At the moment the internet is flawed, do you think the fediverse is the solution?
Probably not replace, but certainly it could be a viable and thriving part of the picture. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with having options.
And maybe it’s a good thing it’s not dumbed down. Keeps the cruft out! LOL
I expect good and insightful conversations to be moved here.
Reddit is about to become like twitter and facebook where it’s ad-ridden, toxicity cesspool.
People will leave to keep having the actual forum experience and will eventually move here as it looks like a very good alternative.
Sometimes I feel like my reddit experience was so different from a lot of people’s. I unsubbed from all the default subs and built a specific homepage for the things I found interesting. Unfortunately for me, that means the communities were (relatively speaking) smaller than the popular ones, but still large enough to have frequent engagement. Going to be hard to replicate that, I think.
My approach as well, it took me a long time to realize why I got weird looks saying I browsed reddit at work. My page was opensource,computer, tech, stuff with some other hobbies.My friends was just porn lol
@Alkalyon @Bicyclejohn #Reddit was already toxic, but I guess now people will begin to recognize its toxicity.
@realcaseyrollins
> Reddit was already toxic, but I guess now people will begin to recognize its toxicity… just like Titter.
Yup, that part.
We been knew about Twitter but for a lot of us, Musk taking the wheel was the push we needed to find greener, less toxic pastures.
Speaking of greener, less toxic pastures, what are you using as an alternative? Mastodon, Bluesky or something else?
I went back to Mastodon. Had to move my account twice more to find an instance a) I really gelled with, b) took the safety of marginalized people seriously, and c) did not hesitate to pushback against the hateful stuff.
It’s been pretty nice.
@StoicLime
> what are you using as an alternative?I never really used Titter. My account was just a sock puppet that echoed my posts from my Mastodon account. I’m posting this from Mastodon right now, but I also have a Friendica account, and I’m keen to check out CalcKey. All of these, like Lemmy, are part of the fediverse and interoperate with each other.
(sorry if that’s obvious to you but it’s not to everyone so I’m spelling it out)
There’s so many options I was paralyzed by choice for awhile! But options are great!
#Reddit was already toxic
I got banned for replying to a racist comment in sarcasm, to make them see how racist the comment is.
I got banned for racism…
Fuck reddit really.
The various people who work on the fediverse are all doing it for fundamentally different goals, solving different problems, and building different things for different people. It just so happens that, more often than not, a lot of our stuff works together now thanks to the hard efforts put forward by people who cared about interoperability.
I personally believe that the fediverse will kill traditional social media platforms. Because if you can just communicate around a walled garden, what’s the point or value in staying in one?
I think we still have a long way to go in terms of usability and design. Those things, along with marketing, remain pretty steep barriers to adoption by people who are unfamiliar with it. There are also a lot of capital-H Hard problems that need to be sorted out down the road, like better filtering and moderation tools, and more robust controls for privacy. I have a feeling we’ll get there, but only through hard work and collaboration.
I guess a different way of understanding things is that, the fediverse might not kill the competition outright, but it has the potential to outlast them as something better. And hopefully someday, it’ll be as ubiquitous and ordinary as email.
Because if you can just communicate around a walled garden, what’s the point or value in staying in one?
Because people are happy with that garden and don’t think about others. Please remember that your average internet user doesn’t really know what an API is, or understand about open standards, they just want to find some content that matches their interests, upvote and share said content with their friends who are also inside that garden.
This average user isn’t a bad person, stupid or naiive, they just have other things going on in their lives and the internet is a small part of it. They use it, take what they want from it and move on, and there are so many more of those people than you.
People who switch from iOS to Android report losing friends who were on iMessage and are unwilling to move to something platform agnostic such as Signal or WhatsApp. I wouldn’t underestimate the walled garden effect.
No. And that’s fine. I don’t expect underground music to replace top 40. And there’s a place for both.
Very well said
deleted by creator
To some extent this is a feature, not a problem though. I know it’s elitist, but in a lot of ways the internet was a much nicer place when it was just a bunch of tech nerds.
