The organization has already transitioned to a nonprofit in the U.S. but is still working to set up a nonprofit in Belgium, or an AISBL, to replace the German entity, which lost its nonprofit status last year. Once established, the Belgian nonprofit will be the future home of the organization. In the meantime, the U.S.-based 501(c)(3) c nonprofit will own the trademark and other assets.
You are to be compared with tech billionaires, with their immense wealth and layered support systems, but with none of the money or resources. It manifests in what people expect of you, and how people talk about you.
People need to realize that open source projects don't create billionaires. In fact, they actually block billionaires from forming.
Tech deci-millionaires get rich by creating a moat around something, then put a toll booth at the drawbridge. Tech billionaires do that but make sure to enclose something essential they have a monopoly on within the moat, and then capture any and all regulators who might try to interfere. Open Source software either makes it illegal to build a moat or allows anybody who's interested to build their own drawbridge. It's orders of magnitude harder to get rich with open source or free software. You basically have to put up a toll booth that's fully optional and somehow still get people to pay.
We should all thank #JohnMastodon for his selfless acts, both starting Mastodon but also now knowing when to step down.
What are you struggling with? Look for a server (that isn't mastodon.social) that fits your interests, sign up, browse the local or global timeline, follow interesing people, have fun!
Finding a single server that fits my interests is the first stumbling block. I follow 30-40 communities here, so I need to pick just one focus, which kinda sucks, TBF.
So I picked one, It was too quiet, but it was a start, then I started looking for interesting people. Hardly anyone famous, the few that I did find ended up being the ones that turned out to be creeps in the news, even assuming they were real accounts, which is probably a generous assumption. When I finally found the few people I wanted to follow, they gradually disappeared over time to Bluesky.
WIth their community lines being split per server and no discovery other than randomly finding someone with your tastes while bebopping around on your server. It wasn't a good experience.
It was good of you for trying. I did almost the same thing, except once I had an account on my little server, I started finding interesting people right away on the explore tab of the app. I followed them, and followed the people they boosted, and generally had a great experience. It sounds like it just isn't for everyone and that's ok. It will just keep growing slowly on its own.
I think one of the big things few people mention is hahstags, I do follow a lot of things that interest me via hashtags and found a lot of cool people that way.
I use mastodon.social and i have nearly 300 followers here. I dont know any server nor i do know how to find one that match with my interests. I am interested in generally anime, visual novel, jpop, art lgbt etc. twitter is one central website that servs all kind of people at once so it is not very quiet. mastodon.social is both quiet and I am having struggles to find someone famous and interesting entertaining here. Like bro on my feed posting something and gets zero likes. I do the same and the same happens to me.
as rumba@lemmy.zip also states that the inactivity here is a major problem i also did the same my account here is from 2023 and we are about to enter 2026. I am also a dead account here.
You know people told me to do this with Lemmy and I ended up choosing a lemmy.ml . I found out later I guess that’s the Antichrist and I shouldn’t have done that. What’s the best way to understand what server is kosher?
I'm right there with you. To be honest, I'm still figuring out Lemmy myself; like how it's different from Mastodon and why content sometimes crosses over. It seems straightforward to a lot of people, but it's a learning curve for me lol.
Haha, o no. Mmmmh, I would go around server lists (heard good things about https://fedi.garden/ ) and then look at the public timeline of a server and also at the server rules. I did this for finding a new Pixelfed instance a few months ago (didn't find anything I liked) and it was interesting to see if people had just pasted the standard rules (kind of a red flag for me, personally), wrote some bs like "be nice to each other" or had taken care of thinking about this.
Articles are incentivized to elaborate beyond what is even remotely necessary, link back to no one but themselves themselves, repeatedly, and to serve ads and extract personal information for sale while they're doing it.
So you'll have to excuse some of us looking for the tl;dr
Mastodon is bigger than me, and though the technology we develop on is itself decentralized—with heaps of alternative fediverse projects demonstrating that participation in this ecosystem is possible without our involvement—it benefits our community to ensure that the project itself which so many people have come to love and depend on remains true to its values. There are too many examples of founder egos sabotaging thriving communities, and while I’d like to think myself an exception, I understand why people would prefer better guardrails.
I don't think so. He often hold down PRs and when push them almost all the times makes sure that they wont be compatible with the majority of activtypub implementations.
That may have been some time ago? The team has been larger than just Eugen for quite a while now. In terms of "won't be compatible with the majority of AP implementations", is there a specific PR that has been changed to make something incompatible? I'm not sure I understand what you are describing. I'd love to know where we can improve, here.
