This is the ”insurmountable” challenge of almost every tech platform from Google to Reddit to Twitter and so on, the competitive advantage is the user base. So without a notable performance advantage (like Google usurping Yahoo) or tangible user experience benefit (Facebook replacing MySpace), these platforms will remain the dominant player in their niche.
Good news is the shitification of tech has really presented some opportunities in some of the niches. Obviously we’re all aware of reddit’s recent actions, Twitter is trying its best to fail, Facebook went the cable TV route and made itself uncool, and Insta keeps flirting with real bad ideas.
Fediverse might not be the answer, but there hasnt been a better time for viable alternatives in a very long while.
If Lemmy isn’t the answer then I’m not sure what hope we have. This seems like a perfect storm and I doubt there will be a better alternative coming any time soon.
One of my concerns is that we are running out of people who remember the pre-corporate internet at this rate. This platform has a gaping hole of Gen Z users as far as I can tell. Many of them never experienced the internet when it was cool, so they don’t have any particular dissatisfaction with the curated dopamine drip feed it has been turned into.
It just feels like this is the moment to revive that original dream of the internet for a new generation. Let’s make it happen here so we can take credit for it 😅
I tend to have a really bad mindset where I avoid places with little to no activity because I worry about giving the owner false hope. If nobody else shows up, I think that my presence might hinder their progress by preventing them from making necessary changes.
I need to get over it cos it’s obviously wrong but keeps on my mind
Ok but I don’t post on twitter. I only view posts on Twitter, and they’re pretty much all from relatively big people. So before I can move away, the people with big follower counts needs to move first. The only people on Mastodon that I follow are tech people. All the other people are on Twitter, Threads, or have just straight up left twitter altogether.
Lots of my friends are going absolutely nuts trying to get into Bluesky asap because a bunch of big queer/left voices went there and they want to get in “before too many people join and it starts to enshittify”. It’s hard to compete with people that a lot of others want to follow dictating the direction with their influence. I must admit, so far my Mastodon feed is not all that interesting. Lemmy does entertain me, though.
Its the same as how the vast majority of the US citizens hate both main political parties, but the majority also says “I wont vote for a third party because they could never win.”
Yeah but it’s true. It’s better to ensure Republicans don’t win than try to get your third party in. The problem is not the mindset of the people, it’s the first past the post voting system. If they used ranked choice voting instead, it wouldn’t be a problem.
This isn’t a fair comparison because there’s nothing stopping you from being on Lemmy, and the same evening watching some YouTube.
Most US voting systems are first-the-post which results in the spoiler effect. They would be wasting their vote if they don’t vote one of the big two. (Other than areas which allow for proportional representation).
Don’t vote for a third-party present, or governor or whatever. Y’all need some preferential voting to make that work.
Maybe what people think of as popular in their physical world is different than the popular that they think about in their abstract thoughts: “I’m going to be popular” or “I’m going to write a book” type thoughts.
Both things are different so no reconciliation is possible.
Lemmy is more like the old school Usenet than modern social media, and I would like it to stay that way. I don’t want the average doomscroller to come over here, I like the cozy atmosphere.
Was usenet pretty much a bunch of federated forums back then? When I first heard of it, around 2009, all I could find were places charging upfront for registration.
The Fediverse is a resurrection of an old concept,and yes, Usenet was a bunch of servers talking to each other, very much like the rest of the Internet. It has been supplanted by the World Wide Web in the 90s, and now that the Web is choc full of SEO spam, bots and intrusive ads, Usenet style communities are popping up once more.
As for the modern Usenet, it is mostly being used for ahem “file sharing”, hence why some companies offer paid access.
I might be a weirdo here but I enjoy both kinds of social media mainstream social media is cool because all your friends and family are there and you can fellow famous people but the fediverse is fun because of all the fun nerds and weirdos activists and people whose massage would be squashed anywhere else
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