I don’t know who needs to hear this, but the instance mastodon.social is 30% of the entire #Fediverse.

@Oregon_Pacifist I remember at one point they actually closed social to new sign ups to force people to join other instances.

I feel like they need to do this again or switch the default signup server to something else for at least a time.

@Judeau Yeah that's not a bad idea. Too many people that migrate over from X and other sites think that mastodon.social IS the Mastodon platform. The concept of decentralization is completely foreign to them.

@Oregon_Pacifist It's not terribly difficult to understand but It definitely takes a bit of education. It's part of what makes the Fediverse potentially so resilient and different from other services. I would argue that's more important now than ever.

In the past I actually convinced a couple of people to sign up for Mastodon & attempted to explain the importance of choosing a different server but in the end they opted to just go with .social because it was the biggest. Education is hard. LOL

@Judeau @Oregon_Pacifist yeah its like trying to educate people who have used windows all their lives to use Linux and how its better but good luck trying to teach them that who can't grasp the idea

@e6a4fe53bdb13e67802a77ce878f6c4deff0d58df9d3142a333b92041aa9eba8 @Oregon_Pacifist your damn right on that man

@Oregon_Pacifist

I barely know how this works. Please use your channel to inform people. Then get your fellow creators to spread the word. Maybe we can talk to leaders in .social to get them start spreading users?

@slowlygoingsane there are plenty of people with much larger channels than mine that explain things better than I could

@Oregon_Pacifist Damn, they have 3,098,853 users (per https://instances.social/list/advanced) That's wild. I'm happy on my little 1300 users instance.

I would imagine the best option, to re-iterate what others have said, would be - if they cared about decentralizing - would be shutting down the registrations over there and requiring new registrations to be elsewhere.

I wonder what amount of those users are actually active vs. "I registered because Twitter sucks .. and then stopped logging in"

@captainarcee @Oregon_Pacifist its a cesspool because a certain mindset has its roots very deep on Mastodon. all the big servers do.

@Oregon_Pacifist The "centralization" of the Fediverse is not a new problem, but the tendency toward concentration is a physiological phenomenon; a few years ago, I reported that the data on the distribution of users of Fediverse instances closely resembled those on the distribution of wealth (cfr attached image)! Today, in fact, after "reddit migration" has swelled the "forumverse" and after some instances have consolidated a safe space for their dozens of loyal users, the situation is certainly less problematic.

Today, mastodon.social is attracting the majority of new Mastodon members, and I'm sure it's in their best interest to continue doing so, because having more users gives their server great visibility, giving their server visibility gives importance to the Mastodon software, and giving importance to the Mastodon software means they can continue to exercise leadership and establish the "de facto standard." But let's not forget that the problem is that mastodon.social is also attracting many non-English and non-German profiles of extremely low quality, which Mastodon moderators can't always manage with careful moderation.

But let's try to trust the Mastodon team for a moment and understand why Mastodon can't do otherwise, especially with its app:

1. Downloading the Mastodon app is what most users who want to try the Fediverse do, because for most users, the equation social = app applies.
2. The Mastodon app is the only professionally designed app in the Fediverse, because it minimizes user abandonment. Mandatory instance selection or disallowing open registration on mastodon.social would increase the number of logins and increase the abandonment rate.
3. While the "Mastodon Server Covenant" is an ethical commitment, it is not binding, and sending a user to any instance would remove a vulnerable and inexperienced user from its area of ​​​​reputational control.

Therefore, Mastodon's goal is to eliminate the barrier to entry. This is an advantage not only for Mastodon but for the entire Fediverse.

Erecting barriers, creating doubt and uncertainty right at the initial login stage, means sacrificing diversity and risking extinction through inbreeding.

@Oregon_Pacifist You know I really think that's because "most people" don't know how computers work, don't know how the internet works, and don't know how to function without society telling them what to think.

@Oregon_Pacifist To be honest I was surprised it's 'only' 30%.

30% of the Fediverse disappearing sounds more "survivable" from a network resiliency POV than say, if Bluesky PDS (controlling maybe 99%+?) went down.