Think you might mean Periscope? Which was for livestreaming, before YouTube got into that.
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Possibly. I wasnāt sure how Patreon worked as I havenāt paid to any creators just yet but I know they have some exclusive stuff there so I presumed they also host video
On a different note Iāve been trying to try out this Mastodon thing but I canāt seem to verify my email as nothing arrives!
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Ah, yeah. Not sure how Patreon does those exclusive perks.
As for Mastadon, from what Iāve learned over the last few days, the email to confirm your account might be a manual thingy from the person who runs the server you joined. I created my own server so that I could be on a server of my own, but the confirmation if I did open it up for others, would be a manual thing. Try joining a different server?
I feel like Mastadon is too complicated for the masses. They need to really simplify it if they want to become the new Twitter.
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Yes. Decentralised is both its strength and weakness.
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Itās a fairly big weakness, because it introduces the question - how do you trust the server you use?
With traditional social media, youāre being asked to trust a corporation. Generally speaking, those have transparent policies, wish to operate legally, and are sensitive to perceived security/privacy flaws and bad terms. So generally users feel theyāre able to make an informed decision when choosing who to trust.
Mastodon, though. Thereās no corporation. You have to think about each instance. Which is a lot more complicated. The server youāre using could be one run by Bob Bobard out of his garage, effectively. How much can you trust him? Even if he writes a sensible policy, without a board of directors, how well can you trust that heāll hold to it?
To be clear, Iām not saying āDonāt use Mastodon, itās unsafe.ā
But, if you do use Mastodon, be careful. Check what youāre agreeing to. Use a unique password, so if your Mastodon instance is compromised they canāt use your password to access your other accounts (social media, email, Amazon). Donāt treat DMs as private, the person running the instance can probably view them all if they so wish.
(My own problem is Iām sure I signed up for Mastodon some years ago when Twitter was having a wobble (2017?), but I canāt remember which one I signed up to or with what username. For some reason itās not saved in my 1Password vault. And while I did have it open in a tab on a computer for years, that computer has recently fallen over and Iām yet to attempt data recovery from it. Oops. Many oops.)
tl;dr, be careful with Mastodon but donāt be scared of it (with an a little dash of ādo what I say, not what I doā).
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I presume you also lose your profile if Bob Bobard decides to shut down his server?
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All good thinking here. For less money than Musky is demanding for a blue tick, Iām able to run my own instance just for me (and my family and close friends, if they eventually want to). Yeah, I already had a āspareā domain handy, but theyāre cheap as chips anyway, arenāt they, these days?
Correct, itās see ya later
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If he just shuts it down, you lose it, yep.
If he gives you a monthās notice that the server is shutting down, then I believe youād have the opportunity to export your profile/data and import it to a new instance. But I donāt know how well that works when theory meets practice (see earlier caveats).
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This popped up at the weekend
I just donāt think the major issue with Twitter is the centralisation of it. Not for most people anyway.
Give us a centralised social media platform with few to no adverts (or a paid option without), deep user controls over the content they see and people who can interact with them, and content moderation to prevent anything illegal or deeply hateful, along with a strict registration process to prevent bots and mass account set ups.
Twitter doesnāt need to be reinvented it just needs to adapt to the fact it has massively outgrown its initial small community and faces similar global challenges that Facebook did at one point.
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I think centralisation has helped the current problem that one ridiculous billionaire can buy a means of communication and change the rules wholesale on a whim.
With Mastodon I guess you can pick and choose servers to suit your requirements and communicate from there. If a server changes you can pick up and move to another instance easy peasy. Not having to change the whole platform.
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But if that server closes without giving you notice, no more profile for you. New one required.
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At least we all know where we stand with Twitter now.
(Note: satire)
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Thereās nothing to stop decentralised social media doing this if it ever reached critical mass. For it to work realistically there would be massive mass servers with one person in control with far less transparency involved.
Decentralised Iām sure has its place and benefits to smaller groups but itās no way a solution to mass social media. Centralised is.
As much as I am dubious about Elon Musk, right now Twitter hasnāt actually changed or had any changes to content moderation. So long as things are not illegal on there and in conjunction with an ability to personally decide content that I donāt want to see (offensive but not illegal content, for example) then frankly who owns it isnāt much of an issue.
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This is very true, but I think the convention is a host should give a minimum of three months notice of a closure. I know they donāt have to but I have chosen a slightly larger server in the hopes it is a bit more established.
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Isnāt Coffeemadman an anonymous account 
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Iād argue having his name and photo displayed makes it not anonymous
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But if you donāt know someone just a photo and a first name doesnāt make it not anonymous although Iām sure itās Jonathan authentically. Iām just saying most people on here - me included - prefer to be anonymous for good reason. I was on Twitter originally using my real name and after abuse decided that was a poor idea. As stated the blue tick authenticates a person or organisation. I nearly fell foul to a scammer impersonating Amex. When I reported it to Amex they werenāt overly arsed which was disappointing as the scammer was trying to harvest information. It seemed to me quicker if Amex tried to close down a scammer purporting to be them than me contacting Twitter.