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Dear @Gargron,

Please reevaluate your decision to incentivise centralisation on mastodon.social in the official app.

This is the sort of design a VC-funded startup would implement, not a non-profit acting in the interests of a healthy commons.

I’m sure you don’t want mastodon.social to become mini-Twitter and you don’t want to become mini-Musk.

That’s not how we win this.

More instances, not larger instances is the key.

mastodon.ar.al/@feditips@mstdn

@aral @Gargron Actually, when combining this decision with the recent trademark one of not allowing other instances to be named *.mastodon.* there might be a case for questioning Gargron's motives here.

... but I think this is the right move to enable frictionless signups. However, it's now critically important to implement the one-click _complete_ account migration between servers as well.

Basically mastodon.social needs to encourage users to move on from spawn.

@troed @aral @Gargron I agree. Though as nefarious as both those decisions can appear, I think it's clearly about trying to reduce the friction for new users - even for the trademark changes. The biggest complaints during November last year were about picking servers and people ending up on 'mastodon' urls that aren't moderated.

So I can empathize with the intention here.

@BenjaminNelan @troed @aral @Gargron It's exactly what the signup process for Matrix is like where the default server is matrix.org.

@Nour @troed @aral @Gargron To be fair, we have seen Matrix’s main server end up fairly full as a result.

Maybe a more @pixelfed approach would be better? Main server is the first option but other options aren’t behind a secondary action.

@BenjaminNelan @troed @aral @Gargron @pixelfed True, I personally use the Mozilla (chat.mozilla.org) homeserver. I think on Mastodon the biggest UX issue is those not knowing what server to choose when signing up, so presenting a default/fallback option while displaying other good options to at least pique enough interest and make users aware is the best way to go.

@BenjaminNelan @troed @aral @Gargron @pixelfed So instead of being lost on 'here are tens of different servers to choose from before you join' it would instead be 'here is the main server and all you have to do is click join, but there are some good other options here if you'd like'

@aral @Nour Here lies the problem. You think of one server being the “main server”. You have a hierarchy. When there’s a hierarchy it can (will) be abused. Don’t hand over control to anybody. Take it for yourself.

@gabek@social.gabekangas.com @aral@mastodon.ar.al @Nour@fosstodon.org I fully agree with that idea (otherwise I wouldnt be doing what Im doing obviously), but I think the difficult part is about how and when do you explain this to new people.

Like, is the signup flow from an app really the best place to explain this? I think its hard to say that it is, but at the same time, lock-in and complacency will still mean that lots of people end up on m.s.

Personally, I think the best solution would be to get even more competing easy signup flows. Think this problem will get less relevant when things like mozilla.social launches and people can easily end up on their server with a SSO firefox account.

Aral Balkan

@laurenshof @gabek @Nour Interesting, isn’t it, that Mozilla, a for-profit Silicon Valley corporation that now has AI and venture capital arms (one of which is invested in a fediverse app called Mammoth) and makes almost all its money by enabling surveillance capitalist Google to violate the privacy of the people who use its browser in exchange for half a billion dollars every year, is going to be a force for good in a decentralised network.