This is a follow-up from my previous thread.

The thread discussed the question of why people tend to choose proprietary microblogging platfroms (i.e. Bluesky or Threads) over the free and open source microblogging platform, Mastodon.

The reasons, summarised by @noodlejetski@lemm.ee are:

  1. marketing
  2. not having to pick the instance when registering
  3. people who have experienced Mastodon’s hermetic culture discouraging others from joining
  4. algorithms helping discover people and content to follow
  5. marketing

and I’m saying that as a firm Mastodon user and believer.

Now that we know why people move to proprietary microblogging platforms, we can also produce methods to counter this.

How do we get “normies” to adopt the Fediverse?

  • chiisana@lemmy.chiisana.net
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    4 months ago

    Stop addressing them as “normies” would be a great start.

    Can’t speak for rest of the Fediverse as I’m not super active on microblogging anymore, but at least here on Lemmy, there is such a strong “in” culture and quirky skewed perception of the world, and often times come off as actively hostile against those that do not share the same quirky skewed world view. The anti-AI, anti-corporate, would rather shoot myself in the foot if it’s not FOSS, etc kind of views, with their own strong vocal proponents, comes off as unwelcoming. People are addicted to socials because of the positivity they can get, not the negative sentiments that’s often echo’ed.

    Amongst those that doesn’t share the kind of view, you’d already be looking at an extreme small minority that might be willing to give the platform a try, but as long as the skewed perception of the world dominates the discussions, you can expect them to go back to main stream centralized platforms where they can get more main stream view points based discussions.

    • GBU_28@lemm.ee
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      4 months ago

      Lots of content here feels like someone beta testing their manifesto the FBI will find

    • nondescripthandle@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      Thats the neat part, you don’t. Social medias value isn’t determined by it’s tech. Its value is determined by who and what you can interact with. For example, people wont leave Facebook because everyone they know is on facebook because people won’t leave Facebook. Twitter is literally run by a nazi at this point and still it’s the same story where Mastodon and Bluesky aren’t even close. Same thing for reddit and lemmy. Lemmy simply doesn’t have the content reddit does, look no further than sports subreddits where any given game has a live game thread with a hundred or more unique commentors.

      If you want mode people to come here you’re going to need to do two things. One you need to post content people want to see, and two you need to get very very lucky because as it stands if you don’t care enough about decentralization to lose out of a lot of content, theres literally no reason to be here. Its a long slow road and you’re still going to need reddit to do something stupid before we see another growth spike.

      • Blaze (he/him)@feddit.org
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        4 months ago

        if you don’t care enough about decentralization to lose out of a lot of content, theres literally no reason to be here.

        Officially supported clients which are not the Reddit app

        • mke@lemmy.world
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          This was one of the reasons I left, and I assumed most disliked the official app, but weren’t willing to part with the content.

          Now, I think I was too close minded. Stuck in my bubble. If it’s not in a discussion about reddit sucking, chances are people don’t care that much.

          App sucks? Didn’t think about that, it’s just an app. App really sucks? Whatever, they already use 5 other apps that are worse.

          The medium shapes the experience, but isn’t an experience unto itself. Not that important to the average person.

  • BeAware :fediverse:@social.beaware.live
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    4 months ago

    @dch82 first, “normies” have to not get harassed when they come here.

    Unfortunately the biggest Fedi software refuses to add automated reporting of offensive posts so if it’s not reported, the admins won’t even see it.

    People coming from corporate social media are used to ignoring the report button because in their experience, it either doesn’t work, or gets ignored by admins anyway.

    We need automated reporting.

    @fediverse

    • Lost_My_Mind@lemmy.world
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      4 months ago

      We need automated reporting.

      I’m fine with auto REPORTING, but the actual moderation needs to be a human. Auto moderation is bad. It gets things wrong. It’s how I got banned from both twitter (calm down, this was back in 2018 before it was an elon owned nazi cesspool), and reddit.

      On twitter I saw a funny video that was posted, and I replied “Aw man, that killed me”.

      I was banned for “inciting death threats”

        • P03 Locke@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          4 months ago

          That’s the thing about automation and training models.

          First, they implement some sort of auto-reporting bot that requires a human to review them. In the beginning, it only about 50% accurate, but as they give it more and more examples of good and bad results through the human reviews, it moves to 80%, then 90%, then 99%, then 99.99% accuracy.

          After a while, the humans on the other end are so numb to the 9999 entries they have to mark as approved that they can barely tell what’s a rejection themselves, and the moderation team is asking itself just what this human review is actually doing. If it’s 99.99% accurate, why not let the bot decide?

          Then, the model moves on from auto-reporting to auto-moderation.

      • BeAware :fediverse:@social.beaware.live
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        @AterNox @dch82 blocking and reporting work fine.

        However, people from corporate social media won’t report posts because in their experience, it either doesn’t get taken seriously or the admins ignore it. Corporate social media sites don’t exactly act on reports in a timely manner.

        I’m on my own instance, I moderate for myself. I don’t want slurs to exist on my instance at all. However, if I don’t see them with my own eyes, I cannot ban the user.

