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this post was submitted on 09 Jun 2023
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Fediverse
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Would be cool and technically possible, but I doubt it will happen.
Big Tech throwing millions into marketing and vendor lock-ins vs OpenSource projects that are decentralised and often running on donations and goodwill. That's a very touch battle to win, especially when most people care more about ease of use and amount of possible followers than about privacy and decentralisation.
Mastodon grew, but only took a tiny slice of Twitter and half of Mastodon are bots or people who crosspost to both. I expect the same to happen to Lemmy/Reddit, and any other SNS that goes this direction.
I'm content with a stable and active niche group of SNSs. Hopefully the open source and decentralisation aspects can prevent it from dying and going to the next SNS as the big ones tend to do. Which cóúld be as people can make newer applications that work with the old ones as long as it all runs on ActivityPup. I feel it's the most realistic way of thinking.
But maybe I'm just too pessimistic. Even the biggest people in tech stuggle to predict the future of it. So who knows.
Growth is not the only, nor even main, metric to measure success of fedi. Fedi is not a VC-funded startup that needs to grow exponentially to remain viable (consider how that worked for Twitter and Reddit…).
Building a resilient, safe, longterm-viable communities is the metric to measure fedi by. That takes more time, than hooking people on endorphin/noradrenalin high and slick interfaces.
This is false. I follow a couple of thousand people and have an interesting, diverse, funny, and informative timeline. Very few accounts I follow crosspost.
There is no recommendation algorithm so your timeline is what you make of it. It takes a bit more time to curate, but you end up with your own thing that suits you — if you put in the tiny bit of effort required.
I am very well aware about the lack of algoritm and how Mastodon works. But the issue is not for me, I like Mastodon! And I don't like Twitter at all. But it is for Average Joe, who needs to come over in order to replace the place of Big Tech SNSs.
If the Fediverse just wants to exist stabely, even be mentionable in size, it is not. But to take over from the Big Tech SNSs, it is. People are where other people are. And that's what the topic was about, replacing Big Tech SNSs.
For me, it's enough. But for Average Joe, who wants to commend on their favourite influencers and use it to talk to custoner support of delivery coyriers and stores they buy from, it is not. In fact, customer support is the only reason I have a Twitter account.
Fediverse existed before Google+, then came Google+, then Google pushed it hard (including forcing YouTube users to have Google+ accounts), then Google killed Google+.
Fediverse is still here.
So while yes, it would be nice to have more people out of walled gardens, let's keep stuff in perspective.
I fail to see how this goes against what you're qouting from me? Unless you're agreeing with me? I'm saying that in order to replace the Big Tech SNSs it needs to grow and appeal to the masses (which I'm personally doubting will happen to that degree), as was the question asked. But I also say that it doesn't need to do so in order to exist stable or even become of a mentionable size.
Big Tech SNSs just get replaced by the next one. Yes, Google+ came and went. But Fediverse did not take over after that (nor was Google+ ever big outside the USA afaik). Just like how MySpace didn't get replaced by the Fediverse. Big Tech SNSs aren't forever, but I never argued that they where. But they tend to get replaced with another Big Tech SNS, if not soon to be's (as Meta wasn't ás huge back then), who have marketing power. Fediverse might be covered now more than ever, but the gains compared to Big Tech is statistically, still minimal.
And that's ok! Because I too rather have a small but stable & good place. But it doesn't make it that the Fediverse takes over the Big Tech SNSs place. That's all I'm saying.
100% agree, especially on the resiliency part.
A community with 100 users but will never die is much better than one with a million users but might kick the bucket anytime.
The way the Fediverse works, and assuming that not everyone goes to the same instance, then it will be pretty much guaranteed to exist as long as there are users. And this is huge in terms of community building.
Obviously there are also threats, but they are different threats than those that apply to centralized platforms. One of the threats, in fact, is centralization itself — if people flock to a few gigantic instances, that creates a central point of failure, potentially.
But there are currently ~20k independently run fedi instances. Some had been running for a decade or longer.
As I said, we're here for the long run.