Growth at All Costs or The Uncomfortable Familiarity of Migration

My Mastodon Instance is going through what many are right now, massive growth from #TwitterMigration. It's an amazing time to be a Mastodon user, even even recently, and to watch as people come with all manner of value to add and/ or expectations.

Though I must admit, even in my infancy as a Mastodon user (but not one with Twitter), it's bittersweet.

Three Types of Growth

  1. There is the obvious desire to help those in need, to support and provide refuge to those who have lost their communities. If this isn't Mastodon in a nutshell, then you haven't been paying attention.

  2. There are those like me who have been shown the difference between social media and social networking, and fear the prevailing attitudes of the former will cause harm to a community that has been nurtured by communities like LGBTQIA2S+ — meaning they've build rules around respect, consent, and communication. Let's be honest, those are not common standards of social media. The patience of Mastodon is showing itself with consistent toots about expectations within each instance – I've tried to share what I know as well, though my role right now is to listen, as I'm new which makes this post that much more troublesome for me. You can easily tell the difference between a social media user and a social networking user solely from the tone of their posts.

  3. Then there's the idea of 'growth at all costs'. My server is going through this stage as I write. Trying to take on an influx of 80k users in just over a week, a task I'm incredibly impressed by and concerned by.

The experience of the instance has now degraded immensely. I'm not talking about an annoyance here or there, goodness no, those need to be tolerated on Mastodon because the admin's are generally on person. My admin is called Trumpet, and they're communicating often to let us know where they're at.

Their ko-fi account now has 1200+ subscribers providing monthly donations to support and thank them. It's actually very lovely to see and gives me pride in being a part of this instance and the greater fediverse. These are the kind of people I want to be around online :) But the problem has become:

Basically, my server has been unusable for 3 days, and though I pride myself on compassion and patience, I admit that I am eager to participate right now. To support, to chat, to make new friends — I'm excited!

But I can't.

So as I sat these past 3 days, refreshing and attempting to post, I couldn't help but ask myself a disturbing question.

Why does growth at all cost sound familiar?

It's the thinking of social media, Twitter, shareholders, so many tech startups including my own failed attempt years ago. When is it good enough? When can we stop and say, 'this, right here. It's great right now, let's pause?'.

I recognize that this migration provides an opportunity for growth that instances like mine don't generally see, so they're taking the opportunity and I get that. But what about the current users?

Hell, those who came before me on this instance shouldn't have to suffer for my onboarding either. This is their space first.

Which leads me to the second title of this post, and one that is bothering me...

The Uncomfortable Familiarity of Migration

The parallels between Twitter's migration to Mastodon has an uncomfortable semblance to arguments for and against immigration, and I have caught myself several times cringing at my words regarding twitter/ mastodon when placed in the context of immigration.

Am I NIMBY? Even though I have no right to be one, as this home is new and I haven't earned the right to speak on its behalf?

Am I speaking from a place of concern because the world I knew at Twitter was one of anger, vitriol, and hate and my escape is one I want to protect?

My celebration of the downfall of twitter due to my own generalizations of the platform, have made me miss the compassion in its loss by those who called it home. Carving out a home in what I deemed an inhospitable environment.

To me, twitter was a dangerous space at home (election interference) and a freedom fighter abroad (Arab spring). Politically, I believe that the communication needed by Iran can be supported by Mastodon but it's name is not ubiquitous, a very important part of their need.

All that said...