Recent moves by Eugen Rochko (known as Gargron on fedi), the CEO of Mastodon-the-non-profit and lead developer of Mastodon-the-software, got some people worried about the outsized influence Mastodon (

Recent moves by Eugen Rochko (known as Gargron on fedi), the CEO of Mastodon-the-non-profit and lead developer of Mastodon-the-software, got some people worried about the outsized influence Mastodon (the software project and the non-profit) has on the rest of the Fediverse.

Good. We should be worried.

Mastodon-the-software is used by far by the most people on fedi. The biggest instance, mastodon.social, is home to over 200.000 active accounts as of this writing. This is roughly 1/10th of the whole Fediverse, on a single instance. Worse, Mastodon-the-software is often identified as the whole social network, obscuring the fact that Fediverse is a much broader system comprised of a much more diverse software.

This has poor consequences now, and it might have worse consequences later. What also really bothers me is that I have seen some of this before.

I go on to dive a bit into the history of StatusNet (the software), OStatus (the protocol), and identi.ca (the biggest instance) on a decentralized social network “grandparent” of the Fediverse.

And draw an analogy to show why mastodon.social’s size, and Mastodon-the-software-project’s influence on broader fedi is a serious risk we need to do something about.

  • 🦊 OneFluffyBoi 🦊
    9•2 years ago

    @rysiek Yeah, people on Mastodon don’t do enough to advertise other Fediverse platforms. I’ve had an account for years and I didn’t even realize that stuff like Pixelfed exists until recently and I definitely didn’t know that these platforms could interop.

    • ᗪᗩᗰᑎ
      11•2 years ago

      I agree with the OP but I think to say:

      people on Mastodon don’t do enough to advertise other Fediverse platforms

      is the equivalent of saying, “people on reddit don’t do enough to advertise lemmy.” It’s an illogical jump. People on mastodon aren’t there to talk about mastodon or the fediverse (although some do). It would be best to say other fediverse platforms need to work on their marketing and spreading awareness. Every chance I get I’m posting on reddit about lemmy, without trying to look like shill/spammer, because I want this platform to grow.

      I wouldn’t blame redditors for not mentioning lemmy in an attempt to spread awareness.

      • @rysiekOP
        8•2 years ago

        people on Mastodon don’t do enough to advertise other Fediverse platforms

        is the equivalent of saying, “people on reddit don’t do enough to advertise lemmy.” It’s an illogical jump.

        But… it is not. Reddit cannot talk to Lemmy, they are not part of the same network, they do not federate.

        A better analogy would be “people on GMail don’t do enough to advertise other e-mail providers”, and while the rest of your argument might hold somewhat, it’s quite a different ballgame.

        One of the important differences is that at least some people using GMail must be aware that it would make sense to keep the broader ecosystem — e-mail — healthy, and an important step towards this is having a plurality of e-mail providers.

        No such consideration even makes sense in the Reddit/Lemmy case.

        • alyaza [they/she]M
          5•2 years ago

          One of the important differences is that at least some people using GMail must be aware that it would make sense to keep the broader ecosystem — e-mail — healthy, and an important step towards this is having a plurality of e-mail providers.

          federation is also broader in this case than email, and has services that can emulate basically all of the major social media platforms of today—presumably it would be advantageous for there to be other active federated platforms, because then people can substitute more of their social media presence out

        • 🦊 OneFluffyBoi 🦊
          4•2 years ago

          @rysiek @KLISHDFSDF I’m also confused as to how marketing would work here, considering that there’s no algorithm and I’m probably not following any of the hashtags they’d be using. It’d pretty much have to be a grass roots effort by Mastodon users, would it not? Or the platform itself would have to inform users that these other platforms both exist and can interop with Mastodon.

          • @rysiekOP
            8•2 years ago

            One simple way to start is for UIs (Web UIs, mobile apps, etc) to display information (a simple icon woud suffice) on what instance type a given account is on when displaying posts. That already would show the diversity.

            Some instance software projects do that already, I believe Friendica does for example.

              • @rysiekOP
                4•2 years ago

                Exactly. And at the same time would not be obstructive nor “in-your-face”.

                • Chris Remington
                  3•2 years ago

                  …display information (a simple icon woud suffice) on what instance type a given account is on…

                  By “instance type” do you mean Lemmy, Mastodon, Friendica, etc?

        • ᗪᗩᗰᑎ
          3•2 years ago

          A better analogy would be “people on GMail don’t do enough to advertise other e-mail providers”

          100% agree with you.

          But to continue with the email analogy, it still wouldn’t make sense to ask gmail users to spread awareness of ProtonMail if they’re unaware of its benefits or that it even exists.

          I would say it’s up to the other ActivityPub clients to promote and spread awareness - by whatever means are accessible to them (the devs and its users) - to ensure the message gets out.