So I am a big fan of the Fediverse, I love the idea of decentralisation and I believe this is how the future of social media should be. But here starts the problem.
All my friends are using Instagram or TikTok or else. I didnt think of that while I also used Instagram, but I think they are highly addicted. Its not possible for them to not use Instagram for at least 1h when we meet up. When I still used Instagram, I was part of the problem. But now that I left it a couple of months ago, I just realised the problem I used to live in.
Addiction is all about realising you are addicted, but I find it very hard to address the problem. I dont want to harm our friendship over social media and I am afraid that when I tell them about their addiction, they will not agree and find it impolite.
So I believe that social media can only survive if the people use it. Its all about user generated content and while the Fediverse is doing better than ever, it still needs more users ASAP.
How can we achieve getting those people on the Fediverse and, more importantly, hold them here, while they slowly get less addicted to social media and see the potential of the Fediverse.
Thank you for reading and for thinking about possible answers. I wrote the whole text by myself, this is not AI generated.
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My chosen, tender way to motivate non tech people to leave big Tech platforms for the fediverse is to post sth nice (nice pics, family info,…) on Friendica, Pixelfed or Lemmy, and then paste the link on Facebook, so that my Facebook friends see it, like what they see, get curious what’s that strange platform they had never heard of, register.
Problem 1: Sometimes FB shows the linked posts picture, sometimes it doesn’t. Problem 2: Some instances deactivate that content can be shown by external platforms like FB.
So far I did it three times; 1 (my friendica instance) didn’t show the pic though. So far, the success count is still on 0. But I still hope it will work :)
It’s a pragmatic approach. Without burning bridges, we can bring people over.
I really love that approach!! Thank you, I will try to do the same with my friends.
Cool, keep me posted on your success and on your experiences / ideas for improvement of the concept!
People have strange and strong brand loyalty for proprietary things. It’s like a culture for them. I have seen it especially on iPhone and Whatsapp. Not only they refuse to use alternatives (Android; RCS/Signal/XMPP etc.). They will think you are a loser if you don’t use them. Or, even worse, will try to convince you to use them and that those are the best and anything else is a shit. I believe it’s the same for social media. So good luck!
People act similarly for stuff like Linux though. Gotta build a cool brand for the Fediverse!
Of course. Mac OS users will tell that you are so poor/stingy to buy an Apple computer, and Windows users to buy a Windows license. I left Windows, Reddit, X and Whatsapp 3 years ago. Switched to GNU/Linux, Lemmy, Mastodon and Signal/XMPP/SimpleX/DeltaChat. Best tech decisions I made. I hope more people will join Free/Federated technology. :-)
We’ve already got this in the Fediverse.
Most Mastodon users are fully convinced that Mastodon is the best, and nothing in existence can beat it in any way possible. They defend their “Mastodon Fediverse” against “inferior, barbaric, culture-less intruders” like Akkoma or Sharkey or Friendica tooth and nail. They absolutely refuse to accept that something, anything in the Fediverse can be better than Mastodon at anything. Of course, when they get people into the Fediverse, they railroad them straight into Mastodon, and they intentionally say nothing about the rest of the Fediverse.
Only those who actually start daily-driving something else than Mastodon realise that there are things in the Fediverse that outclass Msatodon.
I guess so. But you will see more extremists for proprietary to free software. And it’s federated like email. So, for example, even if you have see a Proton extremist, it’s not a big deal, you can use another provider and still talk to him. Same for Fediverse.
OK, so I replied to a couple threads, but I’ll put my direct answer here. You have to frame it in terms of something they ALREADY care about, not try get them to care about decentralization.
I’m a non-technical Fedi user. I didn’t give a damn about decentralization or FOSS when I first joined. I only vaguely understood what those things even meant. (I do understand and care now, but that came later after I kept seeing people talk about them in Fedi spaces.)
I joined Lemmy because I cared about getting away from the big tech billionaires, basically. I’m sick of AI and don’t want to use Reddit as long as it’s partially owned by Sam Altman. I wasn’t thinking in terms of joining the Fediverse, I was thinking in terms of “Reddit alternative that doesn’t directly support Sam Altman/OpenAI.” The “choose an instance” thing was a barrier, but that faded after I found out I could change it later and decided to just default to the most popular instance for now.
