Regardless of growing numbers, Mastodon is set on staying a nonprofit social networking site. Venture capital firms from Silicon Valley have offered more than five investments in the last few months, which are all turned down by Mastodon.
Mastodon Still for the Masses
Mastodon developer Eugen Rochko called the social media site "untouchable," implying that no offer will ever let him turn the site into a profitable one. He stated that the site would not turn into everything that people hated about Twitter.
He also mentioned that the difference between Mastodon and Twitter was that the latter could be sold to a controversial millionaire, can be shut down, or go bankrupt. In a tweet by Mastodon, they stated that the ability to communicate should not be at the whims of a commercial company, as mentioned in Interesting Engineering.
When Twitter suspended Mastodon temporarily, Rochko expressed his concerns in a blog, saying that it was a reminder that centralized platforms can impose arbitrary and unfair limits on what a user can and can't say.
The developer's ideals stay the same even as Mastodon is starting to gather more users. The significant increase began when Musk acquired Twitter, wherein more than a million joined Mastodon. From October to November 2022, Mastodon went from 300,00 users to 2.5 million.
Is Mastodon Replacing Twitter?
Looking at the possibility now, it's still unlikely. However, that can change. In many ways, Mastodon and Twitter are alike. Both platforms provide a way for users to express themselves through worded statements that can be seen by a number of other users.
Users can also reply or repost, just as people can reply and retweet on the competitor platform. The difference is that Mastodon is maintained by its community. Its users can fix bugs and contribute to codes to make the platform better, as mentioned in The New York Times.
Twitter is just one network overseen by the company's staff and executives. Mastodon is made up of many servers which can be linked together. Users will choose a server once they sign up for an account on Mastodon, but they will have access to other servers.
Since Mastodon is a nonprofit, you won't be seeing ads. All its servers are funded by its users, and the two servers by Mastodon, Mastodon Social and Mastodon online, are funded through Patreon. The platform currently has around 8,500 donors, as they claimed.
There's also the issue of content moderation, or the lack thereof. Since Mastodon is basically managed by its community, the responsibility of filtering out content fall on them. On the other hand, Twitter has its own system that can impose rules on users whether they like it or not.
Your username will also indicate which server you're on. For example, it will be username@mastodon.social. You can always change the server you're in whenever you like and interact with other servers as well.
Either way, you can weigh in on the factors and features of both Mastodon and Twitter, so you can choose which platform you're more comfortable with.
