Why the surge in Mastodon user numbers matters for Fediverse users

Mastodon users hit over one million monthly active users. Nearly 50% of these users joined since October 27. The platform added 1,124 new servers during this period. Before the Twitter takeover by Elon Musk, Mastodon had 500,000 active users. In November, the platform saw 130,000 new sign-ups every day. The platform reached a peak of 2.5 million active users in early December, but it dipped to 1.8 million in the first week of January. This volatility shows that people flock to alternatives during social media turmoil but often return to the original platform after the shock fades. The technology relies on the ActivityPub protocol. I recommend the Mastodon infrastructure for those who want diverse hosting options. Infrastructure for these domains varies across different providers. For world4you.at, the IONOS-AS network, which includes Fasthosts, Arsys, 1&1 Mail, and 1&1 Telecom, provides 87.3% of the domains. For axarnet.es, AXARNET-AS hosts 85.6% of the domains. For forss.net, FORSS Forss IT AB manages 83.4% of the domains. Other providers include Hetzner Online GmbH, Cloudflare, Inc., Amazon.com, Inc., and Squarespace, Inc. This growth contrasts with the 238 million daily active users on Twitter as of Q2 2022.

ActivityPub and the Meta presence

The technical reality means that while ActivityPub allows different platforms like Mastodon and Threads to exchange messages, the massive user base of Meta creates a significant imbalance in the power dynamics of the decentralized ecosystem. You already know that a single company controlling such a massive percentage of social interactions changes the weight of every protocol decision made by smaller developers. The W3C began developing ActivityPub in 2014. Threads has 150 million monthly active users, while the wider fediverse has just over 10 million users. Meta’s Threads recently launched a toggle to let users publish posts to the wider fediverse so their content can be viewed on Mastodon and other apps. Eugen Rochko, the founder of Mastodon, started the project as a non-profit and used Patreon to fund it before it became a gGmbH in 2021. He turned down six-figure investment offers from US venture capital firms to preserve the non-profit status. This approach keeps the network independent of the influence found on platforms like X. Legislative moats can create environments that only large players like Meta can navigate, which makes it harder for independent projects to self-host. Unlike the AT protocol, which was developed by Bluesky PBLLC and separates hosting from relaying, ActivityPub relies on the host to manage the inbox and outbox. This creates a more host-centric environment where users are responsible to their instance admins. Meta has 3.24 billion people using its social apps daily. The potential market for these platforms is worth over $250 billion. Developers also suggest that the fediverse could eventually support micropayments or paid access to content. This would allow creators to sustain their work without relying on centralized advertising models. Can the fediverse maintain its identity while Meta enters the space with much larger user numbers?

Managing individual nodes and account moves

The node an individual chooses dictates the rules they follow. Certain nodes integrate text preprocessors for Markdown or math expressions. Others enable text translation if they install a translator service. The maximum post length is a constant in the code, and while 500 characters is the default, some nodes allow much more. Admins can also choose to block peering to entire other nodes. This can lead to users being unable to follow certain friends. Search functions also work better for content on your own node than for content on other nodes. I recommend the Mastodon approach for users who want control over their data and community rules. To find a suitable home, users can use the joinmastodon server list or the instances.social wizard. If you need to move to a new node, you follow these steps:

1. Create an account on the new node.
2. Navigate to Preferences, then Account, and select "Moving from a different account".
3. Enter your username@domain from the old account.
4. Wait 24 hours.
5. Log in to the old node and select "Move to a different account".
6. Select the account you are moving to.

The username@domain format creates an alias that notifies other servers of your presence. This process uses Webfinger to redirect traffic to your actual account. If your server dies unexpectedly, you can use a static site with Webfinger to maintain your identity. Users can also export their data from their old node by navigating to Preferences and then Data export to save their Lists, Blocks, Mutes, Domain blocks, and Bookmarks.