I hope you don’t mean nicer as in “friendlier,” because the internet has always been a hellscape
No, I didn’t. Maybe “more interesting” would have been a better phrasing. The signal to noise ratio is so much worse now than it was 20 years ago.
“Servers? Instances? Is this a place to connect with my friends or a goddamn server room?”
That’s not a property of of federation (see email and websites) it’s just because early adopters are a little wired. In any new social phenomenon, it takes a second wave of adopters (first wave of followers) to bridge the wierdos from the masses.
Cue this classic study in leadership: https://youtu.be/hO8MwBZl-Vc be the first one to follow the wierdos and show the masses it’s cool.
I agree. It’s been fun and challenging to learn even just as a user. I work in tech and it is a lot of concepts to grasp and understand. So much potential though!
But couldn’t it be made easier? Who cares which server a community or a user is registered on. I register where a friend sent me the link to and from there on it shouldn’t matter and could be handled in the background.
The big sites are also not one central instance. They have several distributed instances all managed by the same company.
Future instance owners and moderators don’t want users and communities to be able to migrate seamlessly. Mastodon has the same fatal flaw. They want to keep your history and relationships hostage so you can’t leave. This is the only thing turns signup to Lemmy and Mastodon into an important decision you don’t want to get wrong. That’s why you have to read and read and read before signing up and be a Lemmy expert before choosing the right instance for you.
Of course by this time 99% of users have gone back to Reddit. And the 1% that stays still feels like a huge wave.
Also many elitists are happy signup is clunky, it filters out the rif raf and the common Joe. It creates an exclusive space where everyone uses Linux, loves anime and don’t like sports.
A place with no cultural relevance ree from eternal September.
Well there’s also techies who don’t (only) use Linux and like (some) sports. More of a Sci-Fi and Comic Book guy than anime here.
Let’s see how this grows.
Mastodon has the same fatal flaw. They want to keep your history and relationships hostage so you can’t leave.
You can migrate your relationships to a new Mastodon server.
And while you can’t directly transfer the history (the debate over how/whether to do this has gone on for literally years), you can export an archive you can keep locally, and there are tools out there to parse it and convert it to some other form (static website, whatever). Someone’s probably written an importer by now, though I’d have to look.
Future instance owners and moderators don’t want users and communities to be able to migrate seamlessly. Mastodon has the same fatal flaw
This is misrepresentative for a few ways.
For one, you can in fact migrate your mastadon account, fairly easily in fact.
For another thing, instance owners and moderators don’t really get to choose whether migration is possible, the code contributors do. I suppose instance owners could start forking their own version of lemmy to make that harder, but ultimately there will always be folks willing to host the “best” version, and so people will just leave
People said that about reddit, I don’t think Lemmy is anywhere near being too complex for the average user. More that social medias generally favor simplicity because simplicity is easy to control, modify, and generally nudge from a developer side trying to guarantee a very specific use case that generates money, rather than just naturally occurring social systems.
Let’s be real, humans have been dealing with social networks far more complex, systems more complex, for almost all of human history. The sheer volume of people, no, but the actual processes of interaction, yes.
[This comment has been deleted by an automated system]
Thanks for this insightful post. I agree that the fediverse feels different and that’s ok. It’s exciting to get the chance to build something new and be a part of it starting.
deleted by creator
Great insight. I agree that the fediverse will never be anywhere near as big as mainstream social media, but I’m hoping it will continue to grow and be recognized as a valid alternative.
Personally I think of the fediverse as like diet social media. Just like how people switch from Coke to Diet Coke to avoid sugar, people can switch from Twitter to Mastodon to avoid recommendation algorithms and overly-stimulating content. At least that’s why I joined the fediverse. I know most people love algorithms and endless content (hence why Tik Tok is so huge) but for those of us who want something less stimulating, I’m glad that the fediverse exists as an alternative. As long as the fediverse is big enough to be enjoyable, but not so big that it becomes super addictive, that’s good enough for me.
yeah I definetly agree. specifically because of the lack of algorithms or profit motives it won’t be " addictive " nor as easy as traditional social media to find what I’m most likely to engage in. but it also means ragebait is less likely to be pushed to me, and for that, its actually quite fine…
im quite sick of the “few big websites” that the internet has become. I miss when there were a greater variety of forums, blogs and places to hang out, only supported through people’s passions. and it seems to me federation goes back to those old times.
