Saying Hello to Mastodon Again

Mastodon is one of those other Twitter/X alternative social media platforms, my beloved Bluesky being amongst them in that case. I've used it before, back when I was still searching for my post-Twitter home. I used it before Bluesky even existed, actually, but it initially felt... pointy? The community had this edge to it that seemed to sharpen exponentially as time went on. There was an underlying tension, a sort of gatekeeping energy that made interactions feel more like navigating a minefield than having casual conversations. So I took flight in the Atmosphere and have thoroughly enjoyed it! That is, however, with small caveats.

The thing is, I missed some people over there. Good people who were comfortable staying with Mastodon, who'd found their groove and weren't particularly interested in migrating yet again to another platform. Social media fatigue is real, and I completely understand the reluctance to start fresh somewhere new when you've already put in the effort to build connections and curate your feed.

So as of today, I've created a new account to reconnect with those folks. I will not be abandoning Bluesky (you can thank the sunk-cost fallacy for that, plus I genuinely love the community I've built there), but I will be poking around the other network from time to time.

Here's the thing though: I don't really know what to say over there. I'm not too great at juggling multiple social media platforms that target the same niche. When you're used to microblogging in one space, jumping to another that serves essentially the same purpose feels a bit like... well, like having two different Twitter accounts and trying to maintain distinct personalities on each. Do I cross-post everything? Do I tailor content for each audience? Do I just wing it and hope for the best?

The technical side is fascinating, mind you. Personally, I prefer the AT Protocol over ActivityPub because I find it much easier to chunk and play with in my projects. The AT Protocol feels more modular and developer-friendly to me, whilst ActivityPub can sometimes feel like trying to untangle Christmas lights. That said, both have their pros and cons, and neither is perfect. ActivityPub has the advantage of being more established with a wider ecosystem, whilst AT Protocol benefits from learning from earlier implementations.

Even still, they're both fighting over the same goal: creating a decentralised social web where users have more control over their data and experience. Whether we end up with one dominant protocol or a healthy ecosystem of interoperable standards remains to be seen. I just hope I can sustain a prescence there.