:money_with_wings: Real Toot: There'll be no fancy network with many users but without some kind of monetary background. :money_with_wings:
So are there so far any instances run by trustworthy organizations with structural and financial background to keep running with many users for a long time?
e.g. Chaos Computer Club or Quadrature du net
@Magnapinna I read 'unicorn' at the end. But that could work too.
@NattyGov that would even be better, go magic unicorn money!
historically, web infrastructure was often provided first by universities. Hell, even facebook started out like that. Not the best example, but at least they usually have money, structure and some kind of ethical background.
But even if stable and trustworthy instances start to appear, we still cant really migrate our accounts to them. We have to abandon the ones we use now and start new, only with imported followings. I fear many users will be lost in that process, because it's not convenient for people used to simple one click solutions like facebook or google.
@Magnapinna it is very similar to diaspora
@Magnapinna
So in that case all that is missing, is an automated feature that will announce that you are migrating to a different account X on server Y in future.
You can already do the announcement, what isn't there yet is that other people will automatically follow your new identity.
That being said, i really like it here. But there is a lot more to do, than tell your friends about it. Let's get going Tooters of the Fediverse!
@Magnapinna Already doing so. Even trying to get a buddy with all the bandwidth and kit I don't have to start an instance...
@Samizdata @Magnapinna what we need is a postdoc to convince their distracted PI that their lab group really needs its own instance...
@Magnapinna This is the curse of new tech adoption. You can tell the pioneers since they are the ones with the arrows in their backs.
@Magnapinna maybe that's not necessarily a bad thing. Could keep the user base somewhat limited and keep the riff-raff out. Not meaning to sound elitist or excluding, but with ease of use comes noise.
@tremendum it will be quite hard to find the community sweet spot between "not everybody like on facebook" and "not nobody like on diaspora"
@Magnapinna i will be, but seems like a step in a good direction. I am somewhat cautiously excited about the development.
@Magnapinna Mastodon talks with many other instances, some which predate Mastodon. @wakest has a cool map going here:
https://kumu.io/wakest/fediverse
@Magnapinna part of the problem is how do you monetize your instance ?
- how much does it costs to host an instance per user ?
- do you hope for donations ?
- do you setup a one time fee ?
- do you setup a monthly subscription ?
- you make it free but with a freemium model ? more features to paying customer ?
- 0.01$/toot ?
I guess you don't need millions, but i would love to see instances that don't depend on one guy and his likability to keep the instance running and up to date.
It could also be a club or an organization that then uses it's instance for it's own communication. Maybe a Union?