        PS. I’m talking about banning users that are harassing others on the instance level. These are user actions. I am an admin. I run my own instance.

        @fediverse

        • cm0002@lemmy.world
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          4 months ago

          I’m confused, do you mean like automated enforcement rules/algorithms like big SM has? I.e. if user gets reported for breaking Y rule X amount of times ban user for Z amount of time and forward to admin for further action?

          • BeAware :fediverse:@social.beaware.live
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            @cm0002 no, I want automated reports.

            A user using the n word, full on with the hard R, isn’t gonna be a good post. It should be automatically reported to me so that I can judge context and take action.

            If a user doesn’t report it, I won’t see it.

            I’m on my own instance, I am the user.

            If I don’t report it, nobody sees it.

            That’s dumb.

            @fediverse

            • cm0002@lemmy.world
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              4 months ago

              Ah, makes sense now, that is dumb. I can totally see why they would have issues with automated enforcement, but what you described I don’t see why anyone would be against it lol

    • osaerisxero@kbin.melroy.org
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      I unironically think it would be easier to train users that the report button works now than it would to get automated reporting that was worth a damn implemented.

    • zeppo@lemmy.world
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      4 months ago

      Definitely. Back when I used FB and Twitter I learned that reporting is entirely useless. You just end up with some automated message about how they reviewed it and it “didn’t violate their community standards” with some lame verbiage like “we realize this isn’t the outcome you were looking for”, regardless of how ridiculously blatant whatever you reported was. On the flip side, I was banned for clearly misinterpreted or brigaded comments, and then an appeal just gives you the inverse where they reviewed it and whatever you posted was definitely terrible and they “realize this isn’t the outcome you were looking for”.

    • ALostInquirer@lemm.ee
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      4 months ago

      By automated reporting do you mean something like filters on the backend to flag offensive posts per some custom settings?

    • cy@fedicy.us.to
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      4 months ago

      We have instancewide admin blocks, so the accounts that would be automatically reported can be blocked preemptively, no report needed. That can be both good and bad… but pick a sheltered instance and you shouldn’t get harassed. How would automatic reporting even work? I don’t recall, but doesn’t the admin interface let you specify keywords that alert the admins in a post? Is that what you mean?

      CC: @dch82@lemmy.zip @fediverse@lemmy.world

  • The Picard Maneuver@lemmy.world
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    4 months ago

    Since most people are talking about the sign-up barriers, I’ll mention culture and reputation.

    I love Lemmy and Mastodon, but whenever I’ve seen the fediverse brought up elsewhere, someone inevitably shuts down any curiosity by suggesting that it’s a political echo-chamber. I don’t think that’s accurate for all of it, but if that reputation is out there, we probably need to make an effort to show that there’s a broader appeal. If the average person is expecting the fediverse to be the left-wing equivalent of something like “Truth Social”, I could understand the reluctance to adopt it.

    • Admiral Patrick@dubvee.org
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      4 months ago

      someone inevitably shuts down any curiosity by suggesting that it’s a political echo-chamber

      I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: I think .ml acting as the official or at least de-facto “flagship” instance is doing more harm than good. I’ve seen the same arguments you mentioned, and it always seems to go back to either of the two .ml instances or Hexbear. When political ideology is forced into every interaction, it always seemed it was coming from one of those three.

      I’ve shown people Lemmy World as an example that it’s not all political circlejerks, but I don’t know how many of them stuck with it.

      • JubilantJaguar@lemmy.world
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        4 months ago

        Completely agree. I had no idea how bad this phenomenon was until very recently, when I fell foul of a virtual lynch mob and its political-commissar mod who behaved like a religious inquisitor even in private conversation. It’s real.

    • monobot@lemmy.ml
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      4 months ago

      Every social media has the same problem, reddit is on one side, twitter on the other, facebook is filtering by their own goals.

      People here are just a bit different angle. But each instance is a little different, lemmy.world is more reddit like, lemmy.ml is leftist, hexbear is… something too, there are probably some right wing instances. Much more diverse than other networks and I enjoy seeing all those different point of views.

      This is current problem in society that we don’t tolerate different opinion.

      • The Picard Maneuver@lemmy.world
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        4 months ago

        This is current problem in society that we don’t tolerate different opinion.

        Exactly this. When online platforms become too homogeneous, any deviation from the typical opinions that are shared seems like a terrible, inexcusable offense that someone must do something about - thus, reinforcing the bubble.

        We need to be able to disagree with each other and still get along.

      • IronKrill@lemmy.ca
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        3 months ago

        Twitter was quite diverse actually (it might still be, I can’t say). You had the far left, far right, and everything in between on there but it worked somewhat because the algorithm kept people mostly in their bubbles unless they went seeking it out.

  • lemmeBe@sh.itjust.works
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    4 months ago

    I’m a developer, and it was a pain picking an instance. You start reading about them, and it turns out one’s censored, the other one’s communist, third one doesn’t cooperate with the other ones so you can’t see anything…

    As long as it is like this, I don’t believe mass adoption is feasible. I would’ve given up because it takes a lot of time compared to just registering and off you go, but I was interested to see what’s all the ruckus after reddit started with censorship. Maybe interesting to mention that I was never an active reddit member (not one post there).

