Why not embrace the freedom of openness?
So why is it all just twists on or straight-up copies of Twitter apps?
Mastodon is the opposite.
Ivory.Tapbots
It’s open-source software that powers countless independent-yet-interconnected instances.
This is, as we shall see, a colossal waste.
Mastodon, or a compatible service supporting the ActivityPub protocols, could replace any of these.
Pixelfed.Pixelfed
Essentially, Mastodon gives you an identity and a way to publish stuff and follow content published by others.
And in fact, even the makers of Mastodon liken it to Tumblr as much as to Twitter.
So why is pretty much every Mastodon app just another version of a Twitter app?
Mastodon vs The World
There are some interesting Mastodon apps out there already.
One, David BecksThinkSocial for Mastodon, is a twist on the familiar vertical timeline.
These pages contain the original post, plus any replies and interactions.
Tapbots
Another app that shows the flexibility of Mastodon isPixelfed, a kind of federated Instagram.
The best way to find out is to try.
Or just sign up with a separate account.
But it can go far beyond this.
A third column would contain replies, the conversation around those posts.
Thats just one example.
Because Mastodon and Twitter are microblogging platforms, you’ve got the option to use them for blogging.
For instance, if you have a blog onMicro.blogpeople can already follow it on Mastodon.
We just need apps designed around these different use cases to make it happen.
Mastodon: Federated Social Media
The problem is, all this is still super nerdy right now.
Few people have either the understanding or the desire to bother with all this.
But perhaps this will change.
One possible future has everyone using federated networks like Mastodon.
You have your Mastodon user name, or whatever, and you use that to sign into any service.
Thats the beauty of open, federated social media.
We just need it to happen.
