People Are Still Very Angry the Fediverse Exists
Posted: Wed Oct 22, 2025 6:25 am
Nevermind the title of this post. I couldn't think of anything catchy, or witty, mostly because I'm running on the five hours of sleep my brain allowed me to have, and I'm jittery with the excitement of finally getting some real time off from work ... after tomorrow night, when I work my one shift for the next week and a half. That aside, every so often I log onto my PDS, and I search up "mastodon" in order to see what people are saying about the Fediverse (because people on other social sites use "mastodon" as short-hand for the entire Fediverse), and while I do believe many have begun moving over, there are some people out there who don't quite understand that things have changed since 2016.
Meanwhile, on Bluesky, we've had continued enshitification, its CEO having a meltdown for days at a time, and now with thirty or more US government accounts moving to the platform in order to ... troll people? And couple this with the fact that, in order to actually become independent on Bluesky, and enact real decentralization, you not only need to host a PDS, and you not only need to host a relay, but you also need to host an appview, among other things I'm probably still unaware of, that are all exceedingly more expensive (when bundled together) than launching a Fediverse app for 10 bucks.
It's becoming pretty apparent that Jay Bsky doesn't want you on her platform, and yet, whenever I search up "mastodon" on Bluesky, these are the kinds of things I see from the very people its CEO doesn't want around anymore:
with more greatest hits, like,
or the continued lateral gaslighting, where people convince themselves that things that were problems, or not implemented, five years ago, are still things that aren't working:
So, anyway, I wanted to write this post in order to dispell some misconceptions about the Fediverse, because people shouldn't be operating on assumptions they made in 2016 when the only name you knew was "Mastodon."
First and foremost, in regard to the final screenshot: Yes, Mastodon, and other software on the Fediverse, do have indexed search. This started being implemented around 2023, and it works pretty well. Other apps don't yet have it, such as GoToSocial, where this is a feature, rather than a bug. Because GTS is more about privacy and sustainability (as in, you can run a GTS instance on a very cheap server and use almost no resources to publish to the Fediverse).
But, I believe the aforementioned belief is also a symptom of simply not knowing that Mastodon is only one piece of software across a protocol that has existed since at least 2008 (StatusNet).
Or that people take what they believe from others in their social circles, and then that continues until that circle becomes bigger, and suddenly you have swaths of people saying things like, "Mastodon? I thought there were only 5 people there!" Kind of like how a studio releases a new game, and two influencers say that it sucks nards without ever having played it, and then their fans and followers take them at their word and suddenly half the internet is going, "Yeah, I think Bobblefarts 10 sucks, I mean, @jinglenuts said so, and I trust him!"
But, okay, okay, here are some things I've seen people complain about, that actually aren't issues anymore:
- 1: There's no indexed search!
As mentioned above, this was implemented on Mastodon in 2023, and other software, such as Misskey, and even Pleroma (I think?)
- 2: The Fediverse is all tech nerds and nobody else!
I would beg to differ, especially with all the LGBTQ+ and queer instances out there, the art instances, the cyberpunk instances, the instances where people are all doing their best dril impressions, the single-user instances where one person is just posting whatever comes into their brains, and so and so forth!
There are far too many to name off the top of my head, but you can try out my Discover Fedi app for yourself (still in a pre-release stage) at discoverfedi.app.
Also, I thought we, as a society, had moved past being antagonistic about "nerds?"
- 3: There's nobody on "Mastodon" (the Fediverse)
Right, so ...
(sourced from the Friendica instance it's hosted on, here)
Meanwhile:
(sourced from bluefacts.app)
So, by and large, Bluesky still has more daily active users than the Fediverse, but that number is decreasing. On the flipside, the Fediverse is inching closer to its milestone of twenty million registered users, and nearly a million daily active users.
Suffice to say, there are people on "Mastodon," and at this rate, it'll eventually eclipse Bluesky.
- 4: "Mastodon" is as complicated as installing Linux!
It really isn't. I've said it before, but, if you can install Discord, create a username, and search for servers, read their rules, agree to those rules, and get through their onboarding processes, that are different on every server, you can join a "Mastodon" instance just fine. The important thing being, that you really do need to make sure the server you're looking at has rules, and that they're good rules. Take five minutes out of your day. I promise it won't hurt.
