Mastodon, an open-source alternative to Twitter, is gaining popularity while Twitter is changing its branding to Elon Musk’s preferred letter “X.” Eugen Rochko, the CEO and founder of Mastodon, recently announced that the number of monthly active users on the platform has been steadily increasing and has now reached 2.1 million, which is close to their previous peak.
Why Mastodon is becoming the go-to social media platform amid Twitter’s controversial decision
In the past, Mastodon had reached its highest monthly active users, with 2.5 million users between October and November. This was after Elon Musk became the owner of Twitter. Before that, Mastodon was a much smaller network with only around 300,000 monthly active users, according to the founder.
Mastodon’s growth has often been linked to Twitter’s actions, or rather, its missteps. Following Twitter’s acquisition, many long-time users left the platform in protest against the changes that were made, including widespread layoffs and erratic moves which negatively impacted Twitter’s platform, policy, and product strategies. One such move involved the mishandled relaunch of Twitter’s subscription service, Twitter Blue, which made verification easily accessible to anyone with a credit card. This decision still has a negative impact on the Twitter experience, as the company recently had to address a Verified spammer problem, resulting in changes to Twitter DMs.
Following Musk’s takeover, some users who left Twitter tried out Mastodon. However, not all of them stayed on the platform, resulting in a decrease in Mastodon’s monthly active users from 2.5 million to 1.7 million as of the beginning of this month. Some users may have shifted to other Twitter alternatives, such as Bluesky, T2, Spill, Post, and more, while others may have abandoned Twitter entirely or reduced their posting, leading to a decline in Twitter’s traffic.
It’s unclear whether Mastodon’s recent success is due to Elon Musk’s Twitter controversies or the renewed interest in ActivityPub, the decentralized social networking protocol used by Mastodon and other applications. Meta’s new Instagram Threads, a Twitter competitor, has pledged to incorporate ActivityPub, which could have helped raise awareness about decentralized social networking and Mastodon.
Some Twitter users may be frustrated with Musk’s recent decision to limit the number of tweets that can be viewed. It seems like an odd product choice that essentially prevents users from accessing content on the platform, now known as X, following its rebranding. Musk explained that the rate limits had to be changed due to a significant increase in bots and spam. Although most social networks have similar limitations for the same reason, they typically don’t extend those limits to end-users, preventing them from accessing the site’s content and advertisements.
The regrowth of Mastodon’s active users could also be due to this factor.
It could be a mix of these factors and others, such as the growing popularity of user-friendly Mastodon third-party clients. These include apps developed by former Twitter third-party app creators, such as Ivory by Tapbots, Woolly inspired by TweetDeck, and Mammoth, a Mastodon client from the Aviary Twitter app developer, now under new leadership after Mozilla’s investment.
Several new Mastodon apps, such as Ice Cubes and Radiant, have been introduced, and the official mobile app has also received an update with more customization options. When Mastodon was first launched, it had 1.4 million monthly active users, and posting activity had tripled over the weekend, likely due to Twitter’s new limits on viewable tweets.
Other tech companies, such as WordPress, have shown interest in Mastodon, which acquired a plug-in allowing WordPress blogs to link with Mastodon. Additionally, Medium has launched its own Mastodon server. Flipboard has integrated with the network in its social reading app, launched its own server, and is currently working on integrating with ActivityPub.