heavy market concentration, but the principle is there. Second, we often hear that we are all subjects to the whims of big tech, until we are not. When push comes to shove, users are not afraid to change - as long as there are options. This is why #competition is perhaps
@kkomaitis I don't think options and competition are the same. Mastodon is decidedly not competitive, but content as an alternative. To that end, the "exodus" doesn't seem to be that big per se, and seems to be limited to a circle of English speaking users.
As Ben Thompson has been noting, traditional anti-trust measures have been largely dysfunctional against aggregator platforms. Maybe more grants to non-profit protocol based alternatives is one way to go forward.
@kemuri Never said they are the same. they are consequential. and I agree with Ben. But, imagine if Mastodon did not exist -- where would all users then go?
@kkomaitis The reason I was, I guess kind of "triggered" by the wording "competition" is that, I remember a number of cool SNS products which have ceased to exist in competition, e.g. Path, Yik Yak. I understand Ben's Aggregator model that Aggregators, despite anti-competitive behaviors, are actually superior in UX in the end due to network effect.
Users have ample alternatives even if Mastodon doesn't exist. For closer circles they may go to Discord. For image sharing and celebrities, Instagram or Snapchat. For news, trends and analysis, Reddit. Yet many would just go back to Facebook. And I think a lot of users have been doing that already. "Users" as content consumers, that is.
It's also not like Twitter would cease to exist. I do think Twitter has occupies a special place relative to the alternatives I listed above. If Mastodon doesn't exist, people could just begrudgingly stay on Twitter. To that end, I still don't think this Mastodon wave would last very long. I respect the work of Mastodon, I have just seen three supposed "decentralization" waves come and go, and prefer to wait and see now.
