Mastodon has taken the strategic decision not to accept venture capital investments for growth, but rather restructure to a European non-profit organization

The common thing to do is start non-profit, then spawn for-profit subsidiaries

"profit" is such an inherently wrong concept.

if something costs X to make (including wages), why shouldn't it be sold at X price, rather than taking advantage of scarcity (mostly manufactured) to make more?

all profit are based on Underpaying, decrease in quality, artificial scarcity...

I kinda wish I liked Mastodon, but I think the very format of Twitter-like social media was a bad idea from the start. Mastodon just feels like the least bad version of it.

I kind of agree, I think it would serve a good purpose as a way to post quick ideas about something but I absolutely don't want to be bombarded by that from everyone and their mother's. I'm just starting on mastodon and micro blogging in general, so I don't have a strong opinion on it yet.

I don’t think humans do well with access to a stream unfiltered, nearly-contextless random thoughts from other people.

Yeah, I'd really like someplace where all the people doing things post about the doing of things, so I can keep up with what's going on and get involved, while also not being subjected to randos posting inane slop. Which I can't see happening while also allowing anyone the opportunity to be heard.

I never had a Twitter account because I felt it was full of just thoughtless statements by people who wanted attention, but I did make a Mastodon account because I do want to get the short random posts by people who are doing the things I'm interested in that Twitter did make popular. I think the barrier of entry for Mastodon is just high enough, and the popularity is low enough that a lot of people who just want attention don't go there, yet.

Who knew, taking away algorithm-fed drama and rage bait doesn't really excite the brain. But it can be a nice replacement for Twitter, when someone had withdrawal effects.

Do you want some lists to get your timeline going?

Microblogging is honestly just a bad concept. Mastodon has like 20x the amount of MAUs as lemmy, but it feels empty because all those users are so spread out.

Here its easy for people to group around a topic, but on microblogging platforms that dont use algorithmic recommendations, you will not find new "content" unless you actively look at 3rd party lists or the discover feed.

Bluesky has done something important, which is subscription lists that you can import into your account to automatically follow a bunch of people that fit the criteria of that list. Mastodon will need to add things like this or people will always just look at the platform and think "There is nothing here".

I personally like having a minimalistic feed that only shows me things that i actually care about, but others just want a stream of stuff to keep them entertained. The latter might not be a good goal to strive for, but i think it could be achieved with mastodon while preserving user choice.

I follow a lot of hashtags, and interact with a lot of people. It may seem more quiet if you're not engaging on the platform and adding content to your feed by following people and topics. We are working on the Fediscovery project to help to surface more discussions across platforms, as well.

Same here. It's a better platform in several ideological ways to Bluesky, but the initial hype seems to have died off a bit and it's pretty quiet there.

I'm really hoping it can take off though. I would love it to surge in popularity and become the biggest social media app/site of that type. I guess part of that is being the change you wish for in the world.

I swear, my follow feed is only super active because I follow someone who I swear is chronically on there, posting and boosting other posts seemingly all the time somehow.

I have the opposite problem, my feed is so overwhelming and I never feel like I've hit the important or interesting posts. I'd love the ability to sort by boosts or favourites.

I think it depends a lot on who you're following or what instance you're on. The ones I have are pretty active. That's a problem they're trying to solve, they did a nice conference about it at Fosdem.

What you are describing isn't "always disrespect", it's the messy work we all to have to do and tolerate for democracy & equity (vs 'the ease of a central dictatorship').

It's what has to stay at all times for us to remain free (& for some chance of equality in the long run).

Disrespect is always going to be a thing, get over it. Governments shouldn't try to police nonviolent disagreement because they will never get it "right" unless you are the monarch.