Does the Fediverse give you hope?

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I don’t think you’re dramatic.

For me it’s about reclaiming my right to participate in online discourse on my own terms. I’m a way the fediverse is freedom.

I plan on trying to self host a mastodon instance for myself and rebuild my blogs.

I don’t think I’d ever want to self host a lemmy, I like being anonymous to a reasonable degree. But I like that lemmy lets me have a voice without acquiescence to reddits enshittification.

Also the community is largely great. I love the memes, I love the comments and discussions, and I like that I learn things from fellow internet users again.

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There's plenty of censorship here though. Some instances are worse than others but even on a community basis, your average moderator is just some random dude who is free to remove your posts/comments and ban you just because they don't like something you said and there's not really anything you can do about it.

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2$ a month is bad advise as payment processing fees will eat too much of it. Costs are also usually much less than 2$/month/member, but that is assuming the admin labor is provided by volunteers.

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Agreed. This is the most cynical corner of the internet I've ever been to, yet here I'm.

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Its nice as a place to talk to mostly like-minded people and avoid the increasingly common AI bot slop, but it is too spread out internationally to be a useful communication tool for organizing local activities, which is a bit sad.

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Reddit is worse

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Reddit is more diverse. The same kind of cynicism exists there too but it's dilluted by all the other content so it's easier to ignore. Here that is less the case as majority of the content is news articles.

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I made a post about a blender project I am working on from my Mastodon and tagged the Lemmy community. This project is pretty dear to my heart, and I wanted it to be seen by many people, so I made the same post on Reddit.

I got 35 stars on Mastodon + 80 upvotes on Lemmy + many cool comments.

I got literally no upvotes on Reddit. maybe skill issue on my side but the Fediverse is, in my general experience, so much better when it comes to engagement.

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As someone who suffers from CPTSD, I feel safe, definitely. No one has ever insulted, harassed or trolled me here, compared to reddit, where even safe spaces are overrun with trolls. The design of Lemmy also makes me less attached to my device, I don't feel anxious about notifications and interacting with people, which was very common on reddit. When I signed up, I tossed a coin that it was either the place I'd been looking for or a repeat of the past. I'm also on Bsky, although I've never been on Twitter before because some people I follow on YouTube went there. I plan to host my own community in the future to escape the mainstream platforms. I have been banned from many social media sites for no apparent reason. I long for the days before mainstream media took over the internet.

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The Fedi is the only hope right now.

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Not particularly. History is long. And history tells us people don't have any self-respect. Even when doing something as simple as NOT doing something, like using an abusive platform.

Numbers are going up, yet I don't know a single person who has made the switch. I made an appeal on Facebook and several dozen people liked and commented and agreed and expressed interest, but not one of them switched.

I have, however, seen dozens of people firing up accounts on the VC-backed centralized platform that is BlueSky, and hundreds of millions of people switching to Meta-owned Threads, proving that they've learned absolutely nothing.

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Specially for those of us who aren't from the USA, there's basically no content other than their news, a couple different hobby communities and the sellers from nsfw.

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Using the Fediverse feels like a small step in the right direction. Big changes are built on lots of small steps. I would say move in the direction of using the Fediverse more, the old alternatives less, and think of more small steps in the right direction you can do. I don't think just using the Fediverse is enough, but it is an important step to take. Keep going.

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The Fediverse and open source world do give me hope. But my worry is seeing people not adopt them. I know they aren't pertect but compared to the big tech alternatives they're a no oasis.

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There are a few specific people on fedi who do give me hope.

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It feels much more social being here not despite the smaller audience, but because of it.

People have time to respond to me if I have a question, and I have time to give really good and complete responses to anyone that asks me about something I post.

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Not all moderation = censorship You play by the rules or you face the consequences. Nowhere on the planet are the consequence-free zones - at least not forever.

If you really want fediverse instance where absolutely everything is permitted, make it. I bet you after the first CP post you'll rethink your stand on "all moderation = censorship".

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But I do wish Linux could find a way to deliver a product that feels as refined as a MacBook. I would be willing to donate to an effort to do so.

There are quite a few efforts to make linux a default and provide a good UX. One way to support them is buying stuff with linux pre-loaded. Then it's using stuff like KDE, Gnome, other desktop enviroments and donating to them. I exclusively buy from linux hardware vendors (as in desktops and laptops) and have been donating non-stop to a few opensource projects for about 5 years now (maybe even longer).

The Linux Foundation though... I think only an external force could convince them to spend more than 2% of their budget on linux itself...

Anti Commercial-AI license

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Commenting on a message board is a lot more normal now than it used to be. Facebook, Reddit as well as comment sections on YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, etc. are fairly mainstream things by now, I would consider all of these forms of message boards.

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In general yes, but I would prefer if it had a wider variety of viewpoints on societal issues. I don't even always disagree with the prevailing circlejerk here on everything, but I would occasionally like to read counterarguments to it too.

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Does the Fediverse give you hope?