mastodon.social is one of the many independent Mastodon servers you can use to participate in the fediverse.
The original server operated by the Mastodon gGmbH non-profit

Administered by:

Server stats:

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active users

David Slifka

Some have asked recently: How do I balance growing the fediverse with keeping it diversified, and why?

TLDR: Central social media behemoths are here today and almost impossible to dislodge. The way to achieve decentralized social is to grow the fediverse, so I believe that should be the primary goal. Keeping the fediverse decentralized is important; if that starts to become an issue, I'll be here to address it at that point. More here; polite thoughts welcome as always.

medium.com/@davidslifka_86286/

MediumHow to decentralize social media - David Slifka - MediumBy David Slifka
@davidslifka
"Server choice is a major obstacle to growing the #fediverse"

Question - how many people give up on #email because they don't know which #server to #choose ? I don't know anyone like that...
@davidslifka@mastodon.social
"Some people have expressed concern about a design choice we made, which was to direct people to mastodon.social and bypass the step of choosing a server."


The official Mastodon app also defaults to mastodon.social, although at least there is a "Pick my own server" option.

I understand your argument, but I disagree with it. I don't think you can decentralize social media by offering a centralized alternative, even with a "nothing is forever" disclaimer. The whole point of the Fediverse is that participants can choose not only an instance, but a type of server software. And Twitter users are not the only people we should be trying to attract. Offer Mastodon to a Facebook user or a Youtube user, and they'll be disappointed -- and they never hear about the more appropriate alternatives, because only Mastodon is getting any publicity.

Yes, this is confusing for newcomers. We should be offering help so they will at least understand why it's worth the extra effort, not offering them a simplified one-server-fits-all alternative.

The way to achieve decentralized social media is to grow a decentralized Fediverse.