    • Blaze (he/him)@feddit.org
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      Indeed, nowadays I just send people to Lemm.ee

      • neutral name (sorry SJW)
      • second biggest instance
      • almost no defederation
      • no topic or country specific (I mean, technically Estonia, but everything happens in English, compared to feddit.org for instance)
      • SorteKaninA
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        4 months ago

        almost no defederation

        I don’t think this is really a good thing. Most people don’t want to bother curating their feed and if they get lots of bad stuff from instances that ought to be defederated, then they will leave.

      • Cracks_InTheWalls@sh.itjust.works
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        4 months ago

        -Neutral name (sorry SJW)

        Boo this person! (I kid, don’t boo them, they’re doing good work and I understand if not everyone wants to be a sh.it.head)

    • sunzu2@thebrainbin.org
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      4 months ago

      Just send them to Lemmy world… Edge and shit lords will get banned and figure how this bitch works lol

      Normies being on Lemmy world is better than. Reddit in my book

      • threelonmusketeers@sh.itjust.works
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        4 months ago

        Just send them to Lemmy world

        I agree that having a “default instance” would greatly help with onboarding new users, but as many others have said before, centralizing on the largest instance is not a good idea.

        There are several other “general purpose” Lemmy instances. Why not send everyone to lemm.ee, until its size is close to lemmy world? At that point, start sending everyone to lemmy.sdf.org or lemmy.zip.

        • sunzu2@thebrainbin.org
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          4 months ago

          Great point!

          I don’t know what other instances are viable bit we should have a place to get current preferred.

          I just tell my peeps Lemmy.world it is like reddit with out going into details about fediverse since they ignore me once I start talking “federation”

          • JubilantJaguar@lemmy.world
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            The problem with this approach is that your peeps won’t see any reason to go there if it’s the same as the R-site only exponentially less popular.

            There needs to be an understandable USP.

            Perhaps: “But without ads. Ever. Anywhere.” Works for me and I know what an ad-blocker is, unlike a ton of normies.

            • lemmeBe@sh.itjust.works
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              4 months ago

              Sincere question: what does “normie” exactly mean in the context of Lemmy? Is it a person that couldn’t get past setting up Lemmy account?

              The term sounds like it has kinda elitist connotations. I mean I’ve set up Lemmy, but I don’t feel like I’m god given - maybe I should. 😆 (kidding, of course)

        • maegul (he/they)@lemmy.ml
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          4 months ago

          Yea, instead of a default instance, I think there should be a default system that assigns you to one of a set of participating “general” instances without you having to decide or think about it.

            • maegul (he/they)@lemmy.ml
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              4 months ago

              AFAICT, it helps you pick an instance based on your interests, which only barely helps with the problem. If you’re new to the ecosystem, you typically just want to join in and see what’s going on before making any decisions. And you probably don’t want to bother with selecting criteria for a selection guide at all.

              What I’m suggesting is clicking a button “Sign Up”, enter credentials, verify and done. Then allow the whole finding an instance process pan out naturally.

              Part of the issue IMO is that how an instance advertises itself isn’t necessarily how it will be seen by someone … they need to see it for themselves.

              • Blaze (he/him)@feddit.org
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                4 months ago

                Part of the issue IMO is that how an instance advertises itself isn’t necessarily how it will be seen by someone … they need to see it for themselves.

                Indeed

      • rglullis@communick.news
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        4 months ago

        And then we will get more communities being created on Lemmy world, and then the whole Fediverse depends on one single instance. This seems like a good idea at first, but won’t stand the test of time.

        I am trying to convince more instance admins to install Fediverser on their servers, so that we can have a way to point people to one site that can distribute the users and help with onboarding and discovery. But so far none of the admins really seem to be interested in the having to deal with the potential influx of users from Reddit.

        • threelonmusketeers@sh.itjust.works
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          I am trying to convince more instance admins to install Fediverser on their servers, so that we can have a way to point people to one site that can distribute the users and help with onboarding and discovery

          What does Fediverser from an admin standpoint? Does it just enable a “Login with Reddit” option for onboarding new users?

          • rglullis@communick.news
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            4 months ago

            That is the main thing, yes, but it would also allow for better coordination among the instances for migration efforts. “Fediversed” Instances can keep of redditors that migrated, can have more attributes to display for people when selecting a instance, can accept or reject a Redditor based on certain criteria (e.g, account is too new, or was flagged as a spammer, or is posting a language different from the main language in the server, etc)

  • I Cast Fist@programming.dev
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    4 months ago

    How do we get “normies” to adopt the Fediverse?

    We don’t. Normies take one look at anything that isn’t mainstream and pinch their noses. A significant portion of them can barely make a search on the internet, they get lost at the idea of “websites” and are likely heavily biased against people who aren’t using what “everyone is using”

    Anedoctal experience: back when I was using dating apps, I’ve had a fair share of girls that stopped talking to me once I said I didn’t have instagram, because it meant I was “hiding something”.

