I'm really glad that @pluralistic mentioned mastodon along with other social media in his interview with John Stewart (it was a very good interview and I think it will be very educational for a lot of nice liberal people) it was also funny and upbeat, because that's what Stewart does well.
We might need to educate a lot of people about alternative media, about tech issues like why showing your ID to just use the internet is a terrible idea and won't make kids safe.
youtube.com/watch?v=-dAIJRjb-B…
- YouTube
Bekijk je favoriete video's, luister naar de muziek die je leuk vindt, upload originele content en deel alles met vrienden, familie en anderen op YouTube.www.youtube.com
This entry was edited (2 weeks ago)
reshared this
myrmepropagandist
in reply to myrmepropagandist • • •`
* enshitification
* age verification
* alternate social media
* understanding the real impact of "AI"
The intersection of technology and politics is important, but technology news tends to be dominated by people who want cheerful investment advice or a scary scifi story.
myrmepropagandist
in reply to myrmepropagandist • • •This is what I keep complaining that not enough left and liberal commentators are doing. Just mention that the alternatives exists.
You can use X, you can use facebook, but increasingly people are looking for an alternative. They are wondering why it would be any different on bluesky. (it won't)
We run our own servers over here on the fedi. It's different. There are never any ads. Never. It's the good old people's internet and God intended.
David Chisnall (*Now with 50% more sarcasm!*)
in reply to myrmepropagandist • • •The really important thing for a lot of relevant use cases is that organisations can run their own servers. Even if they outsource the operation of the server, they can maintain backups and switch to a different provider if there are problems without ever losing their accounts or their followers.
I can't imagine any political movement not wanting that. Back in the early days of printed news, you didn't try to buy space in the rich people's newprints, you bought (or rented time on) a printing press and printed your own pamphlets. The Labour movement wouldn't have achieved anything if they'd relied on business-owner newsprints to get their ideas across.
Samuel reshared this.
FediThing
in reply to David Chisnall (*Now with 50% more sarcasm!*) • • •And also, the developers of Mastodon etc have deliberately built the Fediverse in a way that keeps the running costs low enough that servers can be started by individuals if need be.
A typical Fedi server for one person starts at about 5-10 euros per month, and that's through a managed hosting provider who does all the tech stuff for you.
myrmepropagandist
in reply to FediThing • • •@FediThing @david_chisnall
I think that magazines, non-profits, schools and other organizations could run servers and many people would use a server based on something their interested in or a group they enjoy. Everyone doesn't need to run their own server.
Pop stars could have fan servers, just like they run discords now.
Discord worries me, it dominates by being easy to use, and we understand now that's about audience capture. Same for twitch.
David Chisnall (*Now with 50% more sarcasm!*)
in reply to FediThing • • •@FediThing
Those two statements do not align. For comparison, I'd refer you to Jon Anderson's PhD thesis, where he proposed a social media system design where an individual could host their own system for about $1/year, and that was still more than the per-user costs of operating Facebook. €60-120/year is an enormous cost and far more than almost anyone is willing to pay.
Mastodon is definitely not designed for low resource usage. Alternatives are much lighter but most of them are still written to be run on a complete UNIX-like operating system (maybe in a VM). Where's the Fediverse server that runs in AWS Lambda with S3 (or competing alternatives) for storage, where you pay only for HTTP requests that you service, not a big fixed cost? That should be able to get the costs to well under $1/month (and, for most users, not even above the free tier).
Mastodon uses both Node.js and Ruby, two systems infamous for their high resource usage and the former with enormous fixed costs.
FediThing
in reply to David Chisnall (*Now with 50% more sarcasm!*) • • •I'm not talking about home hosting, I mean managed hosting:
masto.host/pricing/
Managed hosting has economies of scale so the price per server is very low.
The low resource usage of the Fediverse is in things like only storing data for accounts that your server has noticed, rather than copying the entire network onto every server.
"€60-120/year is an enormous cost and far more than almost anyone is willing to pay."
