this post was submitted on 29 Jun 2023
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Showerthoughts
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A "Showerthought" is a simple term used to describe the thoughts that pop into your head while you're doing everyday things like taking a shower, driving, or just daydreaming. A showerthought should offer a unique perspective on an ordinary part of life.
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I think you‘re onto something. I read a lot of comments of people thinking the fediverse is too complicated to deal with and while I disagree - but also think it has issues - there does seem to be a barrier of entry for a good portion of people in the form of „inconvenience.“ So whoever is here really wants to be here and not just be an anonymous arse. I don‘t think you gotta be particularly smart, you gotta step out of your comfort zone.
Which part of it is supposed to be complicated? I've seen this argument many times, and while I'm still trying to figure out the user interface(s), the whole idea is pretty basic
I can‘t tell you since I also disagree. I did basically the same thing I did on Reddit, I only got thrown off seeing multiple „subs“ with the same name.
Some people complained how complicated „explanations“ are. I saw these types of comments on the Reddit Alternatives sub.
Yes, this exactly. I'm starting to suspect that either someone very misinformed or someone with an agenda started spreading this rumor.
It just takes one person to reaffirm that it really is "too much work to switch" and "you aren't lazy for not trying" to keep a lot of folks in place.
This kept me off Lemmy until the blackout. I was interested prior to that, but so many people said it was complicated, I figured I'd look into it at some vague point in the future when I had time to untangle the fediverse. Then the baclout happened, and what do you know I had time, and lo and behold it was easy. I'm now a bit annoyed I was dissuaded for so long based on BS about it being complicated.
I just had to find an instance (or "site") that allowed sign-ups and register. My first account was on Kbin since it seemed less buggy on mobile. I feel like they think something's complicated just because it's on a website, or because there are multiple options.
I would guess the whole "federation" part. It can be confusing for non tech minded people to try and understand distributed sites. They might not understand that lemmy.world and lemmy.ml while both being lemmy are not the same site.
Getting one’s head around the concept of instances is hard for some people who aren’t used to dealing with tech beyond the basic social platforms.
Is it one social media platform, or is it a bunch of individual ones? The fact that the answer is “it depends” is confusing. Especially when you get into defederation and cross-platform interaction.
Very true. I often make the mistake of thinking that if something makes sense to me pretty quickly, it will be just as quick for others.
We should remember that those of us here now are more likely to be uniquely interested in this tech and thus more able to wrap our heads around these concepts without being deterred. We could always do a better job making it accessible for beginners who don’t benefit from the same background.
I'm also a bit confused by it being 'complex'. I created an account (I chose .world as it had world in the name, as it turned out that was a great decision lol), you log in, click on 'all' and sort by top/day you've essentially got 'Reddit', or am I missing something lol.
Hmm this is also a good point. I've been explaining to redditors that Lemmy is not that complicated and only takes a couple minutes to get started. But reading this, now I'm hoping Lemmy can find the balance between number of active users and quality of content. I'm wondering if my spreading the word on reddit was a bad idea.
Maybe the "work" required to make the jump to Lemmy will be enough to keep lower quality content (for whatever reason) at bay for a bit longer, though. Of course, it won't last forever. All we can do is make our communities good spaces from the get-go and try to maintain them carefully as we grow.
I think it‘s good to grow. Lemmy (or the Fediverse, I suppose?) should be as inclusive, convenient, and engaging as can be. It has only just started (in my opinion), we‘ll see how it goes. I like it here so far, feels like people are less prone to at jump your throat for voicing a (harmless) opinion.
I think the way Lemmy works (wrt federations) makes this less of an issue. Eventually people who like the way things used to be will primarily use oldhead instances that only federate with other oldhead instances. Lemmy.world will end up feeling just like Reddit (more or less) but there will always be spaces for other communities.