I still believe in social networking as a net positive, and I believe the ActivityPub protocol - used by sites including Mastodon, PixelFed, PeerTube and others - is the best way to realize its benefits.
The ActivityPub protocol (AP) feels very much like email. A user who has an account on an AP-enabled platform can follow other people on the same platform or on other AP-enabled platforms. When they post a message, it's sent to the people who follow them - and only them - on whichever server they may live. If it's marked as "Public", the message may also be added to a common timeline hosted on the platform, which anyone can access and read.
If your only experience with ActivityPub is through Mastodon, you probably think it all operates exactly like Twitter. In a way, that's true - when you post to Twitter, it stays on the Twitter platform and is added to the "fire hose" of other messages from folks on the same platform. But Twitter's goal was always to get as many people on their platform as possible, to grow that fire hose to an enormous size.
Sites like Mastodon.social - the flagship implementation - have the same goal as Twitter. But the Mastodon software is open source, and the ActivityPub protocol allows any Mastodon instance running on any server to connect with any other Mastodon server to share messages.
Mastodon.social must contend with masses of strangers coming to their platform with their own expectations of how social media ought to work. This creates a moderation and management nightmare that requires quite a bit of human effort to manage, meaning there is a motive to make as much money as possible to keep it all running and growing.
In other words, while I feel that Mastodon.social is making the same mistakes as Twitter, there is a solution - host your own Mastodon server.
ActivityPub Offers Flexible Experiences
I have run my own Mastodon instance on an old laptop out of my den for several years now. I'm the only active user on it, but I am connected with dozens of people from around the world with whom I share various interests. Many of those folks have accounts on Mastodon.social. If that instance ever goes away or otherwise becomes enshittified, those folks can either move their account to a different instance (I know it's not easy at the moment, but it will be improved, and is absolutely do-able) or simply spin up one of their own for themselves and their friends.
If you don't like the way Mastodon delivers and displays messages - as a single feed, like Twitter - you can always choose another ActivityPub enabled service that may better suit your needs. Most of them are designed specifically to replace commercial networks - PeerTube operates like YouTube; PixelFed is clearly inspired by Instagram; Friendica still looks like Facebook version 1.
In each case, you can either host a server just for your own account so you may interact with others across the so-called "Fediverse", or allow others to create accounts on your instance so they, too, may connect with others, or simply share amongst themselves.
There are servers dedicated to art, game development, infosec, erotica, and so, so much more. You can create an account on any open instance that fits your style and connect directly with others who share your interests.
Some instances are invite only. Some are strictly community-focused. Truth Social (no link - you know why), for example, is said to be based on the Mastodon source code, but refuses to connect with any other servers.
Some of the folks I follow on the Fediverse are thinking beyond established social media to make the entire network more interesting and useful. BadgeFed, for example, promises to allow communities to create ActivityPub-enabled badges and certificates, which can be used for gaming-style activities as well as to certify individuals have achieved something of value - whether that be an educational certificate, game achievement, or some other form of recognition. Bandwagon is a platform to help musicians connect with fans, build audiences, share music, and announce events and releases.
The ActivityPub protocol is not a social networking protocol - it is a community building protocol. The purpose of the internet is to connect people in order to share knowledge, provide new viewpoints and alternatives from what they already have, and - when done well - lift all boats as a consequence. ActivityPub enables that, and that's why I am all-in on supporting it and building tooling and platforms that leverage it.
I contrast this to BlueSky.
Fire Hoses Don't Build Community
BlueSky and the AT protocol are interesting, but they represent a view of social media that I think has limited value. The AT Protocol behind BlueSky is optimized for building a "global marketplace of ideas" social networking model, where everyone is expected to get access to a "fire hose" of all posts across the network.
Sound familiar? It was designed and built by folks who used Twitter as their sole model.
This model, while ambitious, is of dubious value. It puts an undue burden on developers who wish to implement the protocol by requiring them to deal with that fire hose. It throws strangers from all over the world into a single place and expects them to sort themselves out. It opens its users to abuse and moderation headaches by leaving the doors wide open for anyone to participate - no matter how inhumane their beliefs or actions may be.
The BlueSky folks tend to use the metaphor of a "marketplace" or a "town square" on a global scale. But global scale completely diminishes the value of a town square - traditionally a place that, due to limitations of physics, is only frequented by those who live nearby.
Spend enough time in an actual town square, and you'll start to recognize everyone. They're your neighbors - if they don't live in your community, they clearly have some meaningful connection to it that keeps bringing them back. Because you live in the same area, presumably under similar local environmental and cultural influences, there's a chance you'll find something in common with those folks. You can connect with them and become friends, share ideas over coffee, offer to help each other when work needs to be around your homes or in your community, and generally create meaningful, lasting connections that have direct impact on all of your daily lives. When you spend time in your town square working with other members of your community, your influence grows along with your impact.
This can't happen on a global scale.
Sure, you may carefully control whom you follow and allow to follow you on social media, and in so doing create something of a virtualized community. This works well when the purpose of the social media platform is to build and support community.
That's not BlueSky or the AT protocol's purpose. Any community you build there is little more than a clique at a much larger party, and someone from outside that community will inevitably seek to disrupt it in order to get more attention for whatever it is they want to promote. The protocol is designed to connect everyone indiscriminately.
I see no benefit in that. Twitter all but proved that such an approach is detrimental to the kind of consensus building that makes a community function well.
Facebook used to be a better fit for this kind of community-level engagement. You only connected with people you identified as "friends" and who agreed to connect back to you - otherwise, they stayed out of your feed. Facebook Groups allowed people to organize their communities outside their immediate friend groups - both offline, local communities as well as virtual, interest-based communities - in one easy place, often limiting access only to those members of the group. These groups helped people organize online in ways that led to real, lasting offline impact, whether it was the PTA organizing a bake sale to raise funds for the school's music program, or revolutionaries organizing against oppressive regimes in pursuit of freedom.
That last one is why I think commercial social media has so rapidly enshittified. The executives and investors behind those companies made so much money for so little effort and cost that any threat to their newfound power and wealth is considered a direct threat against them. When these leaders saw folks use the tools over which they claimed ownership to organize the Arab Spring revolutions, they panicked. Fearing they'd be targeted next, they took great strides to try and control the message.
And they failed, leading to an increase in misinformation spread during the pandemic, well-organized protests across the nation against the treatment of black communities by those in authority, and a siege on the US Capital building on Jan. 6 2021.
Folks running their own ActivityPub instances are not guaranteed to do so for the common good - again, "Truth" Social.
But that turns out to be a benefit. Don't like how the folks managing the instance are running things? Fine: find another.
Or spin up your own.
I want to see a thousand ActivityPub servers bloom. I want to see communities engage directly with one another on instances that care about them and their needs and treat them as valued individuals, not as a pocket to persistently pick. I want the folks on those instances to be able to connect with friends, family, colleagues, and other people they find interesting who live on other servers. I want them to carefully craft their followers and their message feeds so that they are only finding information important or interesting to them and can control what messages actually reach them.
ActivityPub - at least at the moment, but I see no reason why this should change - is the best way to achieve this.
I'm all in.