the executives at Mozilla really are a hopeless bunch.
I don't understand.. was this "Moz Social"? What is "Moz Social"? Google believes its the forums of some SEO bullshit company. Did the "Open Social Web" have 300 users?
God knows they did that guy dirty, but the executives at Mozilla really are a hopeless bunch.
Mozilla gave plenty of time for this instance to do something spectacular but perhaps, this experiment never made sense in the first place.
> Mozilla.social was a small instance, having only 270 active users as of the time of Tuesday’s announcement.
There is just no financial benefit for Mozilla in spinning up a Mastodon instance only to be used by what <300 active users?
> By comparison, the most popular Mastodon instance, Mastodon.social, has over 247,500 monthly active users.
That's Threads remember? They are now part of the 'fediverse' and interoperate with Mastodon with over ~180M+ monthly active users which is >150x bigger than the monthly active users of the entire fediverse!
We already have the results after witnessing a live experiment [0] when Brazil banned Twitter / X and with lots of alternatives to sign up to; the majority of Brazilians signed up to either Bluesky or Threads.
Maybe Mozilla looked at an actual migration from X to BlueSky or Threads and realized that there was really no point in running a Mastodon instance when Threads was the biggest one.
[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41408985
> Mozilla.social was a small instance, having only 270 active users as of the time of Tuesday’s announcement.
There is just no financial benefit for Mozilla in spinning up a Mastodon instance only to be used by what <300 active users?
> By comparison, the most popular Mastodon instance, Mastodon.social, has over 247,500 monthly active users.
That's Threads remember? They are now part of the 'fediverse' and interoperate with Mastodon with over ~180M+ monthly active users which is >150x bigger than the monthly active users of the entire fediverse!
We already have the results after witnessing a live experiment [0] when Brazil banned Twitter / X and with lots of alternatives to sign up to; the majority of Brazilians signed up to either Bluesky or Threads.
Maybe Mozilla looked at an actual migration from X to BlueSky or Threads and realized that there was really no point in running a Mastodon instance when Threads was the biggest one.
[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41408985
To perhaps give context here and to others:
270 users on an instance is 100% fine. There are tons of instances with ~1 person. It's a federated system, it's like them running their own email domain: it costs little and they can interact with everyone, and it provides a measure of provable identity beyond just "@mozilla on totally.real.mastodon.xyz".
It does come with maintenance and moderation needs though, e.g. picking which users and instances you want(/need) to block. And some... quirks... that mean joining a mega-instance actually does behave better than a small instance. Kinda like email.
So far I haven't seen any reasons given why they're shutting it down. Just "it's shutting down". "Only 270 users" is almost certainly not related to it though, closed-registration official hosts is completely normal. Kinda like email.
270 users on an instance is 100% fine. There are tons of instances with ~1 person. It's a federated system, it's like them running their own email domain: it costs little and they can interact with everyone, and it provides a measure of provable identity beyond just "@mozilla on totally.real.mastodon.xyz".
It does come with maintenance and moderation needs though, e.g. picking which users and instances you want(/need) to block. And some... quirks... that mean joining a mega-instance actually does behave better than a small instance. Kinda like email.
So far I haven't seen any reasons given why they're shutting it down. Just "it's shutting down". "Only 270 users" is almost certainly not related to it though, closed-registration official hosts is completely normal. Kinda like email.
Threads is not fully open. If they looked at Threads and thought "that's a lot of people", then it would be *one more* reason to have their own instance.
But anyway, I do agree that having their own instance is kind of pointless. We need to get rid of "servers" and get back to an Open Social Web. I wrote in May what I thought would be a smarter approach for them (https://raphael.lullis.net/a-plan-for-social-media-less-fedi...). Instead of yet-another mastodon server, they would be better off if they started building something like https://browser.pub inside of Firefox.
But anyway, I do agree that having their own instance is kind of pointless. We need to get rid of "servers" and get back to an Open Social Web. I wrote in May what I thought would be a smarter approach for them (https://raphael.lullis.net/a-plan-for-social-media-less-fedi...). Instead of yet-another mastodon server, they would be better off if they started building something like https://browser.pub inside of Firefox.