It's low enough that most people could do it if they wanted to. It's about the same as a streaming service. There are many reasons why people might want to: growyourown.services/why-growi…
Pricing | Masto.host
Masto.hostFediThing
in reply to FediThing • • •@david_chisnall
"about $1/year, and that was still more than the per-user costs of operating Facebook"
Do you mean the user's costs or Meta's costs?
If it's the user's costs, they are paying for this with all the manipulation and invasion of their privacy which is not included in that dollar amount.
Meta often closes accounts without explanation, or demands that accounts pay extra if they want all their followers to see their posts. None of this is in that dollar amount either.
David Chisnall (*Now with 50% more sarcasm!*)
in reply to FediThing • • •The costs for Meta to operate the service. They have a lot of economies of scale, but you should be able to get within 50% of their per-user costs with a design that optimises for efficiency.
FediThing
in reply to David Chisnall (*Now with 50% more sarcasm!*) • • •So what? They operate it by not moderating properly and screwing their users' privacy.
This is the result of Meta's operations:
thebureauinvestigates.com/stor…
theguardian.com/technology/202…
amnesty.org.uk/latest/ethiopia…
If Meta were properly regulated and required to moderate properly, they would not be commercially viable. That's why they don't moderate properly, because they can't afford it.
Meta is exactly the cesspit we are trying to get away from.
Rohingya sue Facebook for £150bn over Myanmar genocide
Dan Milmo (The Guardian)David Chisnall (*Now with 50% more sarcasm!*)
in reply to FediThing • • •@FediThing
Great! So at $6/month, they're either charging over a 10-100x markup, or the underlying platform is far more expensive to be.
You clearly have zero idea of how much disposable income most people have. Let me guess, they should stop eating so much avocado toast and should host their own Mastodon server instead?
FediThing
in reply to David Chisnall (*Now with 50% more sarcasm!*) • • •I'm not saying everyone should host it themselves, I'm saying the Fediverse structure has deliberately kept costs as low as possible that anyone can do so if they consider it important. It's not just Mastodon but GoToSocial etc that use this "only store what is needed" structure.
I don't understand why you are being so hostile about this?
Would you rather they developed in a way where it costs hundreds of dollars a month? Surely as low cost as possible is good?
Also on any system the costs of one huge centralised node is always going to be far less per user than smaller decentralised nodes.
David Chisnall (*Now with 50% more sarcasm!*)
in reply to FediThing • • •@FediThing
And I am saying that this is simply not true, the cost of hosting a Fediverse instance (you specifically said Mastodon initially, but now have changed your claim to include other implementations that are somewhat lower cost because your initial claim is indefensible even if you accept that the Fediverse architecture is the lowest-cost architecture possible) is at least an order of magnitude higher than a system designed to be cheap to operate would be.
... Show more...I am not being hostile, I am pointing out that your claims are not backed by evidence and are flat-out wrong. You are now changing your claims, yet still presenting no evidence that they are true, and then piling on claims that mean 'mi
@FediThing
And I am saying that this is simply not true, the cost of hosting a Fediverse instance (you specifically said Mastodon initially, but now have changed your claim to include other implementations that are somewhat lower cost because your initial claim is indefensible even if you accept that the Fediverse architecture is the lowest-cost architecture possible) is at least an order of magnitude higher than a system designed to be cheap to operate would be.
I am not being hostile, I am pointing out that your claims are not backed by evidence and are flat-out wrong. You are now changing your claims, yet still presenting no evidence that they are true, and then piling on claims that mean 'middle class person on a wealthy nation can do it' as your baseline justification for it being low cost.
Why do you think the fact that I cited a design that cost $1/year/user as my baseline for comparison means that I think one that costs hundreds of dollars a year is better?
I don't see how anyone can believe that you are attempting to communicate in good faith here. I am not going to make that assumption and will not engage with you further.
FediThing
in reply to David Chisnall (*Now with 50% more sarcasm!*) • • •@david_chisnall
I don't want this to be a hostile exchange, I respect you and value your opinions.
I genuinely sincerely think we are talking at cross purposes here? I think we are in general agreement but discussing different aspects of what contributes to costs?
