10 Years on Mastodon

After ten years on Mastodon, Terence Eden reflects on why it has held his attention when many other social networks have faded from his daily life. He values its resistance to corporate branding and advertising, and its chronological feed, spam controls, and customizable filters, which let him avoid unwanted topics and reposts. Mastodon’s open API and the wider ActivityPub ecosystem also make it enjoyable to build for, rather than a platform that steadily restricts outside developers. He finds its community appealing in part because many users have chosen an alternative to mainstream networks, though he acknowledges missing former Twitter contacts and now also uses Bluesky.

The experience is not without frustrations. Eden wants controls to limit who can reply and to hide abusive or unwanted replies from threads, as well as geolocation features. He identifies persistent, combative or unhelpful “reply guys” as a real deterrent, while recognizing that stronger moderation could also be used to suppress legitimate criticism. Mastodon’s growth presents a similar tension: more users could strengthen the Fediverse, but also bring more spam and hostility. He sees no obvious ideal size, yet considers the network’s decentralized structure a source of resilience: individual services may falter, but ActivityPub communities can continue elsewhere. He expects Mastodon and the Fediverse to face setbacks and changes, and hopes to remain part of them for another decade.