A case for Mastodon
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So… Twitter is not good anymore. I think many of us agree.
Whether it's the decline in site performance, the low-quality ads, the increase of bots and trolls, the overt politics of Elon Musk, or one of the dozens of other reasons people are abandoning the platform, folks are looking for an out.
Right now, it feels like there are a handful of options:
- Switch to Threads
- Join a Mastodon instance
- Give Bluesky a shot
- Give up on social media as it is right now, and go with private groups like Discord or Telegram
I’ve seen a bunch of pushback against Mastodon as an option, so I want to take the time to address some of the issues that folks have put out there.
one: “I don't care about federation”
No problem. Just don’t think about it. You can join mastodon.social and basically treat it like Twitter. There are about 2 million other people active on that instance alone. It's easy and just works.
If that's not your vibe, feel free to join rtsn.dev (an instance I run) or take a look at Hachyderm, which is a very well run and well moderated instance mostly for technology-inclined folks.
two: “I don’t want to commit to just one part of my identity”
Some folks have the impression that if you join something like phpc.social you are locked in to only talking about PHP. That's not true at all. There are instances that are more focussed on a shared interest. If that's what you're into, then great! If not, you can either:
- Join a more general-purpose instance (like those listed above)
- Join any instance you please and talk about whatever you like because no one on Mastodon expects you to exclusively talk about what your instance is named after
Do you like the sound of you@rtsn.dev? Great, join rtsn.dev! Prefer
something more local, like you@masto.nyc? Yep, that's an option, too.
If, in the end, you're not happy with the instance you joined, you can always move and bring all your followers along with you.
three: “It's all nerds”
So was Twitter in 2008 when I joined. Early adopters drive where everyone else goes. If we, as technology enthusiasts, choose Mastodon, others will eventually follow.
That said, there are plenty of non-nerds on Mastodon. Here are a couple dozen folks that you may recognize from Twitter (who have either moved to Mastodon entirely, or cross-post):
Celebrities, Science, and Arts
I don't personally follow a ton of celebrities on social media, but they're on Mastodon doing their thing. Here are a couple that I recognize:
- George Takei (actor)
- Stephen Fry (actor/comedian)
- Neil Gaiman (author)
- Cory Doctorow (author)
- Carl T. Bergstrom (biology professor)
- Brian Bilston (poet)
News and Politics
I find that plenty of news breaks on Mastodon quicker than it does on Twitter anymore. Most publishers have Mastodon accounts, and some reporters have moved over entirely.
- Taylor Lorenz (Washington Post)
- Ars Technica
- ProPublica
- Brian Krebs (author, formerly Washington Post)
- Sheril Kirshenbaum (PBS)
- Steve Herman (former White House bureau chief)
- Anne Applebaum (The Atlantic)
- Jeff Jarvis (journalism professor)
- Casey Newton (Platformer)
- Greta Thunberg
- Robert Reich
- Marc Elias
Fun
A great part of Twitter was seeing the occasional silly post from a comic or a dedicated “bit” account. Don’t worry, they're on Mastodon, too!
- Elon Musk's Jet
- War and Peas (comic)
- The Oatmeal (comic)
- Low Quality Facts
- Picard Tips
- Riker Googling
And More…
Want a longer list? Here's a curated list of notable mastodon accounts. Or, if you’re looking for volume, here are the top 10,000 mastodon accounts overall.
And plenty of the nerds you know and love!
But there are also plenty of wonderful nerds on mastodon! Some major personalities like John Gruber and Marco Arment have moved entirely. Others still cross-post. Here are a handful that I used to follow/see on Twitter:
- Julia Evans
- Anil Dash
- Rand Fishkin
- Molly White
- Swift on Security
- John Gruber (Daring Fireball)
- Eva Galperin (Electronic Frontier Foundation)
- Marco Arment (Overcast + ATP)
- John Siracusa (ATP)
- Chris Coyier (CodePen)
- Chance Miller (9t5Mac)
- Mekka Okereke (Google)
What about Laravel/PHP nerds?!
Well, I’m a PHP/Laravel nerd, so I'm particularly interested in the Laravel and PHP communities on Mastodon.
The sad reality is that most of the Laravel community is stuck on Twitter. Many of the more influential folks in that community have taken an “I'm going down with the ship” stance, and are still sticking to it. That said, there is a growing community of PHP and Laravel devs who are either cross-posting to mastodon, or have moved over entirely.
- Nuno Maduro (Laravel)
- Dries Vints (Laravel)
- Freek Murze (Spatie)
- Justin Jackson (Transistor)
- Joel Clermont (No Compromises)
- Stephen Rees-Carter (Laravel Security)
- TJ Miller (Generative AI for Laravel)
- Simon Hamp (NativePHP/Laradir)
- Sebastian De Deyne (Spatie)
- Ben Ramsey (PHP release manager)
- Derick Rethans (XDebug/PHP Foundation)
- Eric Van Johnson (php[architect])
- Matthew Weier O'Phinney (PHP-FIG/Zend/etc)
- Kévin Dunglas (FrankenPHP)
There are a handful of us over at rtsn.dev that are mostly lurking, but I know would get much more active if more of the community joined us!
four: “I don’t like the app”
The default mastodon web client is kinda meh for sure. I never use it. There are tons of amazing mastodon clients out there for you to choose from. Here are a few options:
- Elk is an awesome web-based client (no app to install!) that feels nicer to use and might be a little more familiar for Twitter expats.
- Ivory is my mastodon client of choice. It's the spiritual successor to Tweetbot, so if you used their twitter app, you'll feel right at home in Ivory. Can't recommend it enough!
- Ice Cubes is a great open source client.
- Mona is another great client. If you used Spring for twitter, you'll feel right at home in Mona.
- Mammoth is a good option if you feel overwhelmed by the idea of finding new people to follow. It makes it easy to discover friends and interesting folks quickly.
None of those sound right? There are dozens more to choose from if you want to really find the perfect fit!
Ugh, too many choices!
Just get Ivory and be done with it. It's got great UX and is built by an amazing, small team of developers who have been making social media clients for years.
five: “What about Threads?”
Some folks are advocating for moving to Threads. If that seems like a better option for you, go for it. Threads is already partially compatible with Mastodon, which means that if you enable federation in your Threads settings, people on Mastodon can see your posts. Meta currently claims that they're going to expand support, so there's an OK chance that in the future, Threads accounts will be able to follow Mastodon accounts and vice versa.
For those who don't trust Facebook a whole lot more than Elon Musk, Threads is maybe not a great choice. In that case, Mastodon is a good alternative that hopefully will eventually be able to bridge that gap!
six: “I rely on Twitter for leads/business/etc”
Yeah, that sucks. You probably have to continue to cross-post to Twitter. At least for a while longer. That said, there are huge opportunities to be a bigger fish on Mastodon. Rand Fishkin put together a great summary during the most recent mass-exodus from Twitter. In it, he argues that:
- It's easier to build a following now, when there are fewer leaders in each space
- Engagement is way higher, so you need fewer followers to have reach
- A small subset of your existing/potential audience is looking for you there already. If you're not there, they'll find someone else to take your place
- No algorithmic timeline means you don't have to play so many games to get exposure
seven: “Something else!”
Have another reason to avoid Mastodon? You can let me know on Twitter and I'll add it to this list.