Why do most people stay in centralized social media platforms when the Fediverse exists?
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Because of network effects.
Building a social network is hard. A typical chicken or egg problem. If you don't have a user base, nobody is willing to join, and if nobody joins, you don't have a user base.
It usually requires a bunch of money to build a social network.
The fediverse has a long time to go but I believe it will win sooner or later.
I'd also chalk it up to convenience.
The Fediverse requires effort.
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I'd also chalk it up to convenience.
The Fediverse requires effort.
That too.
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There are going to be layers to this.
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There are lots of people who are just downright too stupid. They wouldn't be on the internet at all if Tim Apple didn't put it in a baby baba for them to suck it out of. They use Facebook because their iPhone came with the Facebook app pre-installed.
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There are lots of people for whom popularity is the only thing that exists. Their brain cannot function beyond "Everyone uses Twitter." They'll adopt this platform only after everyone else in the world does.
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There are lots of people who have bought the propaganda. The dark web is for drug traffickers and hitmen, torrenting is for pirates, end-to-end encryption is for traitors, and Mastodon is for Linux neckbeards. You shouldn't associate with those people.
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There's this weird trend where the commercial platforms are becoming hives for conservatives, so they're probably going to stay put in their echo chambers. I have observed little to no presence of actual conservatives on this platform; beyond the horseshoe effect with the tankie crowd.
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The culture of content consumption is not supported by the Fediverse. We don't do algorithmic slop troughs here, and the amount of content on Peertube and Loops rounds down to zero, so it doesn't fulfill the role of mesmerizing colors and sounds for staring at and drooling like Tiktok does or linear television did.
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Open source software is usually a bit shit. Be it lack of budget, opinionated developers, redundant projects...we can never have one of something. Why does Lemmy, Mbin and Piefed exist simultaneously? We always end up with software that mostly works, has a lot less graphical polish, a shitty project name, a few missing key features and a couple workarounds you just have to know about. Or an intentionally godawful UI. That'll put people off.
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A few people who show up are going to be put off by the weirdest decision they'll be asked to make this month: "Choose an instance, your choice doesn't matter, just pick one." If it doesn't matter, why make me pick? I bet if you watched 100 people try to sign up for a Fediverse platform, at least 30 of them will balk at that stage. I've sat and stared at that for awhile myself and I'm one of the ones who made it through.
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They just haven't heard of us. Ask ten people you know in real life if they've heard of Lemmy, or Mastodon, or Pixelfed. I bet they haven't, or if they have they let it pass in one ear and out the other out of apathy.
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A few people have looked at the Fediverse, didn't see what they wanted here, and left. If you play Satisfactory, for example, you'll find an active subreddit where the majority of the player base and the developers of the game interact, on Lemmy you'll find one community where exactly one person posts "daily screenshots until I get bored." It's easy to wander off, especially if you don't like left wing politics, Linux and the Fediverse itself.
“Choose an instance, your choice doesn’t matter, just pick one.” If it doesn’t matter, why make me pick?
Email requires you to pick a provider, but it doesn't matter.
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Because most people haven't gone far enough to even understand this question. The choices come prepackaged, that's what in front of their eyes, so they assume that's how it suppose to be, and take the easy ride
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It's no more confusing than using email, and everybody managed to figure that out. You don't need to know how the nitty gritty of it works. The network effects is a far bigger issue, as you point out, centralized platforms simply have far more content on them.
It's far more complicated than email, at least I can send an email to any valid address from any other address by default ( mostly ) - Lemmy / Fediverse is like needing multiple email addresses that each one can only email some of the others, and you might not even get the response someone sent you unless the content is literally carried back to you.
I have multiple accounts on multiple instances, and sometimes I come across posts I read with one account, but my comments or the responses to those comments just aren't there, so you only get a portion of what is out there.
It's kinda a terrible experience in that way.
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It's far more complicated than email, at least I can send an email to any valid address from any other address by default ( mostly ) - Lemmy / Fediverse is like needing multiple email addresses that each one can only email some of the others, and you might not even get the response someone sent you unless the content is literally carried back to you.
I have multiple accounts on multiple instances, and sometimes I come across posts I read with one account, but my comments or the responses to those comments just aren't there, so you only get a portion of what is out there.
It's kinda a terrible experience in that way.
The whole point of ActivityPub is that you don't need multiple accounts on different servers. You can use your Lemmy account to talk to people on Mastodon, browse PixelFed, watch PeerTube. Yes, there is sometimes lag in content propagating, and so on, but it's clearly not a show stopper. My experience using Lemmy and Mastodon is the opposite of terrible.
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Centralized social media is where their friends are.
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The fediverse needs to be plug and play. Blaming non techy users is a cop out.
But it is...
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Most people don't care about things. This is kind of a recurring problem. Imagine if people just cared a little bit more. All sorts of problems, like littering, would just go away.
But people are lazy and don't care. They don't care that their behavior today will be a problem for them tomorrow.
The big sites are where the content is, and that's what they want. Suffering a little bit of hardship (fewer memes) in order to bolster a stronger future? Ridiculous.
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Is there a TikTok replacement in the Fediverse? The main reason my wife uses it is because the recommendations are the best. Feel like you have to do more self searching here.
