I wrote about the #fediverse and how I was wrong about its value in 2026 https://matduggan.com/boy-i-was-wrong-about-the-fediverse/

[noteapps@pkm.social]

@matdevdug loved the post, saw it on HN and reminded me that I had this Mastadon account that I hadn't accessed in 2 years!

[radicalsocialworker@mstdn.ca]

@matdevdug
I honestly was having similar thoughts just this morning. When it all feels hopeless and overwhelming, there is the Fediverse.

Just as you said - people are posting about what they know. There is SO much value in that. Thanks for reminding me why I keep showing up here.

[markt123@socel.net]

@Jain @matdevdug I assume it was that at the start, he thought Mastodon was a moderately interesting social media system for wasting time that replaced fascist Twitter for such, and by the end he feels it’s his only place to get reliable and relevant news. It’s no longer just a cute, semi-broken diversion tool for him.

[knowprose@mastodon.social]

@matdevdug "...Actual human beings were able to find each other and ask direct questions without this giant mountain of bullshit engagement piled on top of it. Meta or Oracle or whoever owns TikTok this week couldn't stop me. .."

Yes. #fediverse

[jain@blob.cat]

@MarkT123 @matdevdug i assumed it has to be something like that... Thanks tho

[deskjet95@ohai.social]

@matdevdug

Read your post. #Trump and the #FCC are trying to censor the news, but we're not at Pyongyang Times levels of media freedom. #WaPo editorials are awful now, but #NYT and local news is great.

Also... "To thrive in #capitalism one must be amoral. Now you can be wildly sickeningly successful with morals but you cannot reach that absolute zenith of shareholder value." IMO those sentences contradict each-other pretty directly. Being wildly successful isn't "thriving"?

#1A #socialMedia

[harishpillay@floss.social]

@matdevdug Thanks for the post. Making the fediverse the go to will still take some time, but it will be the best outcome for all of our sanity.

[teskariel@eldritch.cafe]

@matdevdug Cool article! But mentioning a juicy and informative thread about arctic policy and then not linking in on a site with a questionable search function is just sadism. We demand the weird arctic thread!

[wojtekpow@mastodon.social]

@matdevdug loved the article, the paragraph about protocols made me chuckle, it’s so true that
> It flies in the face of literally all of human history, where the more convenient thing always wins regardless of technical merit

As engineers we often undervalue convenience in favor of technological prowess, but convenience always wins at large scale

[rndanger@infosec.exchange]

@matdevdug
I didn't think about this until i saw it pointed out so:
I want to thank you for writing good and NOT hosting it on substack
thank you

[dzm@mstdn.dk]

@matdevdug @elena , first photo in the article

[realsiegfried@troet.cafe]

@matdevdug I enjoyed reading it. Thank You!

[realsiegfried@troet.cafe]

@knowprose @matdevdug I simply have to add this:

[knowprose@mastodon.social]

@realSiegfried @matdevdug ahh, that's a great one!

[urlyman@mastodon.social]

@matdevdug what a superb read. Thank you

[sarraceniawilds@sunny.garden]

@matdevdug fun read, thanks.

[unstatik@0.0xdeadcafe.com]

@deskJet95 @matdevdug
>are trying to censor the news

All your left-wing governments are terribly censoring and suppressing freedom of speech, why are you deliberately ignoring this fact? All the mainstream media (NYT, WP, BBC, etc.) serve the goals of the global agenda and behave like dictators (fascists, if you like that word), ignoring many things. The future belongs to truly free journalists, who are now appearing more and more often.

[nethad@swiss.social]

@matdevdug great post! If I may add another nit-pick: your metadata title ("og:title") is just your domain instead of the post title, leading to link previews with just your domain, not the actual title

[hikingdude@mastodon.social]

@matdevdug man, so many good points in one article!