    • MajorHavoc@programming.dev
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      stopped talking to me once I said I didn’t have instagram, because it meant I was “hiding something”.

      That’s awful.

      Also, I guess they would think I’m hiding so much, considering the number of bloated awful services I’ve rejected.

    • mke@lemmy.world
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      4 months ago

      That may be true for some people, but isn’t a valid generalization. See the Brazil blocking Twitter situation.

      Millions decided to give Bluesky a chance and a graph showed daily user activity quadrupling. Now, a not-insignificant portion are saying they refuse to return to Twitter because:

      • It feels less toxic and healthier
      • They have more control over their experience
      • They’re finally having fun with social media again

      Sound familiar?

      And I’m pretty sure Misskey has more features. Hell, Mastodon as well probably. Bluesky doesn’t even support video yet.

      The first sin of the Fediverse isn’t being small, that’s the second. First is being a pain in the ass.

      • I Cast Fist@programming.dev
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        The migration that happened from xitter being blocked in Brazil is a good example of a bandwagon effect, or “people go where people are”. If xitter wasn’t taken down, neither bluesky nor threads would’ve received such a big and immediate influx.

        Also worth noting is that the vast majority went for those 2, bluesky more so than threads, instead of any mastodon instance because those 2 are the mainstream alternatives

        • mke@lemmy.world
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          Yes, people chase content, which means chasing where many people are, but why did Bluesky become a mainstream alternative and Mastodon didn’t?

          I’m saying marketing doesn’t cut it, and it’s not just about where most users are either, otherwise everyone but Threads would be irrelevant.

          People bounce off both Threads and Mastodon, and there are platform-related reasons for that.

          • Ademir@lemmy.eco.br
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            4 months ago

            The number 1 pain in Mastodon is the dev team. I mean come on, there are plenty PRs to make mastodon better usable and they just get rejected.

            Also we could have some sort of algorithm like we have here in lemmy (hot/scaled/new) but if you talk about it there you are instantly the devil. They WANT mastodon to be different, even if this hurt the userbase.

            • mke@lemmy.world
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              Discoverability is a huge barrier to entry in the Fediverse, and they’re not helping.

              It’s hard for me to judge them too harshly, though. Fediverse devs do things I disagree with all the time, and users too. Maybe, in a different world, something else could’ve taken Mastodon’s place… but its forks stick close, Pleroma has the charm of a brick, Misskey is too 日本, and Misskey forks got Messy, and—

              …Oh. That’s it, isn’t it? Mastodon is the best that ActivityPub has to offer most microblogging fans.

  • pivot_root@lemmy.world
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    I’m surprised nobody has mentioned porn yet. Like it or not, it does drive growth.

    • sir@lemmy.xxxiver.se
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      That’s what I’m trying to do with https://xxxiver.se

      I think porn creators would actually benefit enormously from using fediverse services. They own their data/platform, they can’t get kicked off, etc.

    • Plopp@lemmy.world
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      Yeah, porn is the only reason I still visit Reddit from time to every day.

    • MajorHavoc@programming.dev
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      Yeah! I think that’s going to sway in this place’s favor very soon.

      I predict a glorious age of the very best curated pornography being here.

      As other preferred platforms enshitify, I expect a lot of innovate erotic sensual and/or dirty artists (new and established) to have a dynamic, accessible, profitable experience here.

      It’s probably going to be very horny, but also really beautiful in a lot of pro-social ways.

      • Cryophilia@lemmy.world
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        God I hope so, but Lemmy the Fediverse is weirdly anti-porn and anti-sex.

        Edit: the whole thing

        • MajorHavoc@programming.dev
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          Yeah. The litigation risk is considered high right now, and no one wants to be first to try it.

          Which I totally get. This place is largely run by volunteers, after all.

          We saw similar hesitation in the early days of WordPress/Wikipedia/Drupal proliferation. Eventually those solutions greatly enabled sites like BlogSpot and Tumblr to become wild places, and niche sites to pop up for stuff that BlogSpot and Tumblr didn’t want to touch.

          I can think of a few specific anti-spam and security tools that strongly enabled casual admins of WordPress to start sites.

          I think we will see an erotic golden age once Fediverse moderation tools cross some unknown usability threshold.

          Edit: I come across here as really excited about porn. Lol.

          Art has a long history of being erotic, and beauty appreciation is one of the better things technology can do.

          I am also really excited for the rest of the content that will thrive after demand for porn has pushed the technology to maturity.

    • lightnsfw@reddthat.com
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      Agreed. Look what Reddit turned into. Better to have fewer but higher quality comments than a sea of the same tired jokes and ancedotes over an over again.

    • Flamekebab@piefed.social
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      I don’t like that there’s so few people questioning the core concept of “one platform for everyone”.

      Why does it have to appeal to everyone? Why can’t its audience be a subset of humanity who like nerdy shit? It’s what I liked about Reddit in the early years - it wasn’t completely inaccessible but it was niche enough that there was a bit of a filter, allowing me to find content and people that appealed to me.

      Aiming for lowest common denominator doesn’t seem like a good idea to me.

