I’ve been asked on TV hits and interviews lately to explain why decentralized social media is better, especially re: Mastodon.

[blue@bigshoulders.city]

@taylorlorenz Profit isn't a motivating factor. Admins create and maintain instances because they want them to exist and other people to benefit from their existence.

[diraquel@masto.pt]

@taylorlorenz I usually start by explaining the chronological feed with no publicity; then, that it's not a platform, but a software run in many different places, so there is no one owner; then, I circle back to the fact that there are no algorithms choosing what you see on your feed.
I have the feeling I'm not persuasive enough, so I would love to hear other strategies.

[kierkegaanks@beige.party]

@taylorlorenz You get to keep a sane distance from Satan’s merchants on earth for one thing

[mcc@mastodon.social]

@taylorlorenz "Nobody controls the network. It's like email. If GMail loses their mind and starts inserting Republican propaganda everywhere, you might have to switch to Hotmail, but you can still use email. You can still email the people you used to email. It's not like you have to keep using GMail hating it more and more every day because this one single company is the only way you can email anybody."

[eetschrijver@mastodon.social]

@benroyce
I'm only here for the cat pictures. And for the pindakaas.
@vfrmedia @rk @futurebird @taylorlorenz

[benroyce@mastodon.social]

@Eetschrijver @vfrmedia @rk @futurebird @taylorlorenz

One of us, one of us!

[timbray@cosocial.ca]

@taylorlorenz Here's my best shot: https://www.tbray.org/ongoing/When/202x/2025/11/03/Time-to-Migrate from which

1/2 ”Have you noticed that social-media products, in the long term, can’t seem to manage to stay fun and safe and useful? I have. But there’s one huge exception, a tool that’s been serving billions of us for decades, and works about as well as it ever did. I’m talking about email.

[timbray@cosocial.ca]

@taylorlorenz

2/3 Why does email stay reasonably healthy? Because nobody owns it. Anyone on any server can communicate with anyone else on any other and it Just Works. Nobody can buy it and make it a vehicle for their politics. Nobody can crank up the ad density or make things worse to improve their profit margin.

[timbray@cosocial.ca]

@taylorlorenz
3/3 Mastodon’s like email that way. Plus it does all the Post and Repost and Quote and Follow and Reply and Like and Block stuff that you’re used to, and there are thousands of servers and anyone can run one and nobody can own the whole thing. It doesn’t have ads and it won’t. It’s dead easy to use and it’s fun and you should give it a try.

[tshirtman@mas.to]

@taylorlorenz it's not owned by billionairs, it's not owned by anyone. if more time, get to the community of communities thing, how orgs can own their content on it and not depend on others, and still be part of the network, as anyone else.

i think people focus too much on the added complexity, not enough on what this complexity buys us.

[tommertron@masto.yttrx.com]

@timbray @taylorlorenz Plus one on the email analogy. Email is about as complicated as Mastodon. Email has its problems just like mastodon but it’s still a remarkably useful and resilient tool that no one company controls. I can email anyone from any email provider. I can’t say the same for social media.

[lienrag@mastodon.tedomum.net]

@futurebird

Apparently the mastodon team at FOSDEM had a really killer slogan for promoting the Fediverse : "My friends are not for sale".
Mic drop, really - what more is there to say ?

(though, depending on the audience, "Seize the memes of production, join the fediverse !" can land well too)

@taylorlorenz

[technically_good@techhub.social]

@taylorlorenz

- no ads.
- no ad tracking!
- no billionaire owner.
- no "responsibility" towards shareholders (read: line must go up)
- the different platforms interact!! You can follow someone's photo sharing account (say, pixelfed - "Instagram", kinda) from your Friendica ("Facebook," kinda) account. #interop is cool

#fediverse

[punissuer@universeodon.com]

@taylorlorenz federated means, it's enshittification-proof!
Companies will always eventually treat their customers as badly as they think they can get away with. With centralized social media, the bigger it gets, the more are its users holding each other hostage, and the worse ads, moderation and general climate will become.
Being a network of communicating servers means, if moderation on your current one isn't to your liking, you can move to a different server while keeping your social graph intact.

Rehashed ideas taken from https://pluralistic.net/2024/12/14/fire-exits/

[livcomp@hachyderm.io]

@futurebird @taylorlorenz
"federated network" has some nice flavors (currently the word "federal" notwithstanding), and sets folks up for this fine fediverse of ours.

[stumpythemutt@social.linux.pizza]

@futurebird @taylorlorenz This nerd was going to mention @scream, but it won't.

[scream@bots.robots.rodeo]

@StumpyTheMutt AAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH

[davey_cakes@mastodon.ie]

@taylorlorenz some points

You aren't being manipulated by the platform or coerced into impulsive behaviour, although you can still trap yourself into it.

It's often a bit of a mess but it's "our mess", the sense of ownership has some legitimacy.

It only dies when people don't want it any more, not when investors want their payday.

The "low virality" means anyone is as big a deal as anyone else.

It's slower, but it's also more relaxed.

Being bad for marketing has its upside.

[aj@gts.sadauskas.id.au]

@futurebird @taylorlorenz @lienrag I'd separate out what the benefits of the Fediverse are from what it is. Because they're not necessarily the same thing.

The benefit of the Fediverse is there's no paid ads, and no boosted posts.

A benefit of the Fedi is there's very little corporate spam.

A benefit is the lack of AI slop.

A benefit is that you are more likely to be reading and responding to actual people.

A benefit is that it's community owned, rather than owned by a big tech conglomerate.

A benefit is that it exists primarily as s space to facilitate discussions, rather than sell advertising.

A benefit is that there's no algorithm that's highlighting the most controversial and hateful content in a bid to maximise viewership.

All of those /benefits/ flow from what the Fediverse is.

And what it is, is a network of self-moderated online communities. What you post on one community is visible on all the others.

Now what that means is there's no single individual or corporation that owns it.

[gatesvp@mstdn.ca]

@taylorlorenz

I tried to answer your two core questions, "benefits" and "freedom", but really struggled to answer the questions as you posed them. I think the reason I got caught up on those answers is your use of the word "Platform". And when the general public think of "Platform", they immediately begin thinking of all those monolithic platforms out there.

Calling it "decentralized" doesn't really help. It's not a particularly precise term, nor do most people really understand the technical and social trade-offs that it implies. And "most people" includes a lot of people on Mastodon itself.

And we regularly see people who are disappointed when they get here, because they are expecting Twitter and they are getting something significantly different.

I think I can answer your two questions, next toot, but I think they need to be framed correctly first... /1