Only a subset of Threads users are currently exposed to the Fediverse, and I believe only partially (not sure if replies have been enabled yet, and if they are, if they're visible as regular replies, or under a separate heading?).
I'd also note that social media use differs hugely per country. See, for example, WhatsApp vs iMessage use in the US and outside, or how Brazil used to be big on Orkut. I wouldn't draw too many conclusions from Brazilian usage patterns vs the rest of the world.
I'd also note that social media use differs hugely per country. See, for example, WhatsApp vs iMessage use in the US and outside, or how Brazil used to be big on Orkut. I wouldn't draw too many conclusions from Brazilian usage patterns vs the rest of the world.
I think the vast majority of users just want a good experience. UI fluidity, timeliness of notifications, DMs, image/video quality, etc. Decentralization is near the last of their concerns.
> There is just no financial benefit for Mozilla in spinning up a Mastodon instance only to be used by what <300 active users?
Was the instance every actually open to the public? Seems to have been invite-only for the entire duration.
Was the instance every actually open to the public? Seems to have been invite-only for the entire duration.
Yeah that’s the biggest issue. I remember when it launched and it was invite only. If they indeed opened the registration at some point nobody knew about it. So they really failed at promoting whatever they were trying to do.
As a side note, just remember that Threads is currently in the Embrace (an open protocol) part of the Embrace, Extend, Extinguish sequence. Whether in 2 years or 10, the extend part will eventually come, followed soon after by Extinguish.
And in 2 or 10 years, a new federated system will probably launch, learning from the mistakes of systems of the past. Maybe that one will be the one that takes root?
This is pointless FUD. Facebook did not extinguished XMPP by adopting from Messenger, did it?
Bad example. Probably not intentional, but of course they did kill XMPP usage in the end. Messenger (and all the other big tech non-XMPP platforms) is where the users are now. Nobody recently said "i need to get on XMPP to connect to my community, friends & family".
You can probably give an example that you actively use it, but you are probably one in a million.
Lets hope Meta is not going to steamroll over the fediverse in a similar way.
You can probably give an example that you actively use it, but you are probably one in a million.
Lets hope Meta is not going to steamroll over the fediverse in a similar way.
They didn’t do federation with XMPP. At best you could use Pidgin or other XMPP clients. That doesn’t count as any form of embrace.
XMPP is a needlessly complex protocol with very poor organization and planning that, in the process of trying to cater to everyone, catered to nobody except a vocal aspirational group online.
Simply put, XMPP killed XMPP.
XMPP is a needlessly complex protocol with very poor organization and planning that, in the process of trying to cater to everyone, catered to nobody except a vocal aspirational group online.
Simply put, XMPP killed XMPP.
No, they did not. The number of XMPP users pre-Facebook (and pre-Google talk) is on the same order as it is today.
My point is that even if Facebook were to attempt EEE with ActivityPub, the existing userbase would not give up.
My point is that even if Facebook were to attempt EEE with ActivityPub, the existing userbase would not give up.
They also bought Instagram and turned it to Ad broadcaster.
They've got Mozilla and Firefox accounts on Threads, and they've chosen not to federate them. I'll leave it as an exercise for the reader to explain how that's consistent with Mozilla's mission.
Can we fork Mozilla? The browser can become a community product again? Where's Jamie Zawinski when you need him. It's time for a rewrite of the about:mozilla screen.
Developing Firefox costs $200M per year. You want to replace that with a community of volunteers?
For those doubting the corp is 750 peoples (2020).
And the Software dev expenses are listed at around $200 millions: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mozilla_Corporation#Finances
750 people is a total number. Number of people involved into developing Firefox is way less.
$200 millions are the aggregated expenses of ALL software 'development' efforts of Mozilla Corporation like VPN, Relay, Pocket, mozilla.social, etc. And there are a lot of interesting expenses which are billed as development. According to Lunduke (1) who dived into the details a bit, there are many very questionnable expenses which are not related to Firefox development.
So the questions is still very open, how much does Firefox development actually costs? Developing Thunderbird costed around $2 millions in 2021 (2).
1 - https://lunduke.locals.com/post/4387539/firefox-money-invest... 2 - https://blog.thunderbird.net/2023/05/thunderbird-is-thriving...