    • Alex@lemmy.ml
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      Quite. Go to the big services that know how to moderate and maintain (and importantly pay for) a public square. But also encourage the interesting ones enable federation for wider coverage.

  • oxjox@lemmy.ml
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    By permitting advertising.

    “Normies” are not “microbloggers”. Most people just want to follow what their friends and family and news organizations and “influencers” are posting.

    My biggest gripe with the fediverse (indirectly) is that all the information I would get on Twitter about my city is not available to me - concert announcements, restaurant specials, road closures, major news, hobby meetups, etc. They’re posting on Facebook and Instagram (which is IMO the worst of all social platforms) and slowly adopting Threads. My issue with these platforms is mostly regarding the algorithm deciding what it thinks you want. This is driven by advertising.

    Twitter didn’t really pick up steam until celebrities and news outlets were posting and engaging on the platform. Then they pushed hard for ads to increase revenue and expand features and stability (for better or worse). Then they just got greedy. Then they were sold for the dumbest amount of money in the history of sales.

    Getting normies here means getting influencers here. Influencers want to make money for being assholes. If you don’t want influencers and ads here, don’t ask for the normies to come. Accept the beauty of this micro micro blogging platform. If you want to share outside the open fediverse, embrace cross posting to the closed platforms. That’s kind of the whole point of it. You can post in your tiny little corner while still engaging with the more popular platforms.

    TL;DR: be careful what you wish for.

    • Boozilla@lemmy.world
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      4 months ago

      By permitting advertising.

      Reaches for pitchfork.

      TL;DR: be careful what you wish for.

      Puts pitchfork down, embarrassed cough.

    • Today@lemmy.world
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      4 months ago

      I don’t work in tech and I’m not a video game player. Am i a normie? I stay on Facebook because of the things you mentioned - i want to know how my old aunt is doing, get the link to my cousin’s music performances, see what play or concert is showing this weekend, and post to my neighborhood when my dogs escape. I only used Twitter to follow local bars, restaurants, and music venues for happy hours and event info. That kinda died with covid so i closed my Twitter account. I don’t really understand influencers. I’d love to see more local content here but I’m not sure we have the people to support it. I guess the way to start is to share the local info i get from Facebook to the Texas and dfw communities here, but that doesn’t draw more people. Among my friends, r/ is sort of made fun of as something their husbands follow for jokes, memes, and boobs.

      • oxjox@lemmy.ml
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        I should edit my comment and add “post rage bait”.

        You’re absolutely right. I’d describe myself similarly to you. I even created a local community here for my city. But it feels like I’m speaking quietly on top of a mountain while the nearest person is a time zone away. Perhaps a handful of people would stop by and subscribe to the content but this isn’t about subscribing - it’s about engaging. Communities are about exchanging ideas. Posting something that compels people to engage is one way to increase activity. As more people notice the community, they’ll be more likely to engage when there’s enough noise around that doesn’t single them out too much.

        The major social platforms know this. This is why they promote trash over quality information. This is why I get frustrated on Instagram because it continues to show me posts from two or three days ago notifying me that I missed an exciting event.

        You can post all the great informative content you want on your little corner of the fediverse but without engagement, is it really there?

  • L0rdMathias@sh.itjust.works
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    4 months ago

    You don’t. If they don’t wanna be here, don’t take on this huge crusade to get them here. You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make them drink. They must take the final step themselves.

    Focus on making lemme a desirable place to be, less on getting people to use the communication tool you happen to prefer.

  • ContrarianTrail@lemm.ee
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    4 months ago

    The reason I personally don’t recommend or hardly even mention Lemmy to anyone else is because here’s hardly any content they’d be interested in. The vast majority of posts are quite esoteric and directed at the kind of people who already are here.

  • deadcatbounce@reddthat.com
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    Make it look like a centralised system initially. Provide a portal to a pre vetted/chosen instance that is accepting new members in their locale/country, that is the same for everyone.

    Update: This (above) is badly written. I’m trying to say every potential new member gets presented with the same (pretend centralised) portal that is in fact an (valid long-lived) instance local to the individual potential for them to sign up with. So two local users in Oz get given a proxy to the instance local to them, and a user in Blighty an instance local to that person. The decentralised Lemmy looks centralised, but isn’t. The proxy front end should explain that they’re joining their local instance and it’s like a network of little affiliated clubs that can see each others posts globally. they log in for the first time it will become clear.

    It’s late, I’m tired, sorry everyone. Is that any better?

    I think it’s confusing (the reverse of what they’re used to) for a newbie who have been bought up in a centralised internet with single front ends of all the big players to be presented with little instances to join to access the whole.

    • Cadeillac@lemmy.world
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      How hard would it be to create a little quiz that directs or chooses an instance based on your interests?

      • smeg@feddit.uk
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        I think the hard part would be keeping it up to date as instances change

        • Cadeillac@lemmy.world
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          4 months ago

          True. I forgot how easily an instance could disappear overnight. Happened to me in another instance

    • Kierunkowy74@piefed.social
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      Isn’t it like https://kbin.world was back then? (when /kbin was still a thing?)