Also, installing Linux isn't hard. Try Debian.
- 5: Mastodon is the only app!
This isn't really something I've seen people say, but more something I feel people outside of the Fedi believe.
To side-step having to list everything a second time, here's a page I wrote a while back listing different ways that you can access the Fediverse.
- 6: It's too hard to follow people!
This one is kind of true, but also kind of not true. Finding people you already know from other platforms may be difficult, if you don't have any way to contact them in order to ask for their handles, but if you know someone's handle, you can follow them easy-peasy. So, let's say your friend's Fediverse handle is @johnnysilverhand@nukearasaka.fuckyou, all you'd have to do is copy/paste that into the search bar of, say, Mastodon, and blamo, their account shows up, you click it, hit follow, and you're done.
Now, obviously, this can be slightly harder if an instance is defederating "nukearasaka.fuckyou" but this is also something people are working on. Currently, Mastodon gives notifications that an instance is being blocked, and how you might be affected by that.
If you don't like that the server you're on is blocking another server you're interested in following people on ...
- 7: It's too hard to move accounts!
You can move, and it's actually not as complicated as your might think. In account settings on the server you're moving away from, and the one you're moving to, you just have to input the handles of the opposite accounts as an alias, and then click "move" on the instance you're moving away from. While your posts won't follow you, your followers will. You can also export follows, blocks, mutes, lists, and your entire archive (your posts, even if there's no current way to import them).
This may be different than Bluesky, where you simply supply an invite code, and click the move button in order to migrate to another PDS, but there are hardly any Bluesky PDS's to move to, and tools for migration aren't that easy to find, because they aren't built-in to the appview.
So, I'd say that moving on the Fediverse can be a little complicated, but it's actually much more complicated on Bluesky.
- 8: I just want to logon and post and not think about anything
And that's fine! You do you! I just think it's currently very important to consider where you're posting. Who you're giving your data and even identity information to. Sure, maybe this is something regular average people don't think about, but they should. Jay Graber has gone so far as to take money from crypto-bros, to inviting fascists to her platform while actively trolling marginalized people, and some think it's still relevant to say things like this?
I mean, I don't think it was ever relevant, but I also don't take my ideas about things from other people who took their ideas from other people who took their ideas from other people who took the end is never the end is never the end is never the end is n
Source: https://mkultra.monster/social-media/20 ... -the-fedi/
Meanwhile, on Bluesky, we've had continued enshitification, its CEO having a meltdown for days at a time, and now with thirty or more US government accounts moving to the platform in order to ... troll people? And couple this with the fact that, in order to actually become independent on Bluesky, and enact real decentralization, you not only need to host a PDS, and you not only need to host a relay, but you also need to host an appview, among other things I'm probably still unaware of, that are all exceedingly more expensive (when bundled together) than launching a Fediverse app for 10 bucks.
It's becoming pretty apparent that Jay Bsky doesn't want you on her platform, and yet, whenever I search up "mastodon" on Bluesky, these are the kinds of things I see from the very people its CEO doesn't want around anymore:
with more greatest hits, like,
or the continued lateral gaslighting, where people convince themselves that things that were problems, or not implemented, five years ago, are still things that aren't working:
So, anyway, I wanted to write this post in order to dispell some misconceptions about the Fediverse, because people shouldn't be operating on assumptions they made in 2016 when the only name you knew was "Mastodon."
First and foremost, in regard to the final screenshot: Yes, Mastodon, and other software on the Fediverse, do have indexed search. This started being implemented around 2023, and it works pretty well. Other apps don't yet have it, such as GoToSocial, where this is a feature, rather than a bug. Because GTS is more about privacy and sustainability (as in, you can run a GTS instance on a very cheap server and use almost no resources to publish to the Fediverse).
But, I believe the aforementioned belief is also a symptom of simply not knowing that Mastodon is only one piece of software across a protocol that has existed since at least 2008 (StatusNet).
Or that people take what they believe from others in their social circles, and then that continues until that circle becomes bigger, and suddenly you have swaths of people saying things like, "Mastodon? I thought there were only 5 people there!" Kind of like how a studio releases a new game, and two influencers say that it sucks nards without ever having played it, and then their fans and followers take them at their word and suddenly half the internet is going, "Yeah, I think Bobblefarts 10 sucks, I mean, @jinglenuts said so, and I trust him!"
