Something happened when the internet turned into an ad-driven business. Incentives became oriented around grabbing attention over valuing substance and connection.

What’s happening now in the Fediverse gives us a chance to reverse that. To pivot out of the attention economy into something more meaningful.

Tony Stubblebine has already emphasized a focus on quality at Medium. As the publisher of Better Humans and its sister publications, Tony was one of Medium’s most successful community members. He knew the platform better than almost anyone and so when it came time to look for a CEO, he got the job in July 2022.

In January 2023, Medium set up a Mastodon instance at me.dm. Tony’s said that he believes Mastodon is “an emerging force for good in social media,” although he’s still exploring what that means for his company.

In today’s episode, Mike and Tony discuss their reasons for wanting to participate in the Fediverse, going so far as standing up their own instances for their communities. They also discuss what’s wrong with the attention economy, a framework for high-quality recommendations, and why it’s an exciting time for entrepreneurs, builders, writers and consumers.

Highlights of this conversation include:

01:00 Going from Medium user to CEO 03:40 Pivoting away from the attention economy 06:30 Why human curation is still important 08:58 Algorithmic matchmaking and human judgment 10:36 “No. 1 misconception: good content is an opinion” 12:15 Subject matter expertise should live in the community 13:42 Medium’s 3-step recommendation process 16:24 Why subscription model works best for Medium, optimizing for substance 18:10 Launching Medium’s Mastodon instance 19:18 Are we at the end of platform monopolies?
23:30 Merging of Medium and Mastodon communities? 24:17 The curation persona
25:36 “You shouldn’t have to build an audience to have a great story heard” 29:30 An exciting time for entrepreneurs and a new model for discovery 31:49 In the third business model era of the internet 32:33 People as nodes on the social web; changing dynamics and incentives 37:00 AI content on Medium 40:40 Marketplace segmentation for being pro-human 45:30 Collaboration in the Fediverse 46:15 Advice to people getting started in the Fediverse 46:57 How the internet inspired people to cheat — assisted by middlemen

💰 Mastodon is a non-profit that runs on donations from the community. You can help Mastodon succeed by supporting the organization via Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/mastodon

🔎 You can follow Tony on Mastodon at https://me.dm/@coachtony.

✚ You can connect with Mike McCue on Mastodon at https://flipboard.social/@mike, or via his Flipboard federated account, where you can see what he’s curating on Flipboard in the Fediverse, at https://flipboard.social/@mike@flipboard.com

💡 To learn more about what Flipboard's doing in the Fediverse, sign up here: http://about.flipboard.com/a-new-wave