      When you entered that page, it determined your location from IP address and redirected you to a magazine for your country, as shown on kbin.social.

      Well, this could be repeated now, but for lemmy instances. We already have umpteen of regional/local ones, and they are on every continent of the world.

      • deadcatbounce@reddthat.com
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        I don’t know, I’m not familiar with kbin at all. Good to know I’m not alone in that thinking, though.

        It would have helped me. My instance isn’t in the same hemisphere as me!

          • deadcatbounce@reddthat.com
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            Thank you for thinking forward. That’s much appreciated.

            I’m surprised to find there isn’t much of a delay to loading the data from Oz. I’m sure I remember it being horrific not so long ago.

  • jjjalljs@ttrpg.network
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    4 months ago

    I send people links to posts on Lemmy, and tell people I can’t see Instagram/Twitter/etc.

    Is it working? No, not really, but it feels like it should.

    • MajorHavoc@programming.dev
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      You’re doing better than I am. I just bullshit them and say I’ll “probably check it out later.” By which I really mean whenever it gets reposted on a less shitty technology platform, in a few decades. But I don’t say that part.

  • Max-P@lemmy.max-p.me
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    4 months ago

    You can’t, because normies don’t care about tech other than it benefits them directly in some way. They care about the experience they get and doing the same thing everyone does because normies are like sheeps.

    Normies barely even get how emails work and it’s been like over 40 years. They know if they sign up for Gmail it’s free, they get a ton of space and an @gmail.com address. That’s it.

    And even then, people looked at me weird back in 2007 when I made my Gmail account because “everyone uses Hotmail, why wouldn’t you use Hotmail, everyone uses it so it must be the best”. Heck just yesterday, the teller at the mechanic shop looked at me weird because I used $storename@max-p.me to place the online order, they were utterly confused. They thought I made a Gmail or Outlook for all of those aliases. People don’t think about using emails, they think about using Gmail or Hotmail/Outlook.

    Same with Reddit, it didn’t become popular until normies felt like they were missing out by not being on Reddit, and arguably that was Reddit’s downfall flooding the site with the same repeated arguments and opinions over and over. And for that too, I’ve been told my “Reddit looks weird” because I use a third-party app. People want to use Reddit so they download Reddit.

    Normies don’t use Twitter because they want to microblog, they use Twitter because their idols are on Twitter and they want to mimic them. If Taylor Swift opened a Mastodon account and posted exclusively there, we’d get a massive spike of users. And they all would want to register on the same instance as her and it would be the only viable instance to them.

    They just want to fit in and do the same as the others, using the same services and same apps and everything. “Influencers” are everything these days.

    The best way to get normies on the Fediverse is IMO, endorsing Threads and BlueSky, which will effectively force them to integrate because those platforms integrate.

  • Lost_My_Mind@lemmy.world
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    4 months ago

    I said since I got here that the actual sign up process IS the hardest part. For exactly the reasons you said.

    Each instance has it’s own personality. As much as EVERY user here will hate to hear this, you need to centralize the decentralized. Have a single point of entry. Signup at Lemmy.com

    Now you’re User@Lemmy.com. and you’re told that you have 6 months to pick an instance. And here’s a guide to all known instances, with a wiki style explaination of what each instance’s personality is. With an expandable list of each federated and defederated instance.

    Now once they switch to their new “home” all their comments stay in their comment history. Everything in their profile comes with them. EVERY instance in the fediverse needs to adhere to a set of protocols. So that when they move instances, the only thing that changes is if you look at a post they made last week, it no longer shows user@lemmy.com it now shows user@lemmy.world. and if in 2 years you move again now it says user@lemm.ee even for posts you made 2 years prior. It always lists your current account. Even if you move to Mbin. Now it says user@fedia.io

    It’s a learn, and grow as you go situation.

    Oh, and if an instance ever shuts down, those profiles aren’t lost. They revert back to Lemmy.com, and the 6 month rule is back in effect.

    But you have to anticipate the user. Not control the user. And right now the user understands centralized. So centralize the decentralized, and THEN teach them slowly how it works. I understand today leaps and bounds more than I did 4 months ago. I’m still not sure Lemmy.World is my final home. I’m trying out piefed. I’m probably going to try out Mbin. And I’m sure I’ll discover new things. But on day 1, I was like “…do what now? What’s an instance? What’s decentralized?”

    And NOW I can see that the Nintendo account I follow on Mastodon for the past year isn’t really Nintendo. It’s Nintendo@Lemmy.World and EVERY post gets auto “boosted”. A year ago I thought that was literally Nintendo. I was surprised they were not only OBSESSIVELY active, but that they had a Mastodon account at all.

    You gotta remember, this is how most people will walk into the fediverse on day 1. Not knowing how shit works, and if it doesn’t work for them, they’re out. You can teach them later. But also right now the fediverse as a whole is fragmented as shit. There’s decentralized, and then theres disjointed.