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Is there a TikTok replacement in the Fediverse? The main reason my wife uses it is because the recommendations are the best. Feel like you have to do more self searching here.
Honestly when switching from Reddit to here that is the thing I missed the most. It was a lot better at serving you things you liked compared to here where you can only really sort by either what's active or popular or what you're subscribed to. I get some people really like that but a lot of people want it to be more personalized to them without having to go search for the things they want. It's also great for discovering new things because sure I can setup my subscriptions to show what I like but then it won't make connections and show me new things I might like. Combine that with there being less content and therefore certain areas of interest not being represented here at all makes mainstream social media better for most people.
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“Choose an instance, your choice doesn’t matter, just pick one.” If it doesn’t matter, why make me pick?
Email requires you to pick a provider, but it doesn't matter.
"To use your new iPhone, create an iCloud account."
Gmail advertised superior features before also becoming required for using an Android device.
sure, any service gets you sneding and receiving email, but most people these days end up with an email address as a consequence of some other decision they've made.
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Is there a TikTok replacement in the Fediverse? The main reason my wife uses it is because the recommendations are the best. Feel like you have to do more self searching here.
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There are going to be layers to this.
-
There are lots of people who are just downright too stupid. They wouldn't be on the internet at all if Tim Apple didn't put it in a baby baba for them to suck it out of. They use Facebook because their iPhone came with the Facebook app pre-installed.
-
There are lots of people for whom popularity is the only thing that exists. Their brain cannot function beyond "Everyone uses Twitter." They'll adopt this platform only after everyone else in the world does.
-
There are lots of people who have bought the propaganda. The dark web is for drug traffickers and hitmen, torrenting is for pirates, end-to-end encryption is for traitors, and Mastodon is for Linux neckbeards. You shouldn't associate with those people.
-
There's this weird trend where the commercial platforms are becoming hives for conservatives, so they're probably going to stay put in their echo chambers. I have observed little to no presence of actual conservatives on this platform; beyond the horseshoe effect with the tankie crowd.
-
The culture of content consumption is not supported by the Fediverse. We don't do algorithmic slop troughs here, and the amount of content on Peertube and Loops rounds down to zero, so it doesn't fulfill the role of mesmerizing colors and sounds for staring at and drooling like Tiktok does or linear television did.
-
Open source software is usually a bit shit. Be it lack of budget, opinionated developers, redundant projects...we can never have one of something. Why does Lemmy, Mbin and Piefed exist simultaneously? We always end up with software that mostly works, has a lot less graphical polish, a shitty project name, a few missing key features and a couple workarounds you just have to know about. Or an intentionally godawful UI. That'll put people off.
-
A few people who show up are going to be put off by the weirdest decision they'll be asked to make this month: "Choose an instance, your choice doesn't matter, just pick one." If it doesn't matter, why make me pick? I bet if you watched 100 people try to sign up for a Fediverse platform, at least 30 of them will balk at that stage. I've sat and stared at that for awhile myself and I'm one of the ones who made it through.
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They just haven't heard of us. Ask ten people you know in real life if they've heard of Lemmy, or Mastodon, or Pixelfed. I bet they haven't, or if they have they let it pass in one ear and out the other out of apathy.
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A few people have looked at the Fediverse, didn't see what they wanted here, and left. If you play Satisfactory, for example, you'll find an active subreddit where the majority of the player base and the developers of the game interact, on Lemmy you'll find one community where exactly one person posts "daily screenshots until I get bored." It's easy to wander off, especially if you don't like left wing politics, Linux and the Fediverse itself.
Gotta say, the biggest reason I'm not on Pixedfed is because I was told that I could migrate my instagram content, but the two instances I signed up for had that option disabled. I can't seem to find an instance that tells you upfront if it's allowed or not, and I've already wasted enough time on it.
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Same reason why people stick with wells Fargo even if they can move to a credit union. It takes effort, changes to habit, and risk just to gain... what you already have.
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Inertia, convenience of what you're used to, and all of your friends are over there and have never heard of 'the fediverse'.
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People are giving great answers here. One I didn't notice at a glance is that the Fediverse is feckin small. Most of the world doesn't know it exists yet, and centralized social medias are probably not gonna be super big about pushing that info through their algorithms
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Gotta say, the biggest reason I'm not on Pixedfed is because I was told that I could migrate my instagram content, but the two instances I signed up for had that option disabled. I can't seem to find an instance that tells you upfront if it's allowed or not, and I've already wasted enough time on it.
I've picked on Pixelfed's join page in detail before at length. I think you'd be on board with my suggestions.
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I think when people falk about #7, it needs to be revised to "your choice of instance doesn't matter when you're a noob. By the time it does matter, you'll understand what you want from an instance and can simply make another account"
Agree on all other points though. I hope Lemmy keeps growing and getting more active. A lot of the communities I've joined only have a few posts in the past year.
I keep saying that the choice should be meaningful; like I had no trouble picking the Peertube instance I should join because my content would fit their theme.
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I've picked on Pixelfed's join page in detail before at length. I think you'd be on board with my suggestions.
Speaking of complaints we have about the fediverse...
You linked to a post on sh.itjust.works, but I'm on slrpnk.net, so if I want to interact with it, I have hoops to jump through first.
