Fediverse

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A community to talk about the Fediverse and all it's related services using ActivityPub (Mastodon, Lemmy, KBin, etc).

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How do we get "normies" to adopt the Fediverse? (self.fediverse)

submitted 2 months ago by dch82 to c/[email protected]

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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 @[email protected] are:

marketing

not having to pick the instance when registering

people who have experienced Mastodon's hermetic culture discouraging others from joining

algorithms helping discover people and content to follow

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?

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[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago (2 children)

There are some loud voices in the fediverse who don't want it to be very welcoming. Here are a couple examples:

Threads defederation - what could onboard people to the fediverse faster than a giant platform run by Facebook joining? Yes, I hate Facebook as much as everyone else here, but they're making an offramp for their users and half the fediverse wants to close that off?

Overbearing enforcement of norms - yes, it's good if people put alt text on their images and content warnings on stuff lots of people find upsetting. It's harmful to hassle people about it until they leave.

I think people who a small network with strong social norms are better off on servers that are selective about what they federate with to ensure stricter adherence to the preferences of their users. One of the great things about federated systems is that users can pick a place that's run in a way that works for them.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 2 months ago (1 children)

If threads is incorporated into the larger fediverse, sure you'll get a bump in dau, but threads will eventually dominate the user base. Then if they devide to cut ties with Lemmy sites, the fediverse basically loses 90% of engagement overnight.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Threads users are much more likely to interact with other microblog software like Mastodon than with Lemmy. It might be possible to post from Threads to Lemmy now by tagging a community much like Mastodon, but I have never seen it done. Lemmy.world does not block threads.net.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago

Sure. Substitute "Lemmy" for whatever fediverse service it is mingling with.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 months ago (1 children)

You make good points, but I still think nothing good can come of playing ball with Facebook. I dont trust them

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 months ago

You should not trust them.

I don't think a Mastodon server attempting to attract a mainstream audience should block them though, at least not at this point. We have a chance to welcome millions of people who wouldn't have even heard of the fediverse otherwise.