But if you want to stop this discussion I respect that too.
myrmepropagandist
in reply to David Chisnall (*Now with 50% more sarcasm!*) • • •@david_chisnall @FediThing
I'm a little confused what the argument is about here. To me Fedi was making a very general point about systems like Mastodon being relatively low cost and not costing 44 million dollars which was the price paid for Twitter. This isn't a deep or technical idea.
I think you are raising a more particular point but also calling Fedi dishonest for missing this point.
Is the issue that Mastodon was not really *designed* with the *intention* of keeping costs low?
David Chisnall (*Now with 50% more sarcasm!*)
in reply to myrmepropagandist • • •@FediThing
Per user, the Fediverse costs a lot more than any proprietary social network system to operate. No one is suggesting that the equivalent is spending $44B to buy Twitter (though I note that this purchase price works out to about $120 / user, which is around the cost of one year of operating a Fediverse server).
It is also much more expensive per user to operate than research designs that predate it, by one to two orders of magnitude.
If you are an organisation wanting to provide a communication path that isn't under the control of oligarchs, that's great. It's expensive relative to what it could be, but still worth the costs. And I stand by that recommendation: anyone with a web browser can see the things you publish on your own Mastodon instance and anyone with any Fediverse account anywhere can participate in your community (unless you block them, and you control who you block, not some third party). These are all useful benefits that are wort
... Show more...@FediThing
Per user, the Fediverse costs a lot more than any proprietary social network system to operate. No one is suggesting that the equivalent is spending $44B to buy Twitter (though I note that this purchase price works out to about $120 / user, which is around the cost of one year of operating a Fediverse server).
It is also much more expensive per user to operate than research designs that predate it, by one to two orders of magnitude.
If you are an organisation wanting to provide a communication path that isn't under the control of oligarchs, that's great. It's expensive relative to what it could be, but still worth the costs. And I stand by that recommendation: anyone with a web browser can see the things you publish on your own Mastodon instance and anyone with any Fediverse account anywhere can participate in your community (unless you block them, and you control who you block, not some third party). These are all useful benefits that are worth the cost.
But for individuals, it's expensive, because it was not designed to be cheap. And I get annoyed when people say things like '$120/year is easily affordable', which is not true for even a lot of people in the richer parts of the world, not even close for most of the world's population. That's very much a 'middle-class people in rich nations are the only ones that matter' framing, which I find especially obnoxious.
FediThing
in reply to David Chisnall (*Now with 50% more sarcasm!*) • • •@david_chisnall
I think this is where the cross purposes happened:
My original post said "Mastodon etc", not "Mastodon". It's a shorthand I use for the different platforms on the Fedi. But this is easily read as meaning just Mastodon.
My original post said "servers can be started by individuals if need be" but I didn't intend this to mean everyone in the world should or could do this. I meant it was on an individual scale.
I'll try to make these clearer in future so that there isn't any misunderstanding.
I often get asked on FediTips why the Fedi works so weirdly, the technical answer is usually to keep costs low.
Osma A 🇫🇮🇺🇦
in reply to FediThing • • •David is correct though, Mastodon in particular shows _no_ intention whatsoever to keeping costs low in any of its architectural choices. It’s a large monolith that may have seemed reasonably easy to implement for a 1000-ish user shared server, but which scales badly upward, and horribly downward.
There have been a couple of attempts to make systems which would work better, cost-wise, for individuals or small groups. CloudFlare had the short-lived Wildebeest system, Ben Brown created SHUTTLECRAFT, but I think that, too, was more of an experiment. GoToSocial is lighter than Mastodon, but not as light as David sets as benchmark.
@FediThing @david_chisnall @futurebird
FediThing
in reply to Osma A 🇫🇮🇺🇦 • • •@osma @david_chisnall
I was mainly intending to highlight the general Fediverse principle of only fetching info that is needed, rather than fetching everything possible.
There is no reason to do this other than keeping costs low, as it makes everything else more difficult for the user.
Osma A 🇫🇮🇺🇦
in reply to FediThing • • •@FediThing @david_chisnall @futurebird
FediThing
in reply to Osma A 🇫🇮🇺🇦 • • •ATproto servers aren't really independent though, you would need to run an AT relay to be truly independent and that costs a fortune per month.
The idea of this thread is about the need to give grassroots movements independence from big tech.
