Big Tech Wants You Trapped. The Open Web Sets You Free
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I used to spend tons of time on forums 20 or so years ago. Social media killed many of those off, but there’s no reason that something else can’t do the same thing - be it Lemmy communities or something else.
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I’m not a fan of mastodon because it really does feel a lot like other social media sites, I don’t really like any form of advertising, whether it’s intentional or unintentional. People post too much bullshit trying to gain followers. I never cared much for twitter/facebook/instagram anyway.
Lemmy however is a better replacement for Reddit, so far. I remember when Reddit was the replacement and now look at it, a big steaming pile of ads and bots, power tripping admin and moderators, killed 3rd party apps that made the site useable. Hopefully lemmy can remain the same as it is now.
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My fear is that, if lemmy gets too successful, that regarding bots the same fate may occur.
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Yeah though I think it's a little bit too political at times. I get it, Trump and Musk is destroying the USA from within, but I don't need to read about it in every second post...
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Typically if you're gonna deploy a bunch of bots on lemmy, it's easiest to do via your own instance, which is fairly easy to filter out.
Luckily the federated aspect will help with this a little bit.
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Right, but you can also create accounts on different instances, so not really protected. Actually I think it's very difficult to really filter bots when they're done right, especially in times where LLMs start to be increasingly more popular.
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I wouldn't mind a little faster paced fwiw, the conversation can stagnate a bit sometimes, but it is what it is.
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Self hosting movement is hosting stuff yourself, so kinda, assuming you're not putting some kind of advertising on your own services, but most commonly I'd see things like jellyfin, nextcloud, navidrome, immich and then a bunch of other stuff, there's foss alternatives to most commercial offerings.
Is a great place to start.
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The major platforms are convenient.
But the open web offers something better: genuine ownership, community governance, and independence.
This has a kind of underlying connotation that the open web can't be convenient. This is not true.
It is true that lots of platforms on the fediverse (Lemmy included) don't have the best user experience and user journey flow. But that's not how it has to be. We don't have to accept that as a given.
It's the same problem that Linux faces, where UX issues aren't prioritised because the user base is technical enough to deal with the bullshit. We can't let the same thing occur to the fediverse.
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You gotta make them.
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Totally agree. These platforms have no discussion culture. They are only designed to gain followers. This means only polarizing content of a very small group of users gets attention and all the rest is not even visible to other people.
Reddit or Lemmy is very different in that sense. Even a new user can start a rich discussion because of subs/communities and without the need of followers. Thus the quality of the whole network is overall better. -
I should probably have put quotes around "selfhosting movement", because I meant the term itself. Reason for asking is that if it doesn't include shared instances, then it's not a very big movement and most people will not really be able to join it.
That said I'm not trying to start a discussion on whether it's good or bad, IMO it's good and I self-host a lot of things for personal use myself. Just a thought I guess.
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But that's the problem though, devs are notoriously bad at UX, and people good at UX don't seem to care as much about FOSS and the open web. At least that's my experience.
So we need people to speak out so devs can fix these little paper cuts in UX
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Sure? If you help fund it, definitely. You're not self hosting, but you're still involved with those who do.
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For real, I love mastodon and its philosophy but sometimes I need some brainrot or something fun, and that site its only politics, tech, and memes made by old people
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I agree with the sentiment of this post. In fact, I was trapped (and extremely discontent) on Facebook for the first half of my digital-life; before finding open-source - and the rest is history.
I am afraid that we are not doing nearly enough however. This (like most things in this world) is a multilayered issue with no quick-fix, but the core of it is that many (and I mean MANY) of us are tech illiterate. Worse so, even more of us are math illiterate.
This generally means that most cannot cope with the current world we live in, and are experiencing extreme levels of inertia. I was here at one point, so I know how difficult this transition is.
An open web existing (on its own) won't do much - its the culture that needs to change. We need to be equipped to think, fight, and adapt - or our spaces won't survive. We are in a constant arms race with bad actors and ALL OF US need to be capable to win this fight. When the bots come to Lemmy (and they will), are most of us prepared to handle filter-lists, run servers, and potentially create a web-of-trust? I doubt this.
I would really like to see a return to real-life communication for most things (as humans are, from birth, well adapted to this) and the open-web only be used for automation and coordination. I think the most freedom comes from stability and the internet (in general) just does not offer that.
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Agreed, this has always been a major disconnect.
I'll also say that devs are notoriously bad at "being a noob". A lot of software just takes too much investment to get working - those that do not tend to be extremely predatory (i.e Facebook).
Devs need to create dead-simple software that has UX which caters to common actions humans would do.
