Mastodon Sees Boost from X Exodus

Ahead of the weekend, founder Eugen Rochko posted on Mastodon, a decentralized social network, that is also benefiting from the X “exodus”

A smaller group has reportedly resorted to the open source networking platform Mastodon, which has seen a 47% increase in downloads on iOS and a monthly growth in active users to 894,000 across all Mastodon servers, while the Twitter-like startup Bluesky has been making headlines and garnering attention for its quick adoption among former X users, according to Rochko.

The CEO and founder wrote on Mastodon that official app downloads were increasing. They had grown by a lesser 17% on Android in addition to the 47% on iOS. In November, 90,000 new accounts were created, a 27% increase in sign-ups month over month.

In a subtle jab at one of Bluesky’s possible vulnerabilities, Rochko wrote, “We may not be the biggest by numbers yet, but Mastodon (and the fediverse) has proven itself to be an effective and reliable communications platform over the course of the last 8 years, and does not depend on venture capital to survive.”

Bluesky has chosen the more conventional startup path of obtaining funding from outside investors, whereas Mastodon is primarily crowdfunded and grant-supported. Last month, the business successfully concluded a $15 million Series A funding round headed by Blockchain Capital. Subscriptions and other paid services, such as access to custom domains, are how Bluesky intends to make money in the future. Bluesky’s commitment to pursuing venture-sized returns is a deal breaker for several former X users who are now switching to Mastodon.

Even with the recent “X exodus”-driven adoption of Mastodon, the most recent activity is still below late 2022 levels, when Mastodon had received an early boost from other Twitter controversy, such as Elon Musk’s product improvements regarding moderation and paid verification. Mastodon reported at the time that it was seeing “thousands” of registrations every hour and had topped 1 million monthly active users as of November 2022.

Since then, things have slowed for the X alternative, which now has more than 7.6 million users overall, while Bluesky now has more than 19.4 million, up from 16 million only a few days earlier.

The fediverse, or the open social network driven by the ActivityPub protocol that supports Mastodon and more recent initiatives like Meta’s Threads, is the “long game,” according to Rochko, despite the threat posed by Bluesky. (Threads isn’t yet fully federated, thus its 275 million+ users aren’t included in the 10.9+ million broader fediverse users.)

“I worked on Mastodon for a quarter of my life. When you think about it, it’s sort of crazy,” Rochko said of Mastodon. “Google+ was still in use when I started. One of the world’s most inventive companies couldn’t do what we’re doing. It’s not simple. In reference to Threads’ intention to be ad-supported, he remarked, “It’s always easier to just build A Website, then slap some ads on it.” “The long game, however, is the fediverse.”