So, I completely switched to FOSS federated social networks toward the middle of 2020. I love the Fediverse, but nobody I know IRL seems to care at all about it in any capacity, so I’m basically just screaming into a void full of other FOSSheads. How do I reconcile this? How do we get our IRL peeps on the Fediverse?
yeah, barriers to entry, probs? i don’t consider myself super confident with computer things (despite my FOSS love) but i know there are people even less confident than myself, so if things aren’t on a par with the usual suspects in terms of ease/familiarity with UX/UI, you get that filtering effect where a lot of those folks are going to throw their hands up and say “i can’t be arsed with this” and stick to what they know, and where most/all their friends are. for example, my mother nearly went crawling back to whatsapp because she found element/matrix difficult to install & navigate (we got through that, thankfully, and she really likes it now!).
also different platforms and the spheres within them have different cultures, so those who aren’t willing to explore and feel things out for a while can feel quite out of place and lost.
like…i’m on mastodon now, but the first time i checked it out, i was so confused – mostly just because i didn’t know anyone there, or which instance to join, and i got stressed about “what if i pick the wrong one, everyone will hate me”. it doesn’t really matter (as i now know), but it was enough to throw me off for quite a while. i’m still getting a feel for it tbh, i still don’t know if the instance i’m in is the right fit, but i am a patient person so i can chill out and see how it goes.
ssb is another one, with i think even higher barrier to entry. it’s not very intuitive for people coming from those big social media places, and i have noticed occasional new folk trying to use it like twitter when it’s not well-suited for that kind of posting style, and it’s not really meant to be as fast-moving as that either. i suspect a few people get bored with ssb because it is slower-moving, and some may even feel intimidated because the content is often very niche/detailed/thoughtful/technical. i feel that way sometimes too, like i am not smart enough for it, but it’s still enjoyable for me as it is generally a very earnest vibe (within my hops, anyway!).
i guess you can try asking questions to your irl friends, like “what do you enjoy about [social media platform]?” or “what don’t you like about it?” and see if you can get them interested in suitable alternatives that way, provide some extra guidance setting up if needed.
i really liked @ufra’s post though, ssb got pounded with a bunch of new folk after parl got kicked from its hosting and the community had a very different feel during that time, i think people got a bit more cautious because of that. in a community where people want to feel like they can open up emotionally, and be vulnerable in that way, it’s nice to have a bit of self-selecting out happening so that level of quiet intimacy can continue.
(sorry this got unexpectedly long)
I do think that’s a big reason why there aren’t more people on FOSS-and-Federated (F&F, perhaps?) social media. I remember a time as well when picking an instance seemed like too much. My question was more about how to cope with and/or remedy this situation. And this isn’t just for myself, either. I feel like the Fediverse could use a little more diversity. Obviously there’s nothing wrong with programmers, but we need more other kinds of people in the Fediverse. That will also help us polish these tools.
some of it might come down to rather simple stuff, like how many clicks it takes for someone to actually get started. like with lemmy & masto there’s 3 just to get to a signup form (more if someone pokes about looking at instances), while reddit, fb & twitter just have 1. obviously there’s a reason for those extra clicks, but is there a way to reduce?
also making things like about/faq/guides easy to find and understand. masto’s guide is quite well-written and straightforward, but it’s located in the resources dropdown under ‘documentation’. that’s not going to be intuitive to find for a lot of folks. maybe that doesn’t matter too much, as they have a very cute video explainer, but it’s a thing to think about. the join.lemmy frontpage has straightforward language but quickly veers into mentioning more technical aspects (there’s a code screenshot immediately visible, for example), and that may be intimidating right off the bat – it conveys “this platform is for programmers” before a user gets an opportunity to see for themselves that there’s plenty of other stuff happening here. i don’t know if that truly matters, maybe people are only coming into a specific server link where they can see the variety of community posts for themselves? also the lemmy guide is mostly technical jargon, except the code of conduct. it’s important to have those details readily available, but i suspect the users who would want them would be seeking them out regardless of what is on a front page or newbie guide.
this is all ux psychology stuff, i suppose…a sticky business!
aside from that i guess continuing to foster (FOSSter?) a welcoming environment with pro-social behaviours, active caring. it can be a lonely feeling to look around and feel like you don’t have anything to share to the more active topics, or that you’re posting into the void, or that you’re picking up subtle social signals that accumulate to form a heavy burden (esp. heavy on those more diverse voices). maybe current users could take it upon themselves to post into more casual topics a little more frequently, and engage in earnest with those too? looking at the first page of the main lemmy community list it’s like…a whole lotta programming & politics, and very few casual topics. but that’s asking a lot of the existing communities, so idk. overall, balancing the labour of the existing community with the labour of those attempting to join in, and whether the existing community can take on some of that labour to alleviate the burden on newcomers, in order to encourage that diversity.