alt Hacker News> are all posting their updates on X - because, like the users, they have no choice, because no alternative exists.
The fediverse is a viable alternative. But most non-tech people don't know about it.
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And it has much less users, I would say its max 1-5% of X users.
> The fediverse is a viable alternative
Bluesky attracted socialist progressives, furries, and kink-positive folks early on.
I'm not making any value statements, and there's nothing wrong with the userbase, but this is what dominates the feed for new users.
A lot of people are turned off by that when they see it as their first experience with the platform. Or they're actively turned away upon interaction. That's not how you build a big social network.
Mastodon is the exact same.
These platforms are also not winning people over by calling them "toots" and "skeets".
It's like Gimp refusing to adopt a Photoshop style UI for years and not changing their name.
Despite stated intentions, I think these platforms want to stay small and niche and non mainstream. If they wanted to grow big, they'd behave much differently. They'd try to get the Kardashians and would welcome posts about handbags and guns and sports.
Did websites and RSS stop working and I missed it? With more people doing AI searches a website is even more viable now, it's better for AI scraping than x.com.