Your non-technical friends probably don’t care about decentralization (yet), but they might care about:
-Fuck AI companies and the big tech billionaires
-Avoiding psychologically manipulative algorithms that make social media addiction more likely
-More human interactions, fewer ads and bots.
etc.
This part is harder, but you’d need to find communities on here they’d be interested in. I joined when I was thinking about deGoogling, and the thriving tech communities on here appealed to me for that reason even though I wasn’t a techie. This might be easier with a different part of the Fediverse, depending on the person’s interests. Lots of creative people of all stripes are on Mastodon, for instance.
Tell them to turn on fediverse sharing in the Threads account they already have.
I can already hear “No! Not like that!”. Fair enough, but that’s the thing most of your non-technical friends will actually do if you ask them. Be sure you have an account somewhere that can interact with it. Perhaps some will get interested enough to make accounts somewhere better.
This only works for users in North America, though. Even though Meta had introduced this feature for EU appeasement purposes. (“See? We do support open standards!”)
If it still works in the first place, that is. And I’m not talking about loads of Fediverse servers blocking Threads and two Fediverse server applications even having the means to block Threads by user agent rather than URLs.
- No algorithm.
They come in, look at all posts, upvote down vote still see 99% of the content they DGAF about and leave.
* teach them to curate?
* create tech to curate? Starter Packs? Meta Communities? - No niche communities
We’ve got cats and dogs and mildly interesting and greentext, but the gaming subs are dead, the automotive and sports and will just about any other community a normie would want either don’t exist, are squatted on by someone who made them 3 years ago and left or they’re owned by one toxic crackpot mod
* If you have any interests or hobbies, it’s a good time to start some communities, get a couple people to help content. Maybe borrow some stuff on reddit.
If the come here and they can’t find what they want, they’ll leave
The curation part may make this a fools errand. They want the doom scroll, unending entertainment on tap. This place isn’t like that, it’s 2003 in here and we want to read what’s new then GTFO and go do something else.
There’s also a lot of negativity.
There’s a Nintendo community. Obviously people on Lemmy really hate Nintendo, so any meaningful comment is overtaken by negative comments and useless discussion.
It’s a more extreme example, but I find the same true for Lemmy as a whole. Sometimes it feels like no fun is allowed.
miserable folks want everyone else to be as miserable or more miserable than them. they can’t abide anyone enjoying anything.
It’s so funny, I bought a Switch 2 recently, and the amount of vitriolic HATE i get for mentioning that I love and it’s great is insane.
apparently unless I build my own PC from dumpster parts and run a hyper specific distro and only run steam linux games, I’m some sort of traitor and horrible ignorant fool. There can’t ever be a legit reason to like just want to play fun games w/o being an insufferable superiority twat about it. and anything less than that is ‘boot licking’ or me being a nazi lover or something.
Everything on here has to be politicized to an absurd extreme, because no fun and happiness is allowed as long as the State of Israel exists, or something.
Yeah, that’ll get less if we get more people, but getting more people requires getting that less :)
We’re harsh of ‘fanboys’ ‘bootlickers’ a lot of people who just see themselves as enthusiasts for a given corporate vector.
Some people love Nintendo for the games and nostalgia and don’t place much stock in their litigious history.
We’re geeks and often gatekeepers.
Thanks for the reminder to engage in my hobby communities
- No algorithm.
yo what’s “threads” doing there
Wdym?
it’s from meta/facebook
I know that, but why do you mention it? Your post doesnt seem to be linked to another post
I take it you consider “threads” as a fediverse instance? It’s a corpo backed platform just like facebook and gives you free coffee instead of freedom
Ooh, I get you now! I am sorry if I made that impression, I did not mean to say that. I totally agree on your point. It should not be an real option to let them use threads. I agree on some people here, that its better than nothing, but its still meta.
Treat the fediverse as a pre 2007ish internet and don’t expect them to be there just focus on making new friends and creating a good space. If successful they might come but don’t put yourself in a position where you require it to use the fediverse.
In a way, maybe it’s better like this. I miss the old internet, and the fediverse is the closest thing we have.