$200 millions are the aggregated expenses of ALL software 'development' efforts of Mozilla Corporation like VPN, Relay, Pocket, mozilla.social, etc. And there are a lot of interesting expenses which are billed as development. According to Lunduke (1) who dived into the details a bit, there are many very questionnable expenses which are not related to Firefox development.
So the questions is still very open, how much does Firefox development actually costs? Developing Thunderbird costed around $2 millions in 2021 (2).
1 - https://lunduke.locals.com/post/4387539/firefox-money-invest... 2 - https://blog.thunderbird.net/2023/05/thunderbird-is-thriving...
Or does it? https://lunduke.locals.com/post/4387539/firefox-money-invest...
Only a fraction of Mozilla luxurious spending goes for Firefox development.
Only a fraction of Mozilla luxurious spending goes for Firefox development.
OK, let's assume that the Mozilla engineering team is 500 people. I could not find reliable numbers, but this looks like the right ballpark. Let's assume that an engineer, on average, costs $250k/year; the cost for employer is much higher than just the salary. This is already $125M. There are also people other than engineers needed to run an org. Build infra also costs something. Let's assume that Firefox could keep being developed, as the sole product, for $200M / year.
Then let's assume that a Firefox user would be willing to pay, on average, $5 / mo, or $60 / year, to support the project. More in richer countries, less in less well-off. This would mean that about 3.4 million of paying users would suffice.
Worldwide, Firefox has 362 million users [1]. Only 1% of users would have to pay an equivalent of a hamburger a month to sustain Firefox. If 5% paid, it would be a price of a cup of plain coffee per month.
Now we need just one teeny tiny thing: somebody capable of organizing this.
[1]: https://www.enterpriseappstoday.com/stats/firefox-statistics...
Then let's assume that a Firefox user would be willing to pay, on average, $5 / mo, or $60 / year, to support the project. More in richer countries, less in less well-off. This would mean that about 3.4 million of paying users would suffice.
Worldwide, Firefox has 362 million users [1]. Only 1% of users would have to pay an equivalent of a hamburger a month to sustain Firefox. If 5% paid, it would be a price of a cup of plain coffee per month.
Now we need just one teeny tiny thing: somebody capable of organizing this.
[1]: https://www.enterpriseappstoday.com/stats/firefox-statistics...
What evidence do you have that 1% of users would be willing to pay a subscription to Firefox? Given that the alternatives are free and probably already installed, and given the friction involved with signing up for a new subscription, I suspect the actual percentage is much less.
I don't have any evidence, but a hypothesis that 1% of Firefox users care enough to keep it afloat looks more realistic than if it turned out that 100% of users would need to shell out $30/mo.
Numbers of voluntarily paying users in open-source projects are usually pretty low, so 1% looks like the right ballpark, and is worth further research, as opposed to rejecting the approach outright as unrealistic.
I'm speaking about the existing user base, who do not need converting. Also, you speak of browsers as of indistinguishable commodity goods; they are not. The pressure that Google exerts to slowly strangle ad-blocking extensions in Chrome will likely make more people consider alternatives.
Numbers of voluntarily paying users in open-source projects are usually pretty low, so 1% looks like the right ballpark, and is worth further research, as opposed to rejecting the approach outright as unrealistic.
I'm speaking about the existing user base, who do not need converting. Also, you speak of browsers as of indistinguishable commodity goods; they are not. The pressure that Google exerts to slowly strangle ad-blocking extensions in Chrome will likely make more people consider alternatives.
Why 500? For example, https://leadiq.com/c/mozilla/5a1d88fe2400002400628c85/employ... estimates estimates that only 40% of the employees are engineering. And they are all around the world so US salaries don't apply.
Also the question is still open, how many of those people are relevant for Firefox development. There are a lot of people working on other projects of Mozilla Co.
Mozilla tries very hard to not to answer those questions. They could have made a separate fund for Firefox development just like they did for Thunderbird. For comparison, Thunderfird team was 24 people in 2022 and development costed $2 million.
Better save your efforts into making sense of Mozilla's shady politics and economics and invest effort into promoting https://ladybird.org/ - a truly independent browser developed from scratch by a non-profit.
