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PixelFed has increased the Fediverse's monthly active users by over 40% in the last few weeks, how do we feel? (lemmy.ml)

submitted 1 week ago by koncertejo@lemmy.ml to c/fediverse@lemmy.world

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You can see it if you check https://fedidb.org/. Monthly active users have gone from just a hair under one million to somewhere around 1.4 million and still growing. How do we think this will go? How do we feel about this influx of new users? Has PixelFed done something different that Mastodon hasn't?

I feel like I didn't really recognize having different "platforms" like Mastodon, PixelFed, etc would give multiple opportunities for the fediverse to make a "first" impression with people.

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[-] hoshikarakitaridia@lemmy.world 35 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

This.

Discovery and user abstraction are Lemmy's biggest issues and we are not addressing them to the degree we should.

I know there's some stuff on all those centralized platforms that's way over the top, but most of it is actually pretty helpful. And you'll miss it once you switch here.

[-] ALostInquirer@lemm.ee 13 points 1 week ago

What do you mean by user abstraction? First I've seen this mentioned, or put this way.

[-] kate@lemmy.uhhoh.com 13 points 1 week ago

Relates to what server an account is on and how it affects the experience. Most people don’t want to know/care

[-] biofaust@lemmy.world 2 points 1 week ago

Oh thanks for giving me a proper term to use when pointing at my biggest problem with the Fediverse.

Has it ever been discussed by any developers? Is it technically possible for ActivityPub? Would the costs be exorbitant?

[-] kate@lemmy.uhhoh.com 4 points 1 week ago

There are different options to solve this. The current “solve” is to dump everyone on one big server. Mastodon.social, lemmy.world, etc.

Another solution might be a button that sends you to a random top10 instance. Might work for mastodon but lemmy servers defederate like hell and some of the biggest instances are .ml, hexbear, etc.

XMPP has this tiered list https://providers.xmpp.net/ but it’s the same problem of expecting users to care what a server is

I don’t have solution, and if you do then I’m not the person you should be telling :)

[-] phlegmy@sh.itjust.works 1 points 5 days ago

An 'ideal' solution might require a complete redesign on how federation works.

Something like a more decentralised network where you don't have a 'home' instance.
An instance would be more like a relay into a 'core' network, and you could swap between them at any time.

It'd probably require your account info to be public though, so passwords wouldn't be possible to implement in a foolproof way.

Instead of signing in, your device could generate a public/private keypair on signup.
The whole network would have your public key, and only content/actions that your device signs would be propagated on the network.

Sorry, you probably don't care about my ideas lol. Just thinking out loud I guess.

[-] kate@lemmy.uhhoh.com 3 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago)

fastest reply in tghe west 😎

they tried that and without the centralised moderation it became racist very quickly https://aether.app/

e: also nostr

[-] phlegmy@sh.itjust.works 1 points 5 days ago

Oh wow, those are cool. What a shame.

I guess it shouldn’t be a surprise that unmoderated communities attract the degenerates :/

[-] JustEnoughDucks@feddit.nl 7 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

Discovery? Interesting thought.

I tried out pixelfed and the pixelix app for the past couple weeks.

The "discovery" page on the official app is worse than useless. It shows almost nobody with over 10 followers, highlighting one person with 50-100 followers, then shows "popular on the fediverse" which are thumbnails of posts of the people it just recommended. It always recommends at least 5 of the same people day after day, week after week, even people you already follow.

The official app can't even show a global feed so it is literally impossible to discover new people unless you know their name and specifically search for them, or they are recommended by luck on the discover page (of which there are multiple repeats per day, so not likely)

Pixelix at least allows you to view a global feed though. Definitely a better experience, but Lemmy discovery is not any worse than that.

[-] Quicky@lemmy.world 5 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

The Discovery section in Pixelfed definitely needs work, but the ability to follow hashtags offsets that somewhat. I’ve found loads of great photographers to follow off the back of following hashtags that I’m interested in.