    You’ll notice that I post regularly to THIS community. With constant questions. I’M taking the active approach to learning. The average user won’t know that they’re stupid. They’ll think the fediverse is stupid because it doesn’t work the way they’re used to. Most people don’t have the self reflection I have, nor the constant curiousity. If I don’t know a thing, it bothers me. If most people don’t know how a smoke alarm works, they fon’t give a shit. Whereas I watch a youtube video for almost an hour. Did you know there’s actually several different types of smoke detection? And that one type is very much more prone to false positives, and worse, lack of positive positives due to light? See, most people will find that boring, not give a shit, and move on. So YOU gotta teach them with annoying popups. “Hey, the fediverse is actually self hosted, and right now you’re on the instance of Lemmy.com! Whats that mean? Well…” blah blah blah, you guys already know this part, but that’s the message they should get on day 1. Teach them they need to understand what an instance is, and how to pick an instance that works for them. Then they can migrate there. If that instance is ever no longer good enough, they can migrate elsewhere. Even to Mbin, even to piefed, wherever! One account, all the fediverse.

    And here’s the best part. They can go to fediverse.com and log in regardless of which instance they’re on. Just type user is user@lemmy.world password is ********* and login.

    And now all the decentralized is centralized. Without losing the benefits of being decentralized. Because it IS still decentralized. But most drivers aren’t mechanics. They use the service, but they don’t need to know the ins and outs. They just need to be able to use it, without it being confusing for THEM.

    The hardest thing I’ve noticed is that linux user types don’t grasp is that just because THEY understand something as easy, doesn’t mean EVERYONE finds it easy. And there are a LOT of linux mindset people here. You may “get it”, but that doesn’t make it naturally intuitive. The fediverse is confusing as shit. Each part works differently. Has a different layout. Has a different interface. Operates differently. Which is a stark contrast to facebook users who just say “DO THE THING!” and suddenly 70 boomers are giving them thumbs up and emojis for a quilt they sewed and sharing the patchwork on.

    Everyone here is saying to defederate from Threads, because it’s facebook, and I get why. But are you seriously going to cut off the biggest by far userbase to federate with you, simply because you don’t want corporate integration? Facebook still wouldn’t own the fediverse, but now something like 80 million users will start asking questions about the fediverse. Yes, it’s all old people, and people we would rather not interact with, but guess what. They don’t want to interact with you in retrogames@lemmy.world either. They don’t want to be in linux@lemmy.ml either. They’re going to create their own communities, which have no interest to you, but boost the fediverse’s numbers. By the millions. And now maybe facebook as a whole integrates. Maybe reddit sees the momentum and they integrate. Maybe hoogle sees the momentum.

    And pretty soon the fediverse becomes the default layout of how the internet works. And the decentralized nature means that no corporate entity CAN own it. They can put ads on individual instances that they own…but they can’t control all the instances. And people who don’t care about those ads will stay there. People who don’t will go to other duplicate instances.

    But to defederate from threads before ANY of this takes place is the dumbest idea I’ve ever heard, while daily seeing those same people ask “How do we grow the fediverse?”

    THATS HOW!!! Ok, I’ve ranted enough…

    • Blaze (he/him)@feddit.org
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      4 months ago

      Now once they switch to their new “home” all their comments stay in their comment history. Everything in their profile comes with them.

      Very difficult technically. Mastodon doesn’t allow this either, I don’t know any Fediverse platform which allows this. If someone knows one, please share

      Mastodon currently does not support importing posts or media due to technical limitations

      https://docs.joinmastodon.org/user/moving/#export

      About Threads, have you been to Facebook lately? The level of conspiracy, bigotry etc is over the roof.

      And on top of that, millions of users federate here from Threads

      • they start upvoting, commenting in the established communities, drowning every existing user with their numbers
      • previous Fediverse users start to recreate their own communities without the Threads users, just because of the population differences
      • Lost_My_Mind@lemmy.world
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        Very difficult technically. Mastodon doesn’t allow this either, I don’t know any Fediverse platform which allows this. If someone knows one, please share

        It may not exist NOW, but my point is the fediverse itself needs to adopt a stance of “Ok, these are the foundation for which EVERY service will connect to the fediverse. Develop these services into your platform now, or risk being auto-defederated from all complying fediverse platforms in future updates.”

        Give it like 3 years to actually let these platforms figure out how to work it in, but eventually ALL platforms will have to have it if the fediverse as a whole wants to succeed. Basically your account wouldn’t be a Mastodon account, or a Lemmy account, or a Pixelfed account, or any other platform specific account. It would be a fediverse account. And you’d log in via one central place, which then exchanges information with the instance, and back to the centralized log-in point. So if you wanted to browse Pixelfed for example, you’d log in user@lemmy.world, with your password on Fediverse.com, and Fediverse.com would exchange info with your instance, verify the login, and then exchange info with pixelfed which would already know you’re a verified logged in user. Then, using Pixelfed’s layout and platform, you’re browsing a pixelfed instance, via Lemmy.World, with all traffic being handled by fediverse.com as a neutral middle party to handle login verifications.

        About Threads, have you been to Facebook lately? The level of conspiracy, bigotry etc is over the roof.