Osma A 🇫🇮🇺🇦
in reply to FediThing • • •@FediThing @david_chisnall @futurebird
FediThing
in reply to Osma A 🇫🇮🇺🇦 • • •Independent servers absolutely was the point, go to the very top of the thread, especially sauropods.win/@futurebird/1170…
AT forces you to either spend a fortune or accept some form of dependence on people who spend a fortune.
myrmepropagandist
2026-07-31 10:45:26
Osma A 🇫🇮🇺🇦
in reply to FediThing • • •I am commenting on what David was commenting on - cost. If you really want to be technical about this: a) an ”independent” AP server will not have content from other servers, so it is an island, or b) an ”independent” ATp server allowed to have the same amount of connectivity to not being an island will not be any more expensive.
This network isn’t what it is, because it is cheap. It is what it is, despite not being cheap.
@FediThing
FediThing
in reply to Osma A 🇫🇮🇺🇦 • • •Fedi servers can talk to each other directly, AT servers cannot.
Blacksky had to go to incredible lengths to break free of Bluesky.
Osma A 🇫🇮🇺🇦
in reply to Osma A 🇫🇮🇺🇦 • • •@FediThing @david_chisnall @futurebird
🫧 Social coding commons
in reply to Osma A 🇫🇮🇺🇦 • • •Like @osma I agree with @david_chisnall observations on cost.
@FediThing perhaps the initial design of Mastodon was deliberate on costs, I dunno, but my impression is that in the developer community there is hardly discussion around hosting cost, and I don't see it featured on project landing pages either.
There are a bunch of attempts at creating #ActivityPub microblogging apps designed around simplicity, which may also make them be cheaper to operate.
Codeberg is having issues all day and is down now, but let me include the list I maintain:
delightful.coding.social/delig…
#Seppo by @mro is one example that comes to mind, funded by #NLnet, it focuses on the ease of self-hosting on any webhosting provider. The tagline is "Personal Social Web":
seppo.mro.name/en/about
#Snac is another example to mention:
codeberg.org/grunfink/snac2
As @futurebird mentions you need a certain technical accumen to use these apps. Unlike Mastodon or GoToSocial they are usually not offered by hosting providers.
About | #Seppo! Personal Social Web
seppo.mro.nameFediThing
in reply to 🫧 Social coding commons • • •My original post (social.chinwag.org/@FediThing/…) wasn't about Mastodon specifically, I said "Mastodon etc". I was referring to the Fediverse as a whole just fetching what was needed rather than cloning the entire network.
FediThing
2026-07-31 11:00:40
🫧 Social coding commons
in reply to FediThing • • •@FediThing @osma @david_chisnall @mro
I was specifically responding to this line:
> the developers of Mastodon etc have deliberately built the Fediverse in a way that keeps the running costs low enough that servers can be started by individuals if need be.
But on the whole I think this is inaccurate:
> I'm saying the Fediverse structure has deliberately kept costs as low as possible that anyone can do so if they consider it important.
Cost was hardly ever a real discussion in dev circles or design considerations. Sure, it has been discussed a bunch on fediverse timelines, but mostly by people who are totally in the dark and doing guesswork, is my impression.
Your argumentation makes it seem like cost was always a major point that drove the evolution of the microblogging fediverse.
> The low resource usage of the Fediverse ..
High resource use is what I've seen discussed most often. It gets very chatty on the wire, esp. with scale, large accounts, etc.
FediThing
in reply to 🫧 Social coding commons • • •When people have asked for more backfilling (i.e. fetching older posts) in discussions on the Mastodon Github, running costs for instances have come up repeatedly as reasons not to fetch more.
If cost and resources weren't an issue at all, devs would just have platforms fetch absolutely everything all the time.
There are often apparently blank profiles on the Fediverse because there is no backfilling of ordinary posts. The Mastodon devs could technically fetch ordinary posts (pinned posts are already backfilled) but they choose not to. AFAIK this is due to resource concerns.
🫧 Social coding commons
in reply to FediThing • • •@FediThing @osma @david_chisnall @mro
Yes, I know how that works, I just never have heard cost being mentioned as the main consideration, and as a real issue to always take into account.