For most of the users currently online it’s extremely difficult to understand the concept of federation and how everything works, so I doubt it’ll ever be as prevalent as “the big social media platforms”, but for technically-inclined users, it’ll definitely have at least moderate success.
I believe that’s the point: Coming from Reddit, I don’t understand what Mastodon (yes, I thought it is something similar!), Fediverse, Lemmy.ml and feddit are, have in common or where the differences are.
And furthermore: Why should I care?
I think it will be hard to convince a significant number of people to come here and STAY.
I hope I’m wrong. I just created my first community :-)
You have to remember that the vast majority of people are, for lack of a better word, pretty dumb. You say the word “fediverse” and their eyes cross.
I mean yeah, that’s me. I’m just a regular guy, but since reddit decided to screw up in the worst ways possible, I need an alternative. I don’t fully understand the fediverse but I’m going to make an attempt to use kbin and see how it goes.
That’s just because they haven’t been taught about it yet. Once it catches on more (Twitter and Reddit refugees, Meta app) it’ll become more widely understood and more people will start using it. Once you understand the point of the Fediverse, using it isn’t a whole lot harder than any other social media.
I don’t know you overestimate people, I think if the Fediverse will succeed its gotta be dumbed down a lot more for people and made seemless so it works without them having to think about the various instances as much.
They don’t really HAVE to think about the various instances imo. They just need to join one, that’s it. Following users/communities from other instances isn’t hard to wrap your head around, you just follow them. badda-bing badda-boom. The @instance.whatever bit of their username barely matters. You just say “that’s like a URL to find that user on a different instance than the one you chose”. People arent as stupid as you might think, they just need someone patient enough to explain.
The truth is if you have to explain to users how it works, its not a very user-friendly concept.
that’s putting it lightly. But remember Twitter wasn’t mainstream for a while. And tbh it still isn’t.
I mean, tweets are pretty regularly cited on the news. Not sure how much more mainstream Twitter could become.
Fediverse will go through what Linux went through. Be seen by businesses as an existential threat. Then face FUD and EEE campaign.
One day, likely earlier than Linux witnessed the rise of RedHat, Google, Facebook as prominent businesses that became poster children for Linux, new or existing businesses could be built around and/or on fediverse. They may as well come together to form an ActivityPub foundation similar to the Linux Foundation for all we know.
Email went through similar trajectory too. SMTP, IMAP, pop are are open protocols. Yet we have a sort of oligopoly on email.
Similar to how Windows did not die away because Linux came along, existing social networks may remain in existence. The availability of fediverse as an alternative would keep them busy
IMHO these are fundamentally different concepts. Popular social media is made popular by pushing curated ‘engaging’ content, rather than organic content, to monetize gullible users. It has become an entertainment venue, giving their audience a steady stream of what they want them to see, even if by force. Popular “Social Media” has rapidly devolved into a real-life MST3K. Users feel betrayed that the sites no longer feel like the social experience/experiment they wanted… but are users really wanting to leave, or just switch to voice outrage?
Alternatively, the fediverse doesn’t appeal to those wanting force fed entertainment, or seeking viral fame amongst family/friends, and outraged users will complain it doesn’t function like so-and-so site, or work ‘their way’. It is more technical and takes more proactive actions to engage with others, which is a positive thing.
Users think they can switch from Coke to Pepsi, but the fediverse is more of a mixed drink with some extra bourbon.
Could it / should it replace popular social media? Probably not, unless more mindsets change over what a social media experience should be… but it can fill a growing gap as this happens (which will in-turn improve features & development).
I would say, if in theory a social media achieved a small community, informative and positive culture which avoided spreading misinformation or cultivating harmful stereotypes of those they disagree with via the mechanisms of that social media, that it should be more standardized and more widely accepted. Largely because that is just more healthy in general. Not that Lemmy will necessarily be that in practice in the long run.
@Bicyclejohn I don’t know about “replace”, but popular social media could JOIN the fediverse.