"This kind of thing" being big picture dynamics of how to run a social media project.
I've also had a mastodon PR stall, but I think they get so many, many with competing demands, and have so few staff, that it's not really surprising that it's a bit mess on that front...
I love and hate how Eugen starts this whole project, leads it into being something truly unique and wonderful that directly challenges some of the most evil and wealthy people on the planet, sets up institutional guardrails to make sure it will not be corrupted by any one individual gone mad with power, gives away his position after 10 years once he's sure the organization is in good hands, and then concludes in reflection that he does not "have the right personality" for running a project like this.
I hope it has not been to hard for him, and that he'll look back at it all as a positive experience in spite of the negative interactions. I don't think any sane person has a personality that is "right" for the kind of abuse public figures receive on the internet. But from the perspective of Mastodon and the Fediverse, it seems pretty clear that he was exactly the right type of personality for the job—including by stepping down when the time felt right.
I get it and don't hate it. If one of my projects took off like that and gained traction the absolute LAST thing I'd want to be is CEO of the whole damn thing. That's just not who I am. I'd hope I'd be able to find and hand it off to someone more qualified for that position. So I totally get where Eugen is coming from as I would have done the exact same thing.
I was on a non profit board where the founder realized he wasn't the right person for the job after 20 years of growing the org. It finally got to a point that he felt like the growth was beyond what he ever imagined or wanted.
He was, on every metric, very successful. He grew the org from nothing, got millions of dollars in donations, amassed a huge base, and no one would have thought different if he just kept going.
I remember sitting down with him one-on-one and asked him why. He thought about it for a minute and said, "It's time for someone to make it even better."
Looking back, I think I see the exhaustion. To constantly innovate, to push people forward, to push the org, the mission....it was all one person at a time. He reached a point in both age and in life that it just wasn't something he could keep doing.
He loved the mission so much he knew it deserved better.
leads it into being something truly unique and wonderful that directly challenges some of the most evil and wealthy people on the planet,
Everybody switched to BlueSky, not Mastodon. So, I feel like this whole project has been a failure, especially in the marketing dept.
BlueSky barely got started in Feb, and people immediately jumped ship from Twitter by the millions. Mastodon started nine years ago, and people hardly know what it is.
I see Bluesky handles more than Twitter handles nowadays, even among popular streamers, YouTubers, whoever. And I can't remember the last time I've seen a Mastodon handle.
Everyone who was on Twitter that couldn't handle X moved, it's hopping, their algorithm is as good at discovery as Reddit or Twitter. A great deal of my social network that was on facebook moved right over.
55 Comments
Adderbox76@lemmy.ca · 96 pts · 282d
Respect. He built something bigger than him and then knew that it was time to transition.
avidamoeba@lemmy.ca · 95 pts · 282d
Very important step.
merc@sh.itjust.works · 72 pts · 282d
https://blog.joinmastodon.org/2025/11/my-next-chapter-with-mastodon/
People need to realize that open source projects don't create billionaires. In fact, they actually block billionaires from forming.
Tech deci-millionaires get rich by creating a moat around something, then put a toll booth at the drawbridge. Tech billionaires do that but make sure to enclose something essential they have a monopoly on within the moat, and then capture any and all regulators who might try to interfere. Open Source software either makes it illegal to build a moat or allows anybody who's interested to build their own drawbridge. It's orders of magnitude harder to get rich with open source or free software. You basically have to put up a toll booth that's fully optional and somehow still get people to pay.
We should all thank #JohnMastodon for his selfless acts, both starting Mastodon but also now knowing when to step down.
WinGirl99@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 27 pts · 282d
and yet i still dont know how to use mastodon
jlow@discuss.tchncs.de · 18 pts · 282d
What are you struggling with? Look for a server (that isn't mastodon.social) that fits your interests, sign up, browse the local or global timeline, follow interesing people, have fun!
rumba@lemmy.zip · 18 pts · 282d
Not OP, but...
Finding a single server that fits my interests is the first stumbling block. I follow 30-40 communities here, so I need to pick just one focus, which kinda sucks, TBF.
So I picked one, It was too quiet, but it was a start, then I started looking for interesting people. Hardly anyone famous, the few that I did find ended up being the ones that turned out to be creeps in the news, even assuming they were real accounts, which is probably a generous assumption. When I finally found the few people I wanted to follow, they gradually disappeared over time to Bluesky.
