FediDB respecting robots.txt has resulted in appr. 2M Fediverse accounts no longer being counted.
Prior to this change, #FediDB counted 12,923,233 accounts. Now it counts 10,868,233 accounts.
Now let me be blunt: respecting robots.txt is a good thing. But now when we look at #Fediverse accounts, it must clearly be seen with the acknowledgement that these only count services that haven't opted out of tracking.
So when people compare user counts of #Bluesky vs. the Fediverse, remember that Bluesky has the luxury of a more complete count because they host all accounts there. In contrast, the Fediverse is actually decentralized, and a good many services simply do not want to be tracked -- and are therefore not counted.
@fediversenews@piefed.social
3 Comments
msh@coales.co · 6 pts · 1y
@atomicpoet @fediversenews we will know the social web is fixed when nobody cares about these numbers TBQH
atomicpoet@atomicpoet.org · 2 pts · 1y
@msh@coales.co @fediversenews@piefed.social Nope, everyone should be using ActivityPub-enabled services, so therefore the #SocialWeb will never be "fixed" until it becomes as ubiquitous as phones.
msh@coales.co · 2 pts · 1y
@atomicpoet @fediversenews well "AP Everywhere" is one means to that end certainly. Nobody except telecom industry nerds cares about MAU numbers of the various phone companies after all.
I don't have any emotional attachment to any particular protocol(s) so long as they are open, accessible and interoperable. FWIW I think ATproto is a dead end. It is an open spec and it kinda-sorta interoperates with fedi with bridges, but it is not nearly accessible enough. One must have the resources of a corporation or other decent sized organisation to fully participate in the ATmosphere ecosystem and that is a fatal flaw.