        And on top of that, millions of users federate here from Threads

        they start upvoting, commenting in the established communities, drowning every existing user with their numbersprevious Fediverse users start to >recreate their own communities without the Threads users, just because of the population differences

        That’s all fine. I literally covered that in my innitial post when I said

        They’re going to create their own communities, which have no interest to you, but boost the fediverse’s numbers. By the millions. And now maybe facebook as a whole integrates. Maybe reddit sees the momentum and they integrate. Maybe hoogle sees the momentum.

        And pretty soon the fediverse becomes the default layout of how the internet works. And the decentralized nature means that no corporate entity CAN own it. They can put ads on individual instances that they own…but they can’t control all the instances. And people who don’t care about those ads will stay there. People who don’t will go to other duplicate instances.

        So, even though I didn’t know it was happening, I literally predicted that would happen. Even down to the duplicate communities to get away from those that you don’t want to interact with. Fine, let them have their own racist communties that you never have to interact with. Let THEIR moderators handle that. The bigger thing to take away is that the fediverse, racist communities and all, is growing and becoming actually relevant. You can’t just treat internet places as “safe places” where only your kind exist. You have to either solve racism in real life, or accept that it will also exist online. You can use moderation tools to make sure that attitude isn’t welcome in your instance, but if you say they aren’t welcome on the fediverse, then you cut off about 90% of the older generation, and about half of society as a whole…or 48% if we’re being accurate.

        I was at a family get together, when my mom just casually threw out the N-Word. The table had 7 people sitting at it. 4 of them were my moms age, in her 70s. My sister is 50, and I’m 40. My niece is 12. When she said it, My sister, my niece, and me all looked at each other with eyes that basically said “WHAT THE FUCK???” and the 4 other elderly people just didn’t even phase them. My mom has never once in my presence, nor my sisters presence, EVER used language or an attitude like that. She’s not part of the 48% party. But to see her generation just casually accept that was mind blowing for not only me, but also my sister, and my niece. We immediately huddled off to the side room and everybody immediately asked “WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT???” in whispered tones. Nobody had EVER heard anything like that from her. She doesn’t watch fox news. We have no idea what got into her, other then thinking maybe that’s just what her generation says when nobody younger is around, and this time it slipped out. But my brother in laws parents, and the other elderly neighbor didn’t even react. Whereas it was clear to us three that something weird just happened.

        And as far as the world goes, the boomers, even on deaths door, are STILL the largest demographic of people in society. So if you exclude them, you are saying millions of people aren’t welcome on your platform, and in doing so, will hinder it’s growth. Permanently. Until they die off, their numbers are needed for anything to be considered a sucsess.

        So the best you can do, is welcome them to your platform, stick them off into their own instance, you go onto your own instance, you don’t interact with them, but let them interact with each other. Then other platforms can see the numbers, not understand the situation, and THEY join in. And THAT’s where you get the users of actual value. The people on reddit, and instagram, and youtube. ESPECIALLY youtube.

        Peertube is what’s poised to gain the most here. NOBODY likes youtube. The creators don’t like youtubes god complex, and holding them to strict rules that change on a dime, and retroactively give them strikes that were perfectly inline with their rules at the time of posting. Users don’t like youtube, again because of their god complex. Changing features, removing thumbs down button, doing everything they can to force ads onto your screen.

        BOTH SIDES want a change, but there’s no valid alternative until people start USING an alternative. That’s because if you go outside, and ask 100 people in a common public place “What is the fediverse?” I would be SHOCKED if 1 person knew. Ask those same 100 people what youtube is, and I’d be SHOCKED if only 99 people knew. The awareness just isn’t there yet.

        So yeah, for the time being, you HAVE TO allow the racists onto your platform purely for the growth. They’ll be dead in 10 years anyways. But until people know what the fediverse is, you need EVERY platform willing to federate. Then, once the fediverse is a common term, and everybody underdstands it, THEN you can start saying “Ok, boomer, fuck off with that racist shit.”

        • Blaze (he/him)@feddit.org
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          all traffic being handled by fediverse.com as a neutral middle party to handle login verifications.

          Who manages fediverse.com? Who prevents it from being bought out by a billionaire? Who ensures that it stays neutral in case of cat food vegan debates? Who prevents people unsatisfied with the issue of that debate to create their own fediverse.com?

          And as far as the world goes, the boomers, even on deaths door, are STILL the largest demographic of people in society. So if you exclude them, you are saying millions of people aren’t welcome on your platform, and in doing so, will hinder it’s growth. Permanently. Until they die off, their numbers are needed for anything to be considered a sucsess.

          TikTok doesn’t have boomers, is it not considered a success? Trying to bring in the boomer population doesn’t seem to bring a lot of values if they don’t interact and stay in their own bubbles.

          Bringing Reddit users, which are usually closer to the Lemmy demographics, would be more interesting, as those users would interact and mingle better with the rest of the existing userbase.

          As a general comment, I’m always surprised when people want to bring everyone to a platform. Every city or town has several bars and cafes. You don’t expect the old ladies sipping tea to go to the rock cafe, and you don’t expect young parents to spend time in university bars.

          It’s okay to have different places for different people on the Internet.