It's more closely related to the initial intentions of the internet than most other social platforms. Ideally it could get things going back in the right direction again iif nothing else!
For most of the users currently online it's extremely difficult to understand the concept of federation and how everything works, so I doubt it'll ever be as prevalent as "the big social media platforms", but for technically-inclined users, it'll definitely have at least moderate success.
I believe that's the point: Coming from Reddit, I don't understand what Mastodon (yes, I thought it is something similar!), Fediverse, Lemmy.ml and feddit are, have in common or where the differences are.
And furthermore: Why should I care?
I think it will be hard to convince a significant number of people to come here and STAY.
I hope I'm wrong. I just created my first community :-)
since there isn't any strong way to collect data or advertise it will always be an underdog compared to big business.
that being said, the fediverse could outlast a few mainstream networks and build lasting strength with that. I'm an ideal setting it could become a defacto network over time.
can we get young people coming here though? that's how we get the tides to turn
@knighthawk0811
> since there isn't any strong way to collect data or advertise it will always be an underdog compared to big business
... unless and until democratic governments ban corporations from spying on the people using their platforms, as they bloody well ought to, if they have any respect for the human rights of the citizens. Or pass laws that force the Walled Gardens to federate with similar platforms, like the Digital Markets Act.
@knighthawk0811
> can we get young people coming here though
That's a very good question to ask a young person. OTTOMH though...
... anything they have to use at school, they're unlikely to use by choice at home or elsewhere. What would have got me to join the fediverse if it existed when I was a young person? Hearing that someone I respected had joined like Upper Hutt Posse, or Michael Franti, or RATM, or even David Bowie. Pop poets are the vanguard party of the young.
I for one am a young person, but my peers are too tiktok obsessed. While I use an VPN 24/7 I liek that the fediverse is not banned at school Still use VPN tho
Algorithm and peer pressure. I'm among one of the only damn kids in my school who never used that shit. Its a special event when I meet someone who isn't addicted to it
@StoicLime
> what are you using as an alternative?
I never really used Titter. My account was just a sock puppet that echoed my posts from my Mastodon account. I'm posting this from Mastodon right now, but I also have a Friendica account, and I'm keen to check out CalcKey. All of these, like Lemmy, are part of the fediverse and interoperate with each other.
(sorry if that's obvious to you but it's not to everyone so I'm spelling it out)
I went back to Mastodon. Had to move my account twice more to find an instance a) I really gelled with, b) took the safety of marginalized people seriously, and c) did not hesitate to pushback against the hateful stuff.
Sometimes I feel like my reddit experience was so different from a lot of people's. I unsubbed from all the default subs and built a specific homepage for the things I found interesting. Unfortunately for me, that means the communities were (relatively speaking) smaller than the popular ones, but still large enough to have frequent engagement. Going to be hard to replicate that, I think.
My approach as well, it took me a long time to realize why I got weird looks saying I browsed reddit at work. My page was opensource,computer, tech, stuff with some other hobbies.My friends was just porn lol
Unlikely. When users left Digg for Reddit the internet was smaller and the users more technically minded. And even then it was essentially just creating a new account. You need an one stop solution for users to migrate and federation by definition isn't that. As a result discovery (and growth) is still hard even for Mastodon that's been around for a while and it's a relatively mature platform.
I really doubt it; the corp stuff is here to stay as long as they can make money off of it. But at least now, people are aware of how vast the Internet can be-- and there are options besides the corp stuff.
I think its going to split and fracture, at least for the forseeable future. Just like how people who want too be free from corporate influence moved permanently from twitter to mastodon, so to will users who want to be free from corporate influence be drawn here. Those who don't care, or who buy into corporate propaganda will stay until and unless they can't tolerate it anymore, and even then they may just move to a different corporate platform.
"Meta opted to use the open, decentralized social networking protocol ActivityPub(Opens in a new window) for this project, which is already used by Mastodon. That doesn't guarantee interoperability between the two competing services, but could certainly make it easier for Mastodon accounts to migrate to Project 92. The reverse is also possible, but it seems unlikely Meta would want to make it easy for accounts to migrate away from its ecosystem."
I don’t think it will replace it, but I do think that it will create a place for a niche group of conscious folks to build a community without the capitalistic aspects of life that have ruined a vast portion of the internet.
We just need to be sure to keep perspective and be ready to support and our server admins/developers. The lack of big tech funding is what could potentially hurt us here in the fediverse. Nothing is free and it’s on us to pay our own way before advertising starts to creep in.
I don’t believe that it will replace it but that is maybe a good thing. I’d be Ok with fediverse staying in niche with active user base, because once it’s mainstream it’s gonna attract corporations to enshittificate it like they did it with Twitter or Reddit.
And I’d be cautious with “Internet is flawed”, it’s for us more conscious users but for vast majority of people Internet unfortunately is fine.
Yes, I think so. It could. Is it likely to happen? No!
I see a distributed architecture central to have a “public space” online that works in the long term. The communication infrastructure shouldn't be controlled by any single party.
However the way people work and the way capitalism works, it's utterly difficult for something like ActivityPub to become the standard. F**book joining in frightens and encourages me at the same time.
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