There’s been a lot of speculation around what Threads will be and what it means for Mastodon. We’ve put together some of the most common questions and our responses based on what was launched today.
I think there is a risk that Threads will be massive, and so people will think that the way to get on Mastodon is Threads, and eventually that Threads is Mastodon. C/f Google Groups and Usenet.
I know we all dream of having all our friends and family on the Fediverse so we can avoid proprietary networks completely. But the Fediverse is not looking for market dominance or profit. The Fediverse is not looking for growth. It is offering a place for freedom. People joining the Fediverse are those looking for freedom. If people are not ready or are not looking for freedom, that’s fine. They have the right to stay on proprietary platforms. We should not force them into the Fediverse. We should not try to include as many people as we can at all cost. We should be honest and ensure people join the Fediverse because they share some of the values behind it.
This is incredibly naive. Mastodon/ActivityPub is much more popular than XMPP was lol
760 million total worldwide internet users in 2003, vs 4.7 billion today.
Based on these sources, then, 1.3% of all internet users were using XMPP in 2003, and 0.26% of all internet users in the fediverse in 2023. As a proportion of all users, that makes XMPP roughly 5x more popular back then than ActivityPub is now.
Why are people mad at this? Being able to communicate with Threads users from mastodon servers, is good? Right?
I think there is a risk that Threads will be massive, and so people will think that the way to get on Mastodon is Threads, and eventually that Threads is Mastodon. C/f Google Groups and Usenet.
Read this and you’ll see why people are very skeptical.
This is incredibly naive. Mastodon/ActivityPub is much more popular than XMPP was lol
Are there numbers to back this up? I remember Pidgin being a contender to replace AIM for a time.
Oh I fucking member Pidgin.
Remember Trillium? Xbox Connect?
XMPP had nearly 10 million users in 2003: https://web.archive.org/web/20071103080257/http://www.xmpp.org/xsf/press/2003-09-22.shtml)) Activitypub has about 12 million users now: https://fediverse.observer/stats
Thanks.
So not too dissimilar in terms of total numbers of users… however considering the growth of the whole internet’s user base…
760 million total worldwide internet users in 2003, vs 4.7 billion today.
Based on these sources, then, 1.3% of all internet users were using XMPP in 2003, and 0.26% of all internet users in the fediverse in 2023. As a proportion of all users, that makes XMPP roughly 5x more popular back then than ActivityPub is now.