Mastodon experiences a surge in users due to the exodus from 'X', says its founder.

The rise of the decentralized social network Mastodon has been driven by the migration of users from X, as shared by its founder, Eugen Rochko, on the platform. Although Bluesky, a new alternative similar to Twitter, has garnered attention for its rapid adoption, a significant number of former X users have opted for Mastodon, an open-source platform that has seen a 47% increase in downloads on iOS and has reached 894,000 monthly active users across all its servers.

Rochko highlighted in a post that downloads of the official app continue to grow. In addition to the 47% increase on iOS, downloads on Android have also risen by 17%. In November, the number of new registrations jumped by 27%, translating to 90,000 newly created accounts. Despite not being the largest in terms of users, Mastodon has proven to be an effective and reliable communication platform over the past eight years and does not depend on venture capital for its operation, which Rochko hinted could be a weakness for Bluesky.

Mastodon is primarily funded through crowdfunding and donations, while Bluesky has opted for the classic startup model, securing a $15 million investment in its Series A, led by Blockchain Capital. Bluesky projects revenue generation through subscriptions and other paid services, such as access to custom domains. For some users leaving X, Bluesky's need to meet return-on-investment expectations is a deterrent.

However, despite this recent growth linked to the migration from X, Mastodon's activity is still below levels seen in late 2022, when it surpassed one million monthly active users due to other Twitter-related events, such as the changes implemented by Elon Musk in moderation and paid verification.

Today, Mastodon has over 7.6 million total users, compared to more than 19.4 million for Bluesky, which has grown from 16 million in just a few days. Despite the competition from Bluesky, Rochko believes that the fediverse, the open social space that fuels Mastodon and other initiatives like Meta's Threads, represents the "long-term play."

Rochko reflected on his dedication to Mastodon, mentioning that he has spent 25% of his life working on this platform. He recalled that when he started, Google+ was still around and emphasized the difficulty of building something that one of the world's most innovative companies could not achieve. He also underscored that the fediverse approach is the way forward in the long run in the world of social media.