But, okay, okay, here are some things I've seen people complain about, that actually aren't issues anymore:
- 1: There's no indexed search!
As mentioned above, this was implemented on Mastodon in 2023, and other software, such as Misskey, and even Pleroma (I think?)
- 2: The Fediverse is all tech nerds and nobody else!
I would beg to differ, especially with all the LGBTQ+ and queer instances out there, the art instances, the cyberpunk instances, the instances where people are all doing their best dril impressions, the single-user instances where one person is just posting whatever comes into their brains, and so and so forth!
There are far too many to name off the top of my head, but you can try out my Discover Fedi app for yourself (still in a pre-release stage) at discoverfedi.app.
Also, I thought we, as a society, had moved past being antagonistic about "nerds?"
- 3: There's nobody on "Mastodon" (the Fediverse)
Right, so ...
(sourced from the Friendica instance it's hosted on, here)
Meanwhile:
(sourced from bluefacts.app)
So, by and large, Bluesky still has more daily active users than the Fediverse, but that number is decreasing. On the flipside, the Fediverse is inching closer to its milestone of twenty million registered users, and nearly a million daily active users.
Suffice to say, there are people on "Mastodon," and at this rate, it'll eventually eclipse Bluesky.
- 4: "Mastodon" is as complicated as installing Linux!
It really isn't. I've said it before, but, if you can install Discord, create a username, and search for servers, read their rules, agree to those rules, and get through their onboarding processes, that are different on every server, you can join a "Mastodon" instance just fine. The important thing being, that you really do need to make sure the server you're looking at has rules, and that they're good rules. Take five minutes out of your day. I promise it won't hurt.
Also, installing Linux isn't hard. Try Debian.
- 5: Mastodon is the only app!
This isn't really something I've seen people say, but more something I feel people outside of the Fedi believe.
To side-step having to list everything a second time, here's a page I wrote a while back listing different ways that you can access the Fediverse.
- 6: It's too hard to follow people!
This one is kind of true, but also kind of not true. Finding people you already know from other platforms may be difficult, if you don't have any way to contact them in order to ask for their handles, but if you know someone's handle, you can follow them easy-peasy. So, let's say your friend's Fediverse handle is @johnnysilverhand@nukearasaka.fuckyou, all you'd have to do is copy/paste that into the search bar of, say, Mastodon, and blamo, their account shows up, you click it, hit follow, and you're done.
Now, obviously, this can be slightly harder if an instance is defederating "nukearasaka.fuckyou" but this is also something people are working on. Currently, Mastodon gives notifications that an instance is being blocked, and how you might be affected by that.
If you don't like that the server you're on is blocking another server you're interested in following people on ...
- 7: It's too hard to move accounts!
You can move, and it's actually not as complicated as your might think. In account settings on the server you're moving away from, and the one you're moving to, you just have to input the handles of the opposite accounts as an alias, and then click "move" on the instance you're moving away from. While your posts won't follow you, your followers will. You can also export follows, blocks, mutes, lists, and your entire archive (your posts, even if there's no current way to import them).
This may be different than Bluesky, where you simply supply an invite code, and click the move button in order to migrate to another PDS, but there are hardly any Bluesky PDS's to move to, and tools for migration aren't that easy to find, because they aren't built-in to the appview.
So, I'd say that moving on the Fediverse can be a little complicated, but it's actually much more complicated on Bluesky.
- 8: I just want to logon and post and not think about anything
And that's fine! You do you! I just think it's currently very important to consider where you're posting. Who you're giving your data and even identity information to. Sure, maybe this is something regular average people don't think about, but they should. Jay Graber has gone so far as to take money from crypto-bros, to inviting fascists to her platform while actively trolling marginalized people, and some think it's still relevant to say things like this?
I mean, I don't think it was ever relevant, but I also don't take my ideas about things from other people who took their ideas from other people who took their ideas from other people who took the end is never the end is never the end is never the end is n
Source: https://mkultra.monster/social-media/20 ... -the-fedi/