Bad UX is keeping the majority of people away from Lemmy
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Okay I see now, that's a good deal of nuance.
One more bad analogy, it's like browsing private video game servers.
There's several websites that host lists of Minecraft Servers, some are hidden from those lists due to various reasons.
A federated video game like VR Chat or Minecraft would be incredible. You could probably do that last one with a server plugin.
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It should have an account creation process like those old RPGs where it asks a series of questions then says, “we recommend this server: <blah>. It is <one short sentence about its content>” then has click next to proceed or click “I want to choose another server” to just get a list.
1-hate, 5-love
Do you like capitalism?
Do you like tech?
Do you like sports?
Would you prefer a large server?
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Base privacy rules of federation. The main difference in sign ups seems to be privacy policy. Or some filter on sign up that isn’t choose an instance but a filter that “finds you an instance.”
“Do you want to provide an email address?”
“Do you want x, y, z?”
Filter down to a single instance or if multiple just randomize what instance you toss them to. Just don’t make it a decision. When they are finished signing up send them a note that’s says “you can always change instances by going to _____ link or something to make account or change instances ____”
It’s really not complex but it’s the “feel” of complexity. For instance I froze a bit because some instances had no privacy policy, some said oh yeah we spy on you, some said no email needed just sign up… just get rid of that deer in the headlights moment, or standard privacy rules for federation in the “main” group.
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The biggest advantage of federated social media is that there's multiple servers. I know it can be a rough point for new users, but most people can just join whatever the largest server is and they'll be perfectly fine. You need to pick a server because lemmy isn't one website, and it shouldn't be one website. People should be able to host an instance if they disagree with another one's moderation/rules, and spreading the load across many servers helps to prevent large scale downtime when servers go down.
All of these advantages can coexist with new users just being pointed to lemmy.world. -
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Bad UX isn't keeping most people away from Lemmy. Not being able to give up their addiction to Reddit is what's keeping them from Lemmy. There's a lot of people who will complain about the shitty things billionaires and tech companies and politicians do to them, but aren't willing to lift a finger to change things.
You're never going to bring those people to Lemmy unless Reddit shuts down and you develop an algorithm to spoon feed them whatever they want to feed their doomscrolling habit. Lemmy is better off without them.
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The average user that will get to join-lemmy will GTFO.
The average user gets their Google account by opening their device and going step by step with nice animations.
Find a person that already has an apartment, bills, work, relationship and isn't working in tech.
A. Ask him to join lemmy. Ask after a month if it happened (spoiler, it didn't).
B. Help him open an account, check after he month if he kept it. -
The average user that will get to join-lemmy will GTFO.
The average user gets their Google account by opening their device and going step by step with nice animations.
Find a person that already has an apartment, bills, work, relationship and isn't working in tech.
A. Ask him to join lemmy. Ask after a month if it happened (spoiler, it didn't).
B. Help him open an account, check after he month if he kept it. -
Somehow most people figured out email. It's like picking Gmail, Outlook, Proton, Mailbox, Yahoo. Doesn't matter, pick the one you like, ceate as many accounts as you want, or make your own.
This isn't a Fediverse or Lemmy problem, but is speaks volumes of how broken the Internet has become and how far we've fallen.
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I tried, but I like information density and the new UI is a horrible waste of space. I get why people like it and it's way more modern, I'm saying loads of people who used reddit from the start will probably never get used to the new UI, mostly because of the customizability and open API.
Reddit didn't have apps in the beginning, so we made them over the years perfecting the UI. I settled on baconreader with a compact view, but it and so many others died when the API was purged. I patched my app and can still use it to this day, but I don't because fuck them.
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Do what rich people do and set up shell companies. There are law firms that specialize in this kind of thing.
But if that is a hard requirement is a Lemmy instance the right tool for the job? Wouldn't something on Tor be better?
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The average user, me, will go to sign up, kinda briefly go to Wikipedia on fediverse, still not understand, and pick a random server, and then here I am trying to figure it out as I go
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i would guess the piracy audience doesn't struggle with the same problems that would make a default instance useful