I don’t blame new users to be late on news. But to make a quick recap, the people interested in implementing ActivityPub include:
- Meta (insta/twt replacement)
- Tumblr
- Wordpress.com
- Medium (currently only running mastodon)
- Discourse
- FlarumLast time I check those were a few popular social media.
Discourse and Flarum in particular are relevant to Lemmy
We are still missing basic tools, like the ability to import full history from one instance to another. To import posts and comments, not just followers and those we follow, or lists (which often isn’t functional as on my current instance). Frankly we should be able to import history from non-fediverse social media too, if one has output files from them. Nobody I’m aware of has built a single tool to help them navigate those histories, let alone import them.
Some people are working on that. Calckey will soon be able to import posts from twitter (can alerady import from mastodon). Pixelfed can already import from instagram right now!!
Kbin and lemmy are very late in that regard. You can’t even migrate your social graph.
I’m unable to do that on pixel.infosec.exchange which is the pixelfed instance I’m on. Is there some trick to it or is it just not universally available yet?
@aka_quant_noir@cinematheque.social @matthieu_xyz@piaille.fr @Bicyclejohn@lemmy.ml it’s a brand new feature in pixelfed – I’m not sure if it’s even in a stable version yet.
@kainoa @matthieu_xyz @Bicyclejohn
Well then I won’t get too excited. lol
It’s in the settings but brand-spanking-new.
This kind of import is something that I would absolutely love to see, but some backend stuff has to be figured out. Unfortunately, importing and creating thousands and thousands of posts can absolutely hammer a server, and it gets amplified if everybody’s doing it at the same time.
I had some ideas for a tool a while back that could import your posts first, help you sift through what your “Greatest Hits” were in terms of big life events or lots of conversation, and help you import those into another platform. The downside is, though, that you still wouldn’t be able to reconstruct the threads for people who haven’t moved over to the fediverse yet.
Would be cool and technically possible, but I doubt it will happen.
Big Tech throwing millions into marketing and vendor lock-ins vs OpenSource projects that are decentralised and often running on donations and goodwill. That’s a very touch battle to win, especially when most people care more about ease of use and amount of possible followers than about privacy and decentralisation.
Mastodon grew, but only took a tiny slice of Twitter and half of Mastodon are bots or people who crosspost to both. I expect the same to happen to Lemmy/Reddit, and any other SNS that goes this direction.
I’m content with a stable and active niche group of SNSs. Hopefully the open source and decentralisation aspects can prevent it from dying and going to the next SNS as the big ones tend to do. Which cóúld be as people can make newer applications that work with the old ones as long as it all runs on ActivityPup. I feel it’s the most realistic way of thinking.
But maybe I’m just too pessimistic. Even the biggest people in tech stuggle to predict the future of it. So who knows.
Mastodon grew, but only took a tiny slice of Twitter
Growth is not the only, nor even main, metric to measure success of fedi. Fedi is not a VC-funded startup that needs to grow exponentially to remain viable (consider how that worked for Twitter and Reddit…).
Building a resilient, safe, longterm-viable communities is the metric to measure fedi by. That takes more time, than hooking people on endorphin/noradrenalin high and slick interfaces.
half of Mastodon are bots or people who crosspost to both.
This is false. I follow a couple of thousand people and have an interesting, diverse, funny, and informative timeline. Very few accounts I follow crosspost.
There is no recommendation algorithm so your timeline is what you make of it. It takes a bit more time to curate, but you end up with your own thing that suits you — if you put in the tiny bit of effort required.
I am very well aware about the lack of algoritm and how Mastodon works. But the issue is not for me, I like Mastodon! And I don’t like Twitter at all. But it is for Average Joe, who needs to come over in order to replace the place of Big Tech SNSs.
Growth is not the only, nor even main, metric to measure success of fedi.
If the Fediverse just wants to exist stabely, even be mentionable in size, it is not. But to take over from the Big Tech SNSs, it is. People are where other people are. And that’s what the topic was about, replacing Big Tech SNSs.
