I think the idea of federated social media itself would have made fediverse sky rocket itself. bloggers tooters and video creators or any kind of internet user can connect with eachother here. but that hasn’t happened. not at least yet. so why?
what are the problems. or what things are missing on the fediverse that makes it still so unpopular?
I’m sure the common misconception of “it’s a ghost town” kind of feeds a cycle that keeps a lot of people from joining, especially concerning Mastodon/Pleroma here. I think it’s just gonna be really slow but steady growth until either a certain threshold is reached or one of the proprietary silos spark another big controversy. The only thing I think is missing is diversity in content as most people here (including me) are just interested in software and technology, so I’m really thankful when a community pops up about something completely different.
The type of content available is a bit narrow indeed, but I don’t see how it would appear as a “ghost town”. Lots of activity on the Fediverse.
When I talk to “normal” people about alternative services like the Fediverse, I mostly get “huh? never heard of it” coupled with a mostly implied “ah ok, just another website, why should I care?” kind of attitude. And for that there really isn’t a quick fix, it will just take time.
yeah people can’t fathom that there might be a internet community out there that caters to them, where they maybe take ownership, have maybe democratic say in their instance - a space so different to all the corporate website that they know otherwise.
I think I can agree on this one. been looking for writers on fediverse. real ones that makes novels and such. it seems that if mastodon has community groups that users from other instances can join. that can fix isolated communities and users especially if they are on single user instances.
IMO it is not the fediverse lack of anything. It is rather that fediverse appeals to those, who are not happy with the centralized media ecosystem. And such people are:
- a minority (while growing)
- very often invested in their long-term footprint in the former environment
- also often not knowing what is the fediverse about and what would they trade their “comfort zone” for.
I believe it is to us, precursors, to keep “educating, agitating and organizing” long-term, so more and more people come here, shed their toxic habits acquired in the corpozone, and become happier and caring members of their communities.
What it needs, I believe, is
- Building our own social permaculture ecosystem.
- Supporting technical infrastructure of fediverse by elaborating other levels of social dynamics, for example as I outlined here: https://lemmy.ml/post/63108
- Expanding the variety of needs (social, psychological and material) fediverse services can fulfil, so people keep coming not just for a whiff of freedom. :-)
“They come for services, they stay for freedom”
very often invested in their long-term footprint in the former environment
I would not mention this yet.
There is a lot of teens from a few years ago that only promote consumerist culture: buying non-needed hardware every 2 years or when main companies promote new exigent game, etc.
I think this is the least probable group of adopters for now, at least until we reach the early majority stage. They live in a groomed bubble of corpoinfluence and are not likely to break out on themselves. The demographics, however, is on our side. In every generation there is always a group of dissidents, actively looking for something “above and beyond” and – even bigger – a group of those who see no alternative but getting molded into a shape that mainstream dictates.
There are already a lot of them inside. You can mostly check it in the Pleroma side.
It think that the reasons where quite different to the rest of people to join.
Honestly, more normal people on the Fediverse would do wonders. Right now it’s 90% free software devs whose avatars are disembodied pictures of buildings and/or their logos. There’s nothing wrong with these people, obviously, but we need more people who are not this.
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When most of us didn’t realize the huge amount of information flowing on the Interne yet, we used to condone some monopoly enterprises to grow bigger (and maybe they have already become too big. sometimes they sell users data or put ads on webs). then we paid for our ignorance, those giants can sell everything including the users data in order to gain economic benefits.
but there are still many people who don’t realize that the above situation is very dangerous. there are still many people even dont know fedi yet.
all we can do is to introduce fedi to them, and let them choose which they like: to be free or to be betray(ed)/sold, this is a question which worth to think about.
does anyone else get spooky political commercials on youtube?
no I have the uBlock origin addon.
that’s great. but also i don’t think it solves the problem.
what could solve the problem is a VPN + ublock + youtube frontend.
i think that would be perfect
but there are still many people who don’t realize that the above situation is very dangerous. there are still many people even dont know fedi yet.
what dangerous situations are you specifically talking about?
some companys sold users data secretly for economic benefits. so sometimes people receive nuisance calls or spam.
a few things I’ve noticed when trying to tell people on Facebook/twitter about fedi
- General ignorance
- social inertia
- anxiety of choice
- Low payoff
- General Ignorance, as to what the fediverse is, how it works, why it’s better than corporate media.
Often when I recommend fedi to people on FB, they will assume it’s just another twitter/facebook, they think mastodon is just another private company, and so you have to explain that to them, no, it’s not a corporation, anyone can start an instance. Even coop loving anarchists have trouble grasping this. Most normies don’t even know what FOSS is or why it’s good, many people, especially and ironically leftists, are hostile to even the idea of privacy “what’s the point, the government already knows everything.”
This general ignorance is made worse by the fact that private companies have advertising campaigns that allow their private platforms to fill niches that FOSS would otherwise fille ( see the success of Xoom or Discord in recent years ) Many people, especially ironically leftists, are also under the impression that facebook will last forever, and no new platforms could ever become socially relevant, which is rediculous.