Also the question is still open, how many of those people are relevant for Firefox development. There are a lot of people working on other projects of Mozilla Co.
Mozilla tries very hard to not to answer those questions. They could have made a separate fund for Firefox development just like they did for Thunderbird. For comparison, Thunderfird team was 24 people in 2022 and development costed $2 million.
Better save your efforts into making sense of Mozilla's shady politics and economics and invest effort into promoting https://ladybird.org/ - a truly independent browser developed from scratch by a non-profit.
My idea was to show that even if we use rather conservative estimates, with some safety margin, running Firefox development on users' donations / subscription looks very viable.
Also, donating to a non-profit is tax-deductible in the US, so some donations can be larger as a tax optimization.
Also, donating to a non-profit is tax-deductible in the US, so some donations can be larger as a tax optimization.
> we need just one teeny tiny thing: somebody capable of organizing this
That and an efficient way of making those payments. Can we please get an online payment method that's as simple as cash already?
That and an efficient way of making those payments. Can we please get an online payment method that's as simple as cash already?
If only HTTP 402 had been widely supported.
https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTTP/Status/402
https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTTP/Status/402
If recent history is any guide, that would result in many people immediately losing everything in scams and hacks.
Anyway, $5/month isn't a micropayment and could easily be done through existing app stores.
Anyway, $5/month isn't a micropayment and could easily be done through existing app stores.
So instead of Google paying Mozilla directly, you suggest that users pay Mozilla through an appstore while giving a 30% cut to Google?
Secure, anonymous cash payments would make so many things much easier. Want to read this paywalled article? Please pay €0.05. Download this application? That'll be €5.
Of course the anti-terrorism crowd would never let that happen.
Secure, anonymous cash payments would make so many things much easier. Want to read this paywalled article? Please pay €0.05. Download this application? That'll be €5.
Of course the anti-terrorism crowd would never let that happen.
~$200M Marketing Firefox
~$200M Developing Firefox
~$15M Executive salaries
~$1M Woke stuff
Lunduke is digging in the wrong place.
~$200M Developing Firefox
~$15M Executive salaries
~$1M Woke stuff
Lunduke is digging in the wrong place.
[deleted]
Stopping development of user-hostile features could reduce the cost somewhat.
Snark aside, it's crazy how it's basically become impossible to build and maintain a browser unless you're a megacorp or a billionaire.
Snark aside, it's crazy how it's basically become impossible to build and maintain a browser unless you're a megacorp or a billionaire.
I would like you to try to support this with evidence from their annual reports.
> Developing Firefox costs $200M per year.
Citation please.
Citation please.
The Wikipedia page [1] links to an annual report from 2022 [2] where it is stated (page 6) that the expenses for 2022 for "Software development" were about 220 Million Dollars [X], though I guess that the entry includes software other than just Firefox and there is no breakdown.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mozilla_Corporation
[2] https://assets.mozilla.net/annualreport/2022/mozilla-fdn-202...
[X] Plus 58 Million Dollars for "Branding and marketing" and 108 Million Dollars for "General and administrative" ... ouch !
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mozilla_Corporation
[2] https://assets.mozilla.net/annualreport/2022/mozilla-fdn-202...
[X] Plus 58 Million Dollars for "Branding and marketing" and 108 Million Dollars for "General and administrative" ... ouch !
The annual report very deliberately didn't break out spending on Firefox.
$190M of which is the CEO's salary.
(an exaggeration, but it wouldn't surprise me if a big portion of that is c suite salaries)
(an exaggeration, but it wouldn't surprise me if a big portion of that is c suite salaries)
What offends people about Mozilla the organization doing anything outside of providing a state-of-the-art browser as a public good?
The fact that their projects are always DOA while their main product continues to lose market shares. If you were the CEO of Apple and you keep launching random products in fields were you have no expertise that are always abandoned after 2-3 years while the iPhone market share has dropped to single digits, you won't be the CEO for much longer.
Everyone whines when Mozilla does anything that isn't related to Firefox and I don't understand it. I use Firefox daily and I run into maybe 1 bug every 6 months which is much fewer than when I as running Chrome. What exactly do you want them to pour more resources into?
