Asklemmy

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How do we expand (lemmy.ml)

submitted 3 years ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

63 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Most of the communities are on one instance i.e .ml. Should we spin up more instances and start spreading communities either by location, interests, etc? Maybe, I am wrong but do mod/s who run the communities understand the idea of "decentralized social networks" or this is just to get few brownie points to start the community and increase the traffic? Please correct me if I am wrong.

No offence, just an observation.

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[–] [email protected] 13 points 3 years ago* (last edited 3 years ago) (2 children)

Decentralization will never work for the mass because there are simple reasons for that. This is what I call the Nitter effect. We have the same there, millions of people using and starving those free services to death, but no one or only 20 people self-host their own.

People do not self-host because

It requires more effort and time that you need to spend to initial setup everything, instead of joining existence instances.
Most are not experts and just updating the software is often not enough, which possible leads into more vulnerabilities and data leaks and breaches. We have that more and more.
People do not know how to do it because the platform that wants to expand do not provide any guides on how to really do it.
Maintenance is a bish, that is one of the reasons other platforms went down e.g. Ruqqus.
Why should people start their own no-name server when there are already bigger ones. Like trying to compete against Twitter, Google and Co. it is not possible...

If you want to expand, you need to provide the following

Dead simple instructions, step-by-step on how to self-host and maintain your own instance, and I really mean step-by-step. Docs are not enough, you need to provide pictures because the average user does not read anything anymore.
You need to make people aware that you need several people, not just one guy that maintains it. Maintenance will suck up your life, and people are not willingly to do that alone for nothing in return. You also require mods etc.
You need to advertise and describe why it would be interesting or important to start your own community, server etc.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 3 years ago

I will continue to try to make our install docs as simple as possible, and am open to suggestions on how to make that easier.

The ansible install right now is extremely easy to do, you can set up a server within a few minutes.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 3 years ago* (last edited 3 years ago) (1 children)

I'm sure some people don't enjoy hearing about this regarding the potential distant future of a successful mainstream fediverse, but if someone puts ads on their instance, that's all incentive they need to maintain it. I mean, yeah, sure, it's ads, but it's decentralised, and therefore better in some ways. It's that, or freemium features, pick your poison. IF the fediverse is to succeed as a non-niche platform, and not run by hobbyists. Which of course nobody said needs to be true.

And we don't have to speculate about all this, mass federated platforms already exist, they're called email.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 3 years ago

I would rather see people be asked to contribute towarsa costs or the instances run by community organizations.