I think overall in this current fedi we have, more emphasis and attention on minimizing costs in the broadest sense of the word is still worthwhile. This might even be at the W3C #SWICG level.
Perhaps there are existing good resources around, blog posts and analyses, and it might be good to collect these and point devs their way.
Osma A 🇫🇮🇺🇦
in reply to 🫧 Social coding commons • • •The three main cost sources are:
1. Serving a large number of direct end users, especially if the timeline is dynamically pulled from a database (as Mastodon does) or otherwise computed online.
2. Storing a long history of aggregated content (just local content much less of an issue)
3. Fixed costs of capacity to do either of above, whether needed or not
4. Fetching and temporarily storing content to serve for #1
Empirical examples of this being the cost order are well documented. I doubt Mastodon core devs don’t have these numbers, too. Focusing on #4 would make no sense.
@smallcircles @FediThing @david_chisnall @mro @futurebird
FediThing
in reply to Osma A 🇫🇮🇺🇦 • • •It's not temporary fetching in this particular context, the fetched posts are stored long term so they show up when searching or browsing. Media attachments may be dumped after a certain amount of time though and re-fetched as necessary, as they don't affect searches or browsing.
It would be #2 on your list.
Osma A 🇫🇮🇺🇦
in reply to FediThing • • •@FediThing @smallcircles @david_chisnall @mro @futurebird
FediThing
in reply to David Chisnall (*Now with 50% more sarcasm!*) • • •@david_chisnall
"And I get annoyed when people say things like '$120/year is easily affordable',"
"That's very much a 'middle-class people in rich nations are the only ones that matter' framing, which I find especially obnoxious."
" then piling on claims that mean 'middle class person on a wealthy nation can do it' as your baseline justification for it being low cost."
To be clear, I didn't say any of these things. I think we are talking at cross purposes?
FediThing
in reply to FediThing • • •"It is also much more expensive per user to operate than research designs that predate it, by one to two orders of magnitude."
I think this is another misunderstanding?
The $6 per month is only for a single user server. The cost per user goes down to a small fraction of that if you're operating a large server because there are some fixed costs that aren't affected by user numbers.
Using the masto.host pricing as an example, the largest plan they offer is $89 per month for 2000 active users. This is $0.04 per user per month, which is two orders of magnitude lower than a single user.
Masto.host - Fully Managed Mastodon Hosting
Masto.hostmyrmepropagandist
in reply to myrmepropagandist • • •At some point you need to ask: why do people on the fedi understand these issues better? It's selection bias. And it's a common thread that runs through these issues of privacy and digital autonomy.
It's also the ability to recognize that getting to design the software, getting to run the platform isn't work, it's power.
And obviously that power should be democratic. No one person should be able to control the network and bend it to their own ends. Obviously.
myrmepropagandist
in reply to myrmepropagandist • • •poleguy looking for lost tools
in reply to myrmepropagandist • • •poleguy looking for lost tools
in reply to poleguy looking for lost tools • • •myrmepropagandist
in reply to poleguy looking for lost tools • • •@poleguy
For over 100 years the US has had many Black newspapers. There used to be Black newspapers in every major US city. As newspapers have fallen apart Black newspapers have vanished too.
I'm just taking Black media as one example but where is the media where WE own the presses?
This is about power, but it's not anti Democratic to create your own media. It's been a part of the fight against anti Democratic forces for decades. From pamphlets to books, to radio to the internet.
Mastodon Migration
in reply to myrmepropagandist • • •FediThing
in reply to Mastodon Migration • • •Several European governments have done so (EU, Germany, France, Netherlands) so it is possible to do.
Mastodon Migration
in reply to FediThing • • •True. Thanks for the clarification.
FediThing
Unknown parent • • •@osma
I haven't made any kind of personal remark towards you, I don't understand why you're being nasty in response?
Osma A 🇫🇮🇺🇦
in reply to FediThing • • •@FediThing
FediThing
in reply to Osma A 🇫🇮🇺🇦 • • •@osma
That's not a very nice thing to say.
eobet
in reply to myrmepropagandist • • •