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Just say it’s a less toxic reddit clone then talk about how Reddit sucks. I’m 0% tech inclined and I’m here cause the Voyager App made it easy. All I had to know was Reddit sucks (and got perma banned oops 🟢) and installed the voyager app and the rest is history.
This is half true. There are a few toxic instances and communities.
yeah, and it’s easy enough to block them with the right front end and have most of your expereince here be less full of insane brainrot.
There are some really cool folks and communities that actually have really cool and positive posts. But it is hard to find with all the slop and ragebait that many folks, and new users, seem to propagate.
Also good to mention how there’s no ads and no corporate algorithms curating what you see to push their brainwashing.
The user base might be more toxic but the ownerships structure is def less toxic
Same exact scenario for me. Voyager app makes it easy, only downside is content moves slower here then Reddit and not as many channels.
I think you shouldn’t even use this place. None of these apps are contributing to you being a healthy, stable, happy human being.
Its just strangers voting and commenting without ever meeting eachother, and being incredibly brainwashed by the specific content that is allowed to be seen. People end up in perception bubbles here and everywhere on so called social media.
You should not use phone apps at all for spending time. But thats hard for most since we are tired, we don’t have any interests outside of work, we don’t know that many people in real life, and we are lazy.
Is this better than cable tv? Sure. But it’s no substitute for actually having something going on in your life that you feel passionate about and want to do all the time.
I disagree hard with this. As someone with too much going on, with a lotbof different people, but, not a lot of people or places to talk about things I find engaging or important to work through. Lemmy has been a great spot to communicate my thoughts. With people often really challenging me to understand and communicate why i’ve taken whatever position I’ve taken.
That’s true actually. People will tell you what they really think here. And if you use that to challange your views, then maybe you can learn from it.
I think this is true of lemmy, which is a reddit clone. But an IG clone, I think, could actually be quite healthy - it would just be a feed of pics that friends take. It’s a good way to stay connected to friends who might have moved away, or with people in your life when you’ve become very busy.
Pixelfed is an Instagram clone. You can even import entire Instagram accounts worth of images and image posts into a Pixelfed account.
However, Pixelfed’s culture is not derived from Instagram’s culture. It’s literally Mastodon’s culture. The most common migration path into Pixelfed isn’t Instagram > Pixelfed, it’s Twitter > Mastodon > “I’mma try out this photo-posting add-on for Mastodon” > Pixelfed.
It’d be interesting to see what’d happen if there really was a mass exodus from Instagram to Pixelfed at such a scale that the Mastodon hardliners on Pixelfed are overrun. Also considering Pixelfed has exactly one developer who also has to handle Loops, Fedilab and the FediDB as one-man shows.
Threads logo
Threads isn’t part of the fediverse in any meaningful capacity xD
send them links to good content they would be interested in?
I always wanted to write a 1 minute ad for Mastodon. Any artists want to animate it? I figure images of social media posts and a cute little mastodon tooting (from his trunk) might be worthwhile.
If anyone does, here’s the copy I was thinking:
So your social media is changing and you don’t like the direction it’s going. Maybe it’s the owner, maybe it’s the algorithm. The good news is there’s an alternative. It’s called Mastodon.
Mastodon works like other social media. You follow people, and they follow back. There’s sharing, likes, replies, and everything else. Only, you see your timeline in order, not based on an algorithm made to sell you things. AND Mastodon lets you pick your server based on an interest. So in addition to following your friends on their servers, you can also browse your own virtual neighborhood, choosing from things like video games, music, or even your real life city or country.
You can even create and host a server if you don’t see one you like.
Mastodon also offers extra features like hidden posts just for your followers, and content warnings so you can hide triggering content, or use them as spoiler warnings if you don’t want to run a new movie for everyone else.
To see list of servers, head to Join Mastodon dot org, and join the herd.
Its not possible for them to not use Instagram for at least 1h when we meet up.
I don’t use Instagram, so what does using Instagram mean?
Do they browse Instagram, liking and commenting on things? It’s difficult to leave Instagram if the things they want to see don’t exist elsewhere.
Do they take pictures and share them with friends? Because that’s easier to move if the content moves.
No, they just scroll reels endlessly. Like TikTok. It’s a plague, short videos are addictive.
As for Pixelfed:
It’s like Instagram but you actually have agency over your content and you’re not at the whim of Meta’s corporate censorship.
