Five reasons not to move from Twitter to Mastodon

Now that the Twitter acquisition has been completed, I have a few thoughts on reasons why a person might not want to leave Twitter and move to Mastodon.

  1. You're a celebrity. Mastodon doesn't care. You won't get a blue check, because blue checks don't exist there. You won't get your ego constantly stroked. You're just a person, here with the rest of us plebes. Deal with it.

  2. You're on social media to advertise. You'll find that Mastodon is not the most commerce-friendly platform around. If you're there to spam people, you'll get yourself (and possibly the server you're on) blocked.

  3. You have extreme right-wing views. There are a few right-wing instances, but some don't federate with others, and a lot of other instances don't want to federate with them, because why would you want to federate with people who think you don't have a right to exist? Also, many instances are conscious of EU law since they're located there. Take that crap somewhere else.

  4. You're a tech pundit. You'll find that Mastodon attracts a higher-than-average percentage of users who are technologically literate. Lots of Linux folks here. As with non-tech celebrities, you won't get your ego constantly stroked. Most of us have moved beyond hanging on every word from people like you. You will be challenged on your bullshit.

  5. You have trouble with email. By which I mean you have difficulty with the concept of communicating with people who use a different provider than you do. As with email, on Mastodon people have accounts with different providers (“instances”) and they can talk to each other. Talking to or following someone on mastodon.social when your account is with, say, aus.social is no more difficult than sending an email from Gmail to Outlook.com. Remarkably, I've seen people complain about it. It's their call, but if that's your barrier to entry I can't help you.

And there you have it. Five reasons you might not find happiness on Mastodon. The rest of you, however—the rest of you will be fine.

Come on over. The water's fine. See you there.

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