WIth their community lines being split per server and no discovery other than randomly finding someone with your tastes while bebopping around on your server. It wasn't a good experience.
sem@piefed.blahaj.zone · 2 pts · 281d
It was good of you for trying. I did almost the same thing, except once I had an account on my little server, I started finding interesting people right away on the explore tab of the app. I followed them, and followed the people they boosted, and generally had a great experience. It sounds like it just isn't for everyone and that's ok. It will just keep growing slowly on its own.
jlow@discuss.tchncs.de · 1 pts · 281d
I think one of the big things few people mention is hahstags, I do follow a lot of things that interest me via hashtags and found a lot of cool people that way.
WinGirl99@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 10 pts · 282d
I use mastodon.social and i have nearly 300 followers here. I dont know any server nor i do know how to find one that match with my interests. I am interested in generally anime, visual novel, jpop, art lgbt etc. twitter is one central website that servs all kind of people at once so it is not very quiet. mastodon.social is both quiet and I am having struggles to find someone famous and interesting entertaining here. Like bro on my feed posting something and gets zero likes. I do the same and the same happens to me.
as rumba@lemmy.zip also states that the inactivity here is a major problem i also did the same my account here is from 2023 and we are about to enter 2026. I am also a dead account here.
happydoors@lemmy.world · 8 pts · 281d
You know people told me to do this with Lemmy and I ended up choosing a lemmy.ml . I found out later I guess that’s the Antichrist and I shouldn’t have done that. What’s the best way to understand what server is kosher?
MousePotatoDoesStuff@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 281d
Mastodon.social, I guess?
(I'm either right or someone will show up to correct me shortly, as per Murphy's law :P)
chaseforliberty@opensocial.at · 3 pts · 281d
@happydoors @MousePotatoDoesStuff no, Murphy's law is whatever can go wrong will.
MousePotatoDoesStuff@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 231d
Sorry, my bad. I was thinking of Cole's Law.
radiouser@crazypeople.online · 2 pts · 281d
I'm right there with you. To be honest, I'm still figuring out Lemmy myself; like how it's different from Mastodon and why content sometimes crosses over. It seems straightforward to a lot of people, but it's a learning curve for me lol.
jlow@discuss.tchncs.de · 2 pts · 281d
Haha, o no. Mmmmh, I would go around server lists (heard good things about https://fedi.garden/ ) and then look at the public timeline of a server and also at the server rules. I did this for finding a new Pixelfed instance a few months ago (didn't find anything I liked) and it was interesting to see if people had just pasted the standard rules (kind of a red flag for me, personally), wrote some bs like "be nice to each other" or had taken care of thinking about this.
lilas105@ttrpg.network · 5 pts · 281d
Have you tried?
WinGirl99@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 2 pts · 281d
yup commented the details below.
rimu@piefed.social · 7 pts · 282d
Thank you Eugen, for everything.
mbirth@lemmy.ml · -30 pts · 282d
But will they continue to moderate content by German leftist standards?
ripcord@lemmy.world · 0 pts · 281d
mudkip@lemdro.id · -36 pts · 283d
Why
dataprolet@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 95 pts · 283d
Read the article!?
cabbage@piefed.social · 61 pts · 283d
I also recommend reading Eugen Rochko's own post about it, as Andy Piper linked to as well.
Keineanung@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 282d
Thanks a lot for sharing.
Ulrich@feddit.org · -23 pts · 283d
Articles are incentivized to elaborate beyond what is even remotely necessary, link back to no one but themselves themselves, repeatedly, and to serve ads and extract personal information for sale while they're doing it.
So you'll have to excuse some of us looking for the tl;dr
RaivoKulli@sopuli.xyz · 22 pts · 282d
I'm gonna call it: lazyness
Ulrich@feddit.org · -21 pts · 282d
I'm gonna call it: apathy
k0e3@lemmy.ca · 12 pts · 282d
Then why bother asking here?
Edit: oh wait, you weren't the one who asked. My bad.
MotoAsh@piefed.social · 10 pts · 282d
You'd be far more accurate if you said "news sites" or something instead of "articles".
It's not a universal truth, but it's kinda' true of techcrunch.
