Bad. It’s always bad for the user. It’s good for the people at the top, but the reason for going public is never ever for the benefit of the consumer.
The reason is that even if the initial buy-in helps fund innovation, that will inevitably be replaced by enshittification as the board of investors demand “line must go up.” You can’t be consumer focused and chase profits; they are mutually exclusive.
Nonsense. How can sound travel such a long wire? It needs the air gaps to produce sound!
(/j)
Asking for voluntary tips isn’t enshittification. It’s surviving within the reality of shitty capitalism. I donate to my instance admins, for example, because as much as they probably would love to just run this instance for free, they can’t.
This is probably the most ethical way to ensure creators can continue to eat, especially with generative software models able to produce competing garbage in gigantic volumes.
For those of us with the knowledge, it’s our responsibility to both sell the idea of Mastodon and help onboard people. On top of that, there’s many guides, at this point, about how to get involved, choose an instance, set up your feeds, etc.
It’s true that Bluesky is a much more seamless experience, because many options are hardcoded or pre-chosen for people, but if we can get people over the hump of making those choices for themselves, they’ll find it a much better place long term. Also, it’s strongly resistant to the antics of bad actors, so it’s a much better choice for governments and other groups. Bluesky does not enjoy the same natural defenses.