Lost_My_Mind , 6 hours ago

The problem is, for the past 2 decades twitter WAS the default place for news. I can remember watching somebody live streaming FROM THE BOSTON BOMBING in real time. News outlets would KILL for that kind of up to the minute reporting. Plus, it was able to happen not from just one person, but a multitude of people from different perspectives, live on the scene, all without the news outlet needing to pay for a single dime of labor. It’s all just handed to them, from people not assosiated with the station, and therefore not paid, nor given any benefits.

And this went on for almost 2 decades. Now the platform in the past 2 years has shrunk, but it’s still millions of users, compared to Mastodon which has something like less than 100k people last time I checked.

So yes. For now it IS the default for news in real time. Even if the slant has dramatically shifted in a very short time. It takes time for people to change habbits. Mastodon needs to grow, and the fediverse needs to grow. Doing so will change the landscape of the internet, since the fediverse is built to be resistant to corporate takeover. Once it becomes the default, things will look very different. The problem is, if you walk out of your house, and walk to the mall, and ask 100 random people what the fediverse is, I’d be shocked if 1 of them knew. That’s where we are right now.