Ulrich@feddit.org · -10 pts · 282d
No tangible difference.
ripcord@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 281d
Yes there is
andypiper@lemmy.world · 41 pts · 283d
read https://blog.joinmastodon.org/2025/11/my-next-chapter-with-mastodon/ and https://blog.joinmastodon.org/2025/11/the-future-is-ours-to-build-together/
Blaze@piefed.zip · 99 pts · 283d
Thank you for sharing
That's nice of him to acknowledge that.
naught101@lemmy.world · 28 pts · 283d
Eugen has always seemed pretty clear-eyed about this kind of thing.
ademir@lemmy.eco.br · 2 pts · 282d
I don't think so. He often hold down PRs and when push them almost all the times makes sure that they wont be compatible with the majority of activtypub implementations.
andypiper@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 282d
That may have been some time ago? The team has been larger than just Eugen for quite a while now. In terms of "won't be compatible with the majority of AP implementations", is there a specific PR that has been changed to make something incompatible? I'm not sure I understand what you are describing. I'd love to know where we can improve, here.
rimu@piefed.social · 2 pts · 282d
Groups
naught101@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 282d
Mastodon doesn't have groups?
naught101@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 282d
"This kind of thing" being big picture dynamics of how to run a social media project.
I've also had a mastodon PR stall, but I think they get so many, many with competing demands, and have so few staff, that it's not really surprising that it's a bit mess on that front...
cabbage@piefed.social · 89 pts · 283d
I love and hate how Eugen starts this whole project, leads it into being something truly unique and wonderful that directly challenges some of the most evil and wealthy people on the planet, sets up institutional guardrails to make sure it will not be corrupted by any one individual gone mad with power, gives away his position after 10 years once he's sure the organization is in good hands, and then concludes in reflection that he does not "have the right personality" for running a project like this.
I hope it has not been to hard for him, and that he'll look back at it all as a positive experience in spite of the negative interactions. I don't think any sane person has a personality that is "right" for the kind of abuse public figures receive on the internet. But from the perspective of Mastodon and the Fediverse, it seems pretty clear that he was exactly the right type of personality for the job—including by stepping down when the time felt right.
rozodru@pie.andmc.ca · 25 pts · 283d
I get it and don't hate it. If one of my projects took off like that and gained traction the absolute LAST thing I'd want to be is CEO of the whole damn thing. That's just not who I am. I'd hope I'd be able to find and hand it off to someone more qualified for that position. So I totally get where Eugen is coming from as I would have done the exact same thing.
cabbage@piefed.social · 29 pts · 283d
What I hate about it is that this unwillingness to be in a position of power is so correlated with actually being suited for it.
verdi@feddit.org · 3 pts · 282d
100% this.
CosmicTurtle0@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 9 pts · 283d
I was on a non profit board where the founder realized he wasn't the right person for the job after 20 years of growing the org. It finally got to a point that he felt like the growth was beyond what he ever imagined or wanted.
He was, on every metric, very successful. He grew the org from nothing, got millions of dollars in donations, amassed a huge base, and no one would have thought different if he just kept going.
I remember sitting down with him one-on-one and asked him why. He thought about it for a minute and said, "It's time for someone to make it even better."
Looking back, I think I see the exhaustion. To constantly innovate, to push people forward, to push the org, the mission....it was all one person at a time. He reached a point in both age and in life that it just wasn't something he could keep doing.
He loved the mission so much he knew it deserved better.
If that isn't leadership, I don't know what is.
p03locke@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 2 pts · 282d
Everybody switched to BlueSky, not Mastodon. So, I feel like this whole project has been a failure, especially in the marketing dept.
BlueSky barely got started in Feb, and people immediately jumped ship from Twitter by the millions. Mastodon started nine years ago, and people hardly know what it is.
cabbage@piefed.social · 10 pts · 282d
Bluesky hardly challenges the establishment as far as I can see, they're just more venture capitalists waiting to enshittify.
p03locke@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 1 pts · 281d
Doesn't matter. If they haven't convinced people to switch to their platform, they haven't solved the problem of transforming the medium.
Blaze@piefed.zip · 4 pts · 282d
How is Bluesky nowadays? Seems very quiet the last time I checked
p03locke@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 2 pts · 281d
I see Bluesky handles more than Twitter handles nowadays, even among popular streamers, YouTubers, whoever. And I can't remember the last time I've seen a Mastodon handle.
rumba@lemmy.zip · 1 pts · 282d
Everyone who was on Twitter that couldn't handle X moved, it's hopping, their algorithm is as good at discovery as Reddit or Twitter. A great deal of my social network that was on facebook moved right over.
Blaze@piefed.zip · 2 pts · 282d
Interesting, I guess it's language dependent, my main social circle doesn't speak English.
rumba@lemmy.zip · 1 pts · 282d
that would make sense
naught101@lemmy.world · 12 pts · 283d
That first post is very good. I really appreciate the way he's handled the first 10 years, and I hope he has fun doing whatever he does next.