Dev tools have fallen way behind Chrome's. I'm the only one on my team who never switches to Chrome for debugging work, and when web developers switch en masse to Chrome for testing their code that hurts the diversity of the ecosystem.
The sad thing is that dev tools used to be Firefox's standout feature, but it seems that Google got that memo and Mozilla forgot it.
The sad thing is that dev tools used to be Firefox's standout feature, but it seems that Google got that memo and Mozilla forgot it.
I think an alternative to Electron that makes it easier to write efficient desktop applications using web technologies would be welcome. Basically, figure out why so many Electron apps end up slow and laggy and make first-party code that does those tasks better (and in Rust, for nerd cred.)
Edit to add: although I guess this would be related to Firefox. Oh well!
Edit to add: although I guess this would be related to Firefox. Oh well!
You can contribute to Servo?
But I thought fediverse, threads, bluesky, my favorite political Oni, etc were all going to kill Twitter dead in weeks.
Turns out Network Effects are a pain pain in the ass if you don’t have them, but also none of those ever had a chance to kill twitter.
Turns out Network Effects are a pain pain in the ass if you don’t have them, but also none of those ever had a chance to kill twitter.
Mozilla should focus on building a web browser, and stop dipping into side projects. And by saying "building web browser" I do not mean "adding ads and AI into Firefox". We need an embeddable and reusable browser engine, which could be easily wrapped in UI and features, depending on what user actually requires for their task - "customizability" is a long forgotten word nowadays.
It is funny how we (firefox users) take Mozilla's fails so personal. That something that became very common now tho. Mozilla is incapable of creating anything relevant in its current format, unfortunately. Soon, they won't have even a userbase to try these failed experiments.
Mozilla slowly retreating from open federated protocols. They dropped off IRC a few years back, now off fediverse. When can we expect them to close the matrix server and start using Slack corporation?
Fediverse, sadly, goes against the full experience we requiere
The objective is desc network but also want a single place for all our stuff, topics, news, etc
Same reason why Reddit haven’t been replaced yet :/
The objective is desc network but also want a single place for all our stuff, topics, news, etc
Same reason why Reddit haven’t been replaced yet :/
This is what traditional forums excel at - for instance, a niche-specific forum may also contain off-topic boards for topics unrelated to the niche, such as general current affairs or media.
wrt to Reddit, I mean, Lemmy does exist, but much like Mastodon instances try to be "another Twitter", Lemmy (instances) also tries to be "another Reddit". At the end of the day, it's a human/userbase problem of "platforms change, hivemind doesn't".
wrt to Reddit, I mean, Lemmy does exist, but much like Mastodon instances try to be "another Twitter", Lemmy (instances) also tries to be "another Reddit". At the end of the day, it's a human/userbase problem of "platforms change, hivemind doesn't".
It's seems clumsy. I wouldn't really cheer for them opening this Mastodon server or whatever, because, really, all that Mozilla is expected to do is to advance Firefox. But since they did, what's the point of shutting it down? It upsets some people, because "once again Mozilla turns its back at free and wonderful stuff", and I'd imagine running a Mastodon server must be virtually free, isn't it?
Every new initiative at Mozilla eventually gets shutdown. Seriously, they are worse than Google.
Social without social
Here's a fun exercise - capture all the traffic Firefox sends to mozilla.com/org and mozgcp.net etc
It's a shocking amount of telemetry, combined with dark patterns to reset settings on every update.
Then you go to their website and see that "safe and private" is part of the headline sales pitch. Absolutely disgraceful.
It's a shocking amount of telemetry, combined with dark patterns to reset settings on every update.
Then you go to their website and see that "safe and private" is part of the headline sales pitch. Absolutely disgraceful.
Edit : people answering my message probably think as I did that Mastodon enables messages migration (your posts), but no. The "fediverse" doesn't allow you to migrate your posts with your profile migration. It's like keeping your android contacts but losing all your photos. Well more precisely, they're on this old hard drive, you can't show them to your friends and the hard drive can disappear anytime.
2019 issue with 500 likes, core team doesn't care much. https://github.com/mastodon/mastodon/issues/12423