- Social inertia, unwillingness to try new things,
This is especially true of melenials, Gen X, not to mention boomers, they don’t want to learn something new, they’re obsessed with ‘convenience’ and will say things like 'no one has time to set up a new account" ( I work in customer service, motherfuckers will spend 12 hours on the phone getting a free netflix )
They have their groups, they’re friend circle, their uploaded photos, archived conversations, they’re attached to facebook or twitter and don’t want to leave, the algorithm on facebook is especially effective at making people emotionally dependent. Especially Ironically leftists are very tied to the idea that leftbook is their connection to the masses and that outside of that they’d be isolated – this is when almost all leftbook groups are private, they are constantly being archived, they’re not publicly accessible, and are mostly full of sectarian shit talking. They’re not reaching the masses, they’re contained in an echochamber.
I think gen z are not so attached to web 2.0 but they are susceptable to new corporate platforms that start the cycle over again.
- Anxiety of Choice: Which platform/ instance do I choose?
This is something I’ve struggled with personally, like finding good instances has literally taken me years, maybe now it’s easier to find one, but even then things could change, like at first I was on diaspora and that just fizzled out. There’s also problem with large instances having little or no registration, whereas a corporate platform will always be open.
- Low Payoff, what’s the point, I don’t know anyone here.
This is a vicious cycle where there’s not many people on the platform, so if you go on mastodon, you’re unlikely to find people you already know or a large community with people who share your interests. So many people create an account, get bored, and leave to never come back.
With mastodon in particular, it’s full of Furries and anti-semtites and programmers!!! and everyone hates nerds and weeboos.
With mastodon in particular, it’s full of Furries and anti-semtites and programmers!!! and everyone hates nerds and weeboos.
I think that you might be following the wrong people :D
Otherwise a very good explanation imo
I’m on several account on different instances, I’m talking about the main, unfiltered federation stream on ‘general’ instances.
I mean weebs and furries are basically fine, but the nazis or "lolicons"are pretty fucking off putting. So instead of promoting ‘mastodon’ as a service itself, I think it’s better to have a curated list of instances, which ban nazis/pedos and only federate with instances that follow certain guidelines. That is something that I think would improve the verse, instead of just one big federation, there should be several fedis, ro confederations related based on affinity.
Interesting.
Mark my words: as soon as normies will arrive, it will become horrible. It has been like this for everything else.
Oh, don’t be so pessimistic, I’m sure communist ideas will flourish if the fediverse becomes mainstream.
Nope, unlike twitter which you lump everyone inside of one platform(and which is a platform designed to fuel disagreements and outrage). fediverse will consist of instances that are focused on communities, people who are interested in different stuff go to their own separate places. you want the normies out? just make your own instance.
We need to recognize what the strength of federated services are. Instances are better regulated when small, therefore I believe that we should avoid bigger instances. We should instead have many smaller ones. These will encourage more intimate/ nuanced conversations. We should encourage instances that focus on something very niche. Juggling, manchester united, roblox, or whatever.
Instances should not be general for the same reason why a webpage shouldn’t be general. Sure, your scope can be bigger with a general webpage, but when you can go to a website that is more specific, you are always going to pick the more specific one because you can find exactly what you are looking for.
User-centric content rating and sorting is sorely missing.
Unfortunately a lot of people are confuse the concept with the opaque, often user-hostile filtering run by big social networks.
I might be illiterate here, but what do you mean by user-centric content rating. recommendations?
Unfortunately a lot of people are confuse the concept with the opaque, often user-hostile filtering run by big social networks.
yeah, you can see that in this social media people are taught inconspicuously how to behave. and with the vague guideline and rules that doesn’t mean anything until they ban someone for a reason. people may not agree with it but slowly they become obedient by the fact that they can’t use anything but this platform.
I’m talking about algorithms to help the user sift through tons of messages based on the user’s needs and preferences. The effect is to show the users the most interesting content first. Importantly, they can understand how and why the contents have been selected and control the filtering.
Not to be confused with those social networks that use similar algorithms but with the goal of manipulating users (see Cambridge Analytica) or increasing engagement by fueling disagreements and outrage (see Twitter).
i try to promote a little bit of structure to the communities i have created. im asking that users provide some context or a summary.
i have even seen some subs on reddit do this. although authoritarian enforcement is such a buzz kill. i prefer to be be permissive and partially optional on my guidelines. and maybe some “calculated ambiguity” but im not out to bust balls.
i hope it generates greater meaning and less clutter.Twitter works like that?
I am on friendica and lemmy, and honestly reddit and facebook still have a better featureset (with lemmy providing stronger competition then friendica), And if the feature set is not better why not just use what is the bigger option with more content?
Also I think it would be interesting to do some user research, going to some high quality content creators and asking what would they want from a platform .
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facebook’s good features; intregrated chat, groups, communities. sometimes It’s free to use facebook with your sim data plan. alot of old nostalgic online games like pet society.
reddit good features; I really like the dark mystery and investigation stuff, can’t be found anywhere else than on reddit.
the spooky features of both; data-selling. spying. ads. lizard people and cringe memes. for reddit that it’s basically an education camp where people are slowly “nudged” to behave a certain way. or in other words, a rat box.
Nothing
