this post was submitted on 26 Mar 2023
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Fediverse
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Fediverse is a portmanteau of "federation" and "universe".
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This was a really good article, thank you for sharing / writing it.
This to me is the main issue the fediverse faces. The issue remains adoption. Even the UI's of mastodon and some other fediverse services have surpassed the big tech offerings in speed, usability, and easiness to use.
But no matter how many more features we offer, the fediverse could stay at a stagnant <1% of total social media users, unless it tackles the problem of effective adoption and onboarding.
It's also complicated by factors mentioned in the article, having to do with incentive structures. Most open source projects stand against the "viral growth" model that tries to grow its userbase at all costs, where each new user is seen as a potential income stream. For people running servers, new users mean more work, for no gain. As the writer mentioned, these social media startups employed teams of people dedicated solely to the task of growing their userbase, getting media attention, and spreading awareness. Open source projects rarely have the resources to do that labor.
That’s true, and that’s why I like this place: it isn’t built on greed.
Yes - lemmy is faster, and the UI is cleaner - yet the hidden advantage is what lemmy avoids:
no nsfw. 22% of reddit is NSFW^1^. You do a search for “hope” and every fourth result is someone’s naked ass.
no karma-farmers... reddit and twitter are excellent honeypots - I hope they stay there!
no corporate interest. People are becoming more aware of corporate spying/greed, and will increasingly seek places like this.
It’s far better to attract good people than to attract the most people!
Excellence and quality are created by what you provide, but also by what you avoid!
That’s why this place is great.
[I’m sure you’ve pondered all this already - just expressing gratitude]
Thanks!