Guys, when you talk about the Fediverse to friends, family, or colleagues, how do you explain it?
Do you call it a “decentralized social network,” an “alternative to big tech,” or “a collection of open-source networks”? And how do you convince someone to create an account on Mastodon, Lemmy, Pixelfed, etc., without them getting scared by technical terms like instance, federated, or peer-to-peer?
I’m asking because my so-called friends don’t believe me and even call me crazy when I talk about this “nonsense.”
The future is open source, decentralized, and federated!
Simple.
Just like you introduce Linux!
I don’t. It’s bad enough that people spend too much time on social media. Why the fuck would i introduce another one?
I’m practically only here because rif died. Its not because it’s enjoyable. I open the app to maybe see one good post among the thousands and thousands of “same”-posts.
I don’t. It’s bad enough that people spend too much time on social media. Why the fuck would i introduce another one?
I’m practically only here because rif died. Its not because it’s enjoyable. I open the app to maybe see one good post among the thousands and thousands of “same”-posts.
You made me think.
A free and open source social media platform supported only by the users and not by spying on its users.
Yeah but then there’s still no buy in from friends and family. They are most likely going to retort “Well none of my friends use it”. We could have open source social media in 2020s but people don’t want to use something they don’t know. Meta is comfortable for them and they are OK with being tracked and monitored by Meta intelligence, its stupid that they rather live like that but only they can change their minds
I don’t, because they’ll ruin it.
I don’t, because they’ll ruin it.
lmao
It’s (insert platform here) for furries, communists and nerds. If I want to explain the basic concept, I talk in terms of phone carriers
Memes
I normally just say, “I read [x] on Lemmy.”
If they ask and are genuinely curious what that is, I tell them it’s like a reddit offshoot, but the users control the network and servers with a high level of transparency in administration/moderation and run off software that can have tens of thousands of crowdsourced eyes helping to find and fix any bug or security issue.
I normally just say, “I read [x] on Lemmy.”
If they ask and are genuinely curious what that is, I tell them it’s like a reddit offshoot, but the users control the network and servers with a high level of transparency in administration/moderation and run off software that can have tens of thousands of crowdsourced eyes helping to find and fix any bug or security issue.
interesting!
Honestly? I don’t. The people I know who would join it already know about it and the people who don’t know about it would never join it.
“the place I found because after reddit because reddit is fucking garbage”
I just describe it as an online forum I like to argue in. 🤷
Name checks out
It’s better to be coherent than not, Miss Princess. 😁
I don’t. Even I don’t like it here. I’m just a man of principle so I’m not going back to Reddit so this’ll have to do.
Why do you not like it here? What can/should be done differently?
Quite a homogenous user base with incredibly predictable reactions and views on world events, and the feed is basically just US politics and other news articles designed to make people angry or reinforce their pre-existing beliefs. This simply isn’t a fun place to be. The so-called “regrettable minutes” make up a really high percentage of the total time spent here. And that’s even after I’ve blocked virtually all of the worst communities and users, as well as built a long list of content filters based on keywords. I just have no desire to recommend anyone come here, since I’d consider that bad advice. This is a perfect example of what’s wrong with social media. Reddit’s nowhere near perfect either, but I was much less unhappy there.
You could just read from sources you have subscribed to and skip the “All”. That way you don’t need to bother with content filters :) You also aren’t really forced to follow the communities that are about US politics.
I don’t introduce them to Fediverse and don’t talk about it None of the people I know in real life are tech-savvy except one guy.
You don’t need to be tech-savvy to use a social media.
You don’t need to be tech-savvy to use a social media.
You are entirely right when it is about centralized social media (Facebook, Instagram, Reddit, Twitter and the likes).
However, for example; Lemmy and Mastodon you at least need to be a bit tech-savvy.
- Making account is different but then you get;
- The multiple instances.
- Multiple communities that are the same name.
- What is exactly decentralization.
- Federation.
- Difference instances can give different results (blocking, rules, and what you can and cannot see from other instances).
- How Moderation works is different than the usual platforms.
- Community discovery is different. Searching for something can be quite difficult on Lemmy.
- Lemmy’s community has a lot of tech-jargon which non-tech savvy people might find difficult to wrap their head around.
- How the banning system works on Lemmy is different than the usual platforms as well.
- The multiple instances.
You only use one. You don’t need to care too much about this.
- Multiple communities that are the same name.
This one can be confusing indeed. I hope they will ask if they encounter this. Then you tell them they’re on a different Lemmy, and that the two are interconnected. And that’ll help them understand a bit about federating.
- What is exactly decentralization.
Not really important for using Lemmy. Nice to know, if you like being tech-savvy, but not necessary for using.
- Federation
This was already mentioned as “2.” You can read and write posts without understanding this. You’ll get the point of federation at some point.
- Difference instances can give different results
Different groups have different rules anyway. Some of them are derived from the instance’s rules, but whatever. Same end result. Not necessary to understand for basic usage.
- How Moderation works is different than the usual platforms.
How is it different, actually?
- Community discovery is different. Searching for something can be quite difficult on Lemmy.
I’ve never had trouble searching for something. Maybe that’s because before Lemmy I basically used only Facebook and there you cannot really find anything by searching anyway. For me Lemmy’s search works just fine for searching for what communities exist. Haven’t felt a need for something more.
- Lemmy’s community has a lot of tech-jargon which non-tech savvy people might find difficult to wrap their head around.
You don’t need to understand everything on this planet. If you cannot wrap your head around something, then don’t. You don’t need to participate in every conversation.
- How the banning system works on Lemmy is different than the usual platforms as well.
They’ll figure this one out if they ever get banned. Otherwise, it’s irrelevant for reading and writing.
All in all… Understanding federating isn’t strictly necessary for reading and writing in communities, but yeah, it is good to understand at some point. Everything else… Meh. Things that are nice to know, but you are able to follow communities and write in them just fine also without understanding those things.
Let’s agree to disagree. We both have different opinions and I’m not in the mood to go over and over and over with the chats about something we won’t agree on anyway.
when you talk about the Fediverse to friends, family, or colleagues
Sorry, why would I do that? There might be 1-3 people who’d be “suitable” for something like Reddit before it became crap, and 0 for the Fediverse.
I gives concrete advantages like the choice of client to browse those platform, features not getting removed for profits etc. I think the decentralization as a selling point is a failed strategy
Depends:
single platform: there i talk mostly about features like no tracking and no ads but also add that there are less people but its still livelyFediverse: “imagine you comment under a youtube video with your twitter account”, then i add that i actuallynever did the equivalent but that its possible, then i rant about bsky not being decentralised (because DIDs) and its red flags, then go back explaining fedi and reference it to email
