The mastodon and lemmy content I’m seeing feels like 90% of it comes from people who are:

  • ~30 years old or older

  • tech enthusiasts/workers

  • linux users

There’s nothing wrong with that particular demographic or anything, but it doesn’t feel like a win to me if the entire fediverse is just one big monoculture.

I wonder what it is that is keeping more diverse users away? Is picking a server/federation too complicated? Or is it that they don’t see any content that they like?

Thoughts?

  • fututio_enjoyer@lemmy.worldEnglish
    6·
    1 year ago

    Is picking a server/federation too complicated?

    Yes.

    Absolutely.

    Literally the single biggest problem with fediverse adoption, brought up in every discussion about migrating to it. It will never replace centralized sites as long as it remains confusing and complicated.

    https://www.reddit.com/r/RedditAlternatives/comments/14t9t66/im_so_lost_is_there_an_easy_mode_to_the_fediverse/

    https://www.reddit.com/r/LemmyMigration/comments/145epgc/looking_for_a_lemmy_website_try_lemmyworld/

    • code_is_speech@lemmy.fmhy.mlEnglish
      3·
      1 year ago

      I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, defederation should be removed from the protocol. (And replaced with a default ban list that can be overriden by the user).

      Each instance should basically just be a set of default settings that are used to access the same shared pool of content.

      This removes the new user hurdle, because they can now join any instance and not be worried that they are making some important, permanent decision. If they find that they don’t like something about the instance, they can tweak their settings later.

      Also, some of the other solutions to this issue carry significant risks. Pushing users towards a ‘default’ instance increases centralization. Apps that are preconfigured to use a specific instance are even worse (since people wont want to change instance if it means giving up a familiar app). Without some degree of vigilance decentralized services tend to centralize over time. This gives too much power over the entire fediverse to a handful of instance admins. If an instance with 60% of all users starts defederating all smaller instances, most users will just migrate to the larger instance.

      This isn’t just some theoretical that I pulled out of my ass, its an easily abusable weakness of federated services. It has been abused in the past, and there is no reason to believe it wont be abused again.

      Google used it to kill XMPP. Facebook will almost certainly use it to kill mastodon, once they siphon enough users and content to build a critical mass. Microsoft is so notorious for using this strategy that they has their own internal phrase for it: Embrace, Extend, Extinguish.

      https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace,_extend,_and_extinguish

    • nul42@lemmy.caEnglish
      1·
      1 year ago

      Yes, this is why I was never able to figure out getting an email address. Too many servers to choose from.

    • dudebro@lemmy.worldEnglish
      0·
      1 year ago

      It’s about as complicated as choosing an email provider.

      Yeah, you can go with gorillamail, or just go with gmail/outlook like everyone who doesn’t have a specific reason not to.

      If you suggest to a new user anything other than choosing a big name instance, you’re part of the problem.

      Regular users are going to learn by experience, not theory.

      • fututio_enjoyer@lemmy.worldEnglish
        0·
        1 year ago

        It’s about as complicated as choosing an email provider.

        I’ve spent all day trying to figure out the fediverse and I’ve read “it’s just like email” about a hundred times. 😒

        • dudebro@lemmy.worldEnglish
          1·
          1 year ago

          Yeah, you probably don’t understand how email providers work either. You just use it and don’t ask questions.

            • voidMainVoid@lemmy.worldEnglish
              0·
              1 year ago

              You can’t post to Twitter from Facebook or vice versa, but if Facebook and Twitter were part of the Fediverse, then you could. Does that help?

                • voidMainVoid@lemmy.worldEnglish
                  0·
                  1 year ago

                  We could sit here and speculate about what makes sense to the average person all day, but at the end of the day it wouldn’t amount to anything without evidence to back it up…user studies or something like that.

                  What I’m asking is does it make sense to you?

                  • fututio_enjoyer@lemmy.worldEnglish
                    0·
                    1 year ago

                    No, your analogy is not accurate. If Facebook and Twitter were part of the Fediverse, you might be able to post to one from the other, or you might not, depending on whether one had defederated from another other or not.

                    To extend the poor email analogy, it would be as if you had a Gmail account and tried to email a friend on Outlook, but you couldn’t because Outlook refused to accept emails from any Gmail address, but you could get through to them if you sent it from a Yahoo address instead.

      • Pleonasm@programming.dev
        English
        1·
        1 year ago

        I think this is not really inline with the philosophy of the main Lemmy devs. For this to happen, I think someone else would have to do the work of creating the random selection service. If it was popular enough, maybe they’d put a link on join-lemmy.org

    • Goodie@lemmy.worldEnglish
      0·
      1 year ago

      I’ve been trying to decide what the best, smoothest, option is to make the fediverse “better”.

      I think that making a line between a “Fediverse client” and “Fediverse Server” is the answer. A client that can easily browse multitudes of servers, letting you join lemmy subs and follow mastodon accounts might be the answer.