I like it over there. Of all the Twitter alternatives I think it ticks the right boxes.

• Decentralised
• Low barrier to sign up
• Not owned by a crazed billionaire
• No ads
• No popularity algorithm
• Interesting features, like custom feeds and moderation lists

If they can bridge their AT Protocol with ActivityPub then I don’t see why it can’t take off.

It’s like the text version of Pinterest.

Honestly, I’m so jaded with this government that I just assume anything they announce is either just a disraction away from whatever ghastly thing they’re really doing or it’s some culturewar bait to stir up trouble.

Mastodon is great if you want a social media site that’ll have people shout at you for not putting a Content Warning on a post about you eating a ham sandwich.

Facebook are an advertising platform. They only offer a paid tier because they now legally have to. They don’t really want you to take the paid tier, they want you to explicitly opt in to the ad-supported ‘free’ one. - because by specifically agreeing to "I want the free Facebook with ads’ option it means you’re actively choosing to be served ads, which is what all the recent lawsuits have been about - users giving explicit consent to be targeted for advertising.

Everything should be pirated, never use any Google or Microsoft service, use an email server you’ve built yourself, only get your social media access through obscure Mastodon servers, write your code in assembly language, only eat food you’ve caught or grown yourself, avoid the rental market by just building a hut in the woods.

But people advertise with Google precisely because they know the ads will be targeted at relevent people. If Google just sell loads of ad slots that just show to random users then that's just a waste of money. If I'm selling motorbike helmets I don't want to waste my money having Google show those ads to 60 year old men who only travel by bus or golfers or people who use wheelchairs.

Google won't just sell loads of ads here, they'll totally change their business model to something closer to the targetting approach.