Twitter alternatives are thriving, but not everyone can just quit

Engadget 16.11.2022 02:20 It’s been less than a month since Elon Musk began his chaotic takeover of Twitter but, to many, the platform already feels like it’s entered an inevitable death spiral. Advertisers are fleeing. The few remaining top executives are also leaving. Musk’s Twitter Blue rollout was a complete disaster. The FTC says it has “deep concern” about the company. Musk told employees bankruptcy is a real possibility. Former engineers say the site could break at any moment.Unsurprisingly, the uncertainty has inspired many users to explore Twitter alternatives. Among them, Mastodon, a decentralized platform founded in 2016, has emerged as one of the top destinations for Twitter quitters. The service saw an earlier uptick in April, when Musk’s buyout was announced, but it’s seen an even bigger flood of new users since Musk’s takeover was completed.Between October 27th and November 6th, Mastodon gained nearly half a million new users, almost doubling its user base, according to founder Eugen Rochko. Data from Similarweb, shows that the two most popular “entry points” to Mastodon, the mastodon.social server and joinmastodon.org, are getting more than four times the amount of daily traffic compared with the end of October prior to Musk taking over the company.SimilarWebIt’s not the first time upheaval at Twitter has driven new users to the “fediverse,” but it’s the largest exodus. And even many of those who haven’t quit Twitter entirely have begun promoting their Mastodon accounts.But not everyone is ready — or able— to give up on Twitter. And many don’t see Mastodon as a viable substitute for what Twitter has provided.For Beth Hyman, executive director of the SquirrelWood animal sanctuary in New York, Twitter has for years been a vital source of donations thanks to the rescue’s popular “Crouton Friends” account. She began to grow SquirrelWood’s Twitter presence in 2018 by posting nightly videos of Crouton, a baby cow living at the sanctuary.Now, Twitter, where Crouton has more than 65,000 followers, is one of the sanctuary’s biggest, and most reliable, sources of donations. For example, she was able to raise $30,000 for a used horse trailer in just three days in 2021, and frequently shares other fundraisers for the sanctuary. She worries about how Twitter’s current instability could affect them. “I don't want to see the income that helps keep this sanctuary going, and all these animals fed, dry up,” Hyman tells Engadget.She says she signed up for Mastodon as well as CounterSocial after noticing a dip in her followers in the days after Musk’s takeover, but she’s skeptical she will be able to recreate her Twitter account’s success on a new platform. “Our main home base has always been Twitter. A lot of work goes into this, and it's not like you just flip the switch and walk away and reignite it somewhere else,” she says.She’s also found that it’s just not as easy to share photos and videos of SquirrelWood’s animals — the main draw for her social media followers — on Mastodon due to its file size constraints. “We’re taking care of 70 animals, I need something that I can do on the fly very easily,” she said.Yup. Not leaving the Twitter. #throwback#Roopic.twitter.com/09NV6DWM8c— Crouton Friends

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