This is false. I follow a couple of thousand people and have an interesting, diverse, funny, and informative timeline. Very few accounts I follow crosspost Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy Mastodon. I also talk with some i teresting people there. But I still cannot follow any of the local news there without bots that copy Twitter. I also know companies who have accounts on both, and beside of reactions on what people say, their updates are cross-posted (manually). Not everything, but if you want to follow companies and people outside of tech-related scenes yoh already need to be happy if they have a cross-posting Mastodon.
For me, it’s enough. But for Average Joe, who wants to commend on their favourite influencers and use it to talk to custoner support of delivery coyriers and stores they buy from, it is not. In fact, customer support is the only reason I have a Twitter account.
That takes more time, than hooking people on endorphin/noradrenalin high and slick interfaces. Sadly, Average Joe just want his endorphin kick 🥲.
If the Fediverse just wants to exist stabely, even be mentionable in size, it is not. But to take over from the Big Tech SNSs, it is. People are where other people are. And that’s what the topic was about, replacing Big Tech SNSs.
Fediverse existed before Google+, then came Google+, then Google pushed it hard (including forcing YouTube users to have Google+ accounts), then Google killed Google+.
Fediverse is still here.
So while yes, it would be nice to have more people out of walled gardens, let’s keep stuff in perspective.
I fail to see how this goes against what you’re qouting from me? Unless you’re agreeing with me? I’m saying that in order to replace the Big Tech SNSs it needs to grow and appeal to the masses (which I’m personally doubting will happen to that degree), as was the question asked. But I also say that it doesn’t need to do so in order to exist stable or even become of a mentionable size.
Big Tech SNSs just get replaced by the next one. Yes, Google+ came and went. But Fediverse did not take over after that (nor was Google+ ever big outside the USA afaik). Just like how MySpace didn’t get replaced by the Fediverse. Big Tech SNSs aren’t forever, but I never argued that they where. But they tend to get replaced with another Big Tech SNS, if not soon to be’s (as Meta wasn’t ás huge back then), who have marketing power. Fediverse might be covered now more than ever, but the gains compared to Big Tech is statistically, still minimal.
And that’s ok! Because I too rather have a small but stable & good place. But it doesn’t make it that the Fediverse takes over the Big Tech SNSs place. That’s all I’m saying.
Building a resilient, safe, longterm-viable communities is the metric to measure fedi by.
100% agree, especially on the resiliency part.
A community with 100 users but will never die is much better than one with a million users but might kick the bucket anytime.
The way the Fediverse works, and assuming that not everyone goes to the same instance, then it will be pretty much guaranteed to exist as long as there are users. And this is huge in terms of community building.
Obviously there are also threats, but they are different threats than those that apply to centralized platforms. One of the threats, in fact, is centralization itself — if people flock to a few gigantic instances, that creates a central point of failure, potentially.
But there are currently ~20k independently run fedi instances. Some had been running for a decade or longer.
As I said, we’re here for the long run.
“do you think the fediverse could replace popular social media”
Already has for me
For me it almost has. While I’ll be part of the protest I still use reddit
Same here. I never used twitter, but joined Mastodon and have enjoyed it. I’ll use lemmy and expect (hope!) that it will get polished and streamlined enough to take over Reddit
Don’t forget matrix and peertube as well!
I know peertube, but what is matrix?
Matrix is federated discord. And it also supports bridges to other networks like signal, WhatsApp etc.
Oh okay, sounds neat. I’ve never really been that into Discord, unfortunately. I’d like to use Peertube more too, but it seems pretty empty rn, and idk anything about making videos!
Yeah, unfortunately, not many content creators put their work there. (AFAIK it’s just Linux people). I have honestly found more use of Matrix as a central hub, that I control, to talk to all other messaging platforms I need to be on. There’s a good collection of bridges that are (hopefully) growing.
Install Element, the most popular client and you will see. It’s quite nice!
Unlikely. When users left Digg for Reddit the internet was smaller and the users more technically minded. And even then it was essentially just creating a new account. You need an one stop solution for users to migrate and federation by definition isn’t that. As a result discovery (and growth) is still hard even for Mastodon that’s been around for a while and it’s a relatively mature platform.
I’m hoping it’ll be more like craft beer and become it’s own market that overlaps with more mainstream options but still has a solid base of users\customers that keep it separate.
