I swapped Twitter for Mastodon – but it can’t replace Twitter yet
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Twitter is in turmoil, with new CEO Elon Musk’s plan to charge $8 / £8 / AU$9 for blue checks, sparking an exodus of users looking for the best Twitter alternatives .
Mastodon, for example, has seen a surge in new users, with many of the disgruntled Twitterati deciding it’s the best fit in form and function. But while there are similarities, there are also differences – as I’ve discovered after spending the past week on it.
If you haven’t tried Mastodon yet, think of it as Twitter, but divided into several communities called servers that you can join. However, you can still follow your friends even if they are on a different server on your timeline. That sounds simple enough, but in reality it’s a bit more complicated.
Eugen Roche (opens in new tab)creator and developer of Mastodon, has already expressed surprise at more than a million new users who have joined the service in the past week, but if he wants to keep increasing the number of users at this level, he needs to look at simplifying how someone joins a server.
Signing up is currently a headache file
I was a user of Mastodon (opens in new tab) since 2017, but I’ve been using it more in the last month as the simplicity of posting and reading content is certainly welcome, and being able to tailor your timeline to your interests, without trolling or irrelevant ads popping up is certainly refreshing .
But the only notable problem I’ve found so far is that when you create a new account, you’re overwhelmed with sometimes rather confusing choices, like a screen asking you to join different servers. If you have an existing account, you will need to find the server you created your account on, and finding new users is particularly difficult, as it is difficult to list the available servers.
It’s a confusing affair – and it makes for a bad first impression if you’re a casual user who just wants to try the platform out. Some people may feel confused about what a “server” actually means in this case.
I’ve also only been able to access it from the internet – Mastodon’s android and iOS apps (opens in new tab), released in 2021, both refuse to recognize my correct references. To be fair, that may have to do with the number of new and existing users currently trying to do the same, but it’s still frustrating.
Whatever the case, hopefully Rochko will find a solution for this and consider macOS and Windows apps in the future.
Yet this is terribly early days for the platform – Facebook, Twitter and even MySpace all had growing pains in the beginning and it was thanks to the users that those problems were ironed out.
What I’ve seen so far is certainly encouraging, and it’s a foundation that could be the start of something special for people looking to switch from Twitter.
At the moment, though, it’s just too complicated at the signup stage. If Rochko doesn’t redesign the onboarding process soon, Mastodon could be too much of a jump for the casual user.