I've had 20 sign ups to my Mastodon server in the past 48 hours, and 100% of them have been scammers, phishers and SEO spammers.

[gargron@mastodon.social]

@GossiTheDog The 2M was a short spike partially caused by a software bug counting accounts before the e-mail was confirmed alongside massive media coverage. Should not be used as a benchmark. It was 250K prior to that.

[Gast]

@GossiTheDog To be fair, the larger fediverse recently crossed the 1 million mark again: https://fedidb.com/stats

Yes, arguably, it might be slipping again, but look at Bluesky, they're not doing that much better.

https://bluefacts.app/bluesky-user-growth

Only five times as many MAU as the fediverse.

Worth also pointing out that, as you probably have seen, Bluesky closed a $100 million funding round last year, all while experiencing a gradual decline in the number of active users.

[Gast]

@GossiTheDog One additional note. The actual number of active fediverse users is likely higher due to how decentralized the fediverse is (not all servers may be known), and the fact that some servers actually actively block FediDB, so their stats are not included either.

[Gast]

@GossiTheDog

I get more meaningful engagement here than at Bsky with 5x the followers.

Quality over quantity - the whole Twitter-esque “world’s town square” dream was actually a nightmare.

[Gast]

@milomb Probably too soon. Looking at https://mastodon.social/nodeinfo/2.0, Mastodon only reports "activeMonth" and "activeHalfyear".

@GossiTheDog

[jerry@infosec.exchange]

@kodamachameleon number 3 is interesting. It is true that it’s the slowest and the most resource intensive. But it’s also the one the scales the best. I had 50,000 people running on a single mastodon instance that was scaled across a bunch of hardware. That’s not possible on pleroma, misskey, etc. I wish it were, btw.

[Gast]

@Gargron @GossiTheDog Also, Mastodon has always been a niche platform, and it's now returning to baseline (slightly above, actually) after the Muskpocalypse spike.

It's doing just fine.

[Gast]

@idlebrain

Getting grief from the HOA for the “crime” of *checks notes* signing up on the default instance really makes people want to give the place a fair shot too… /s

For better or worse I am stubborn though, and stuck around long enough to find “my people” here anyway.

@GossiTheDog

[Gast]

@GossiTheDog I've been spending a fairly large amount of my time thinking about how to make a social media aita that's only humans, and that's a hard problem

[Gast]

@GossiTheDog Sad to see, but I am not super surprised.

[Gast]

@GossiTheDog That's sad. Billionaire control of all forms of media is stronger than ever, and Mastodon is a great alternative.

[lazarou@mastodon.social]

@GhostOnTheHalfShell @rob @GossiTheDog same, and I don't trust apps either.

[stux@mstdn.social]

@GossiTheDog I’ve also seen it happen

[alice@lgbtqia.space]

@GossiTheDog I'll take <1M accounts of folx who want to be here over 100+M accounts of bots and Nazis any day.

Though I really with more folx here reported and suspended the intimate image abuse accounts.

[Gast]

@Gargron @GossiTheDog So, no, don’t think there’s been much of a change at all in Mastodon regular users recently. I’ve watched this for a long time and I’ve been surprised at how stable it’s been.

I’ve also included stats from Bluesky, nobody there publishes a MAU number, so I use Daily Likers as a proxy. It’s basically same order of magnitude as Masto (really makes you wonder why you would put $100M into that). (1/2)

[Gast]

There continues to be endless self-flagellation about the ills of the platform which is frankly eye-rolling because none of it matters. Network effect dominates everything; Twitter has platformed Nazism and literal CSAM generation in the last year and their usage numbers have hardly budged. (2/2)

[Gast]

@GossiTheDog I've been thoroughly enjoying it, though that's as a user, not an administrator. As a user however, I find the character limit on Bluesky too limiting. I don't post a ton, but when I do I don't want to have to string multiple posts together just to get a point across. This comment, for example, is over 100 characters too long for a Bluesky post.

[Gast]

@GossiTheDog
I wonder what makes your particular instance a target...
We're seeing about two new user requests a week at our perhaps stodgily named and sleepy instance. They are all real as far as I can tell.

[Gast]

@alice if I ever see one I will absolutely be reporting it, even directly messaging a moderator or owner of the homeserver if I can find them. I certainly won't stand for that crap

[Gast]

@GossiTheDog i know there were a few people complaining of racist abuse who left for places like upscrolled. not saying that accounts for the drop but would've contributed. will be interesting to see what happens if and when bluesky starts to enshittify.