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Does it feel like the fediverse is exclusively used by older tech nerds? (lemm.ee)

submitted 1 year ago by gamer@lemm.ee to c/fediverse@lemmy.world

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The mastodon and lemmy content I’m seeing feels like 90% of it comes from people who are:

~30 years old or older
tech enthusiasts/workers
linux users

There’s nothing wrong with that particular demographic or anything, but it doesn’t feel like a win to me if the entire fediverse is just one big monoculture.

I wonder what it is that is keeping more diverse users away? Is picking a server/federation too complicated? Or is it that they don’t see any content that they like?

Thoughts?

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[-] loics2@lemm.ee 38 points 1 year ago

This is not a problem with people, but with UX design.

We don't need a corporation to have usable interfaces. Right now, if you visit join-lemmy.org, the main focus is for people wanting to host an instance, which is only a small part of the advanced user base. The common user won't care about the fact Lemmy is made with rust or that there's a docker image.

I don't think it's only an issue with Lemmy, lots of open-source projects lack user-friendliness and onboarding.

[-] IrrationalAndroid@lemmy.world 17 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I agree so much. I feel like your typical user does not need to know 1% of all that. Hell, I don't even think that they need to know much about the whole instances shebang. Scroll through a feed, see a bunch of users from various federated instances say things, the end. The fediverse aspect is something that could be relegated to a help section or something along these lines. Complexity scares people away.

I seriously wish that Lemmy and the Fediverse in general would boom in popularity because this kind of "free" social media is what people deserve, but I just can't see it happening with how things are now.

[-] Freesoftwareenjoyer@lemmy.world 6 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

People need to know what an instance is. They need to know what defederating means too. They also need to know why the Fediverse is better than centralized alternatives, because otherwise they won't care.

[-] Redtitwhore@lemmy.world 4 points 1 year ago

Good points. I do think the default community filter should be All instead of Local though.

[-] IrrationalAndroid@lemmy.world 3 points 1 year ago

I agree that it should be the default option. Thankfully you can change it from your account's settings, which is very nice.

[-] Freesoftwareenjoyer@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago

You are probably right about that. There are other UI improvements that we could and should do too, but Lemmy will probably always be more difficult to use than the centralized alternatives.