How to get non technical friends in the fediverse? (ly.eok.me)

submitted 2 hours ago by ben@ly.eok.me to c/fediverse@lemmy.world

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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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[-] retractedfangs@mander.xyz 16 points 1 hour ago

Does Fediverse even have what your friends want from a social media? Even the answer is yes, share that content with them and hope they will be intrigued. Unfortunately, the most likely is no in this case. Fediverse is only good for like five topics and everything else is "too niche".

It would change if we had more people on here but the problem is, Fediverse just isn't appealing to most people. They don't care about decentralization and open-source. What they do care about though is algorithms and low barrier to entry - and neither need is fulfilled by the Fedi.

We are truly the Linux of social media haha.

[-] Carighan@piefed.world 7 points 1 hour ago

It also adds that most people who are "invested" in the Fediverse don't realize to what absurd degree the notion of caring about decentralization or open source doesn't matter to many people they try to get interested. For whom their problems are "We need more formula for the kid" or "Shit I gotta visit the family on the weekend and that's also the only days we could possibly work on getting that leaking pipe fixed, ever".

People have problems that need fixes. Their social media being a centralized one isn't a problem to them - it works right now. It's a solved problem. Trying to inject another problem to care about into their life will often actively aggravate people, and for understandable reasons: They got enough of them already.
Plus, in particular in current times, very serious very IRL issues. On multiple levels. Caring about Reddit vs Piefed or so is so far down the list, to most it feels ludicrous that this ought to be an issue to anybody at all.

[-] Coelacanth@feddit.nu 5 points 1 hour ago

Yeah, and that's really the crux of it. To 90% of people, the content is all that matters. That's why comments like: "hey, you like TikTok? Why don't you try Loops instead?" or "Check out Pixelfed, it's a bit like Instagram!" are unlikely to work. For most people, it's just a strictly worse version. The same thing but without the content. Why would they downgrade for no reason?

You have to care about something external to the core experience of consuming content to actually be here. That's why our population at the moment is, well, just us here *gestures around.* You have to care about FOSS, or decentralisation, or anti-corporatism, or really value the more human interactions you get in a smaller setting with fewer bots, or actually enjoy putting in more work and get less served to you by an algorithm.

Most of the people with those values I believe will eventually trickle over here naturally. The rest though, this is a really hard sell for.

[-] ben@ly.eok.me 4 points 1 hour ago

the Linux of social media

😂 I love it So the answer is to create an algorithm for the fediverse?

[-] retractedfangs@mander.xyz 2 points 39 minutes ago

I'd say so, yeah. Either implement algorithms and deal with the consequences or design something that would make discovery of new content as easy as seeing it appear in your algorithmic feed, while avoiding all the problems that personalization brings.

[-] Enkrod@feddit.org 4 points 1 hour ago

Honestly, the lack of a decent algorithm is why I stopped using Mastodon. It's not a problem on lemmy since up- and downvotes are the algorithm, but for all other fediverse services it's what keeps me away.

The difference is that this doesn't mean I'm on Insta or Twitter, just that this here is basically all social-media I do.

[-] discoplasm@quokk.au 7 points 1 hour ago

i'm a non-technical user and it is a pretty awkward position to be in tbh. i have been floating around various fediverse platforms for quite some years now and it is just very isolating. i can do all the right things in terms of curation and maybe find a tiny handful of cool people but i am still missing out on things like information about local community events, because a huge proportion of those pretty much only get posted on instagram.

so for me it is not even about friends being on there or needing to yap at brands but like..when is the popup art market on, oh there is a call for volunteers for beach cleanup, there is a blood drive on, the tattoo shop i like has a flash day coming up. and before someone yells at me: i dont currently have an instagram account and havent for a while now. but like..i do miss having access to that sort of information because it would get me out of the apartment and involved in local community events. and now i never know what is going on in my city and don't go out as much. :/

so yay for not using evil meta bullshit that is increasingly janky and many kinds of fucked up. but like. if i had friends over on insta as well, it would make switching to a fedi platform a very hard sell: "come to this place where your friends are not, and probably no local information is available, and people will be continually pissy at you for not caring enough about technical things, and almost nobody wants to hear about the things you are interested in, and people dont want you there anyway because the low userbase is considered a feature not a bug". ya know? it is just a non-starter.

there are good things about fedi platforms too, but some of those good things are things normal people will simply not understand or care about no matter how frustrated it makes technical users. i wouldnt tell a friend to come here, i would simply tell them to use what they are using less often. and i am sure there will be people in this very thread thinking "good, we dont want idiots like you here", and that is indeed another part of why it is isolating for me to be here. :)

[-] Th4tGuyII@fedia.io 1 points 18 minutes ago

Honestly, yeah.

For certain niches, the Fediverse is great - but it absolutely does suck for local community stuff.

Big tech platforms make those hyper-niche communities easier to set up, in exchange for all that sweet sweet data - and that won't change anytime soon.

To do that on Fediverse you'd probably have to host an instance and get people to sign up if they aren't already. Which for a techy or privacy orientated group they might actually do - but I don't picture most hobbiest groups having the technical know-how or want to do that.

Maybe one day enough of the population will become tech-savy or privacy aware that niche local community Fedi instances might actually become a thing - but that day certainly isn't today

[-] ben@ly.eok.me 3 points 57 minutes ago

Thank you for your answer. I want to start telling you, that your opinion on the whole topic is one of the most valuable answers.

You are the exact kind of people the fediverse needs and are adressing a couple of real issues the fediverse needs to work on. Helping small communities finding a way, maby to start briding their content over to the fediverse as easy as possible. I think we need to start giving people like you an option to come here and stay here. Without loosing their access to their community.

In my opinion the fediverse lack of users is not a feautre. Its one of the worst things and it needs to fight that issue. And this is exactly where we need to find answers. And is it really a thing that people will argue on here because they still use instagram or sth else?? Wtf!? We should be happy for every user trying to join the fediverse.

Maby talk to your community, If you want to help your community, maby start creating fediverse accounts for them.

[-] ben@ly.eok.me 1 points 55 minutes ago

Maby telling them about crossposting, that they can, if they want, post their activies throughout multiple social media at the same time, so as many people as possible can see it. Well its getting more technically, I apologize!

[-] rimu@piefed.social 14 points 1 hour ago

Keep it really simple. Don't talk about federation or how it works under the hood. Just say something like "hey I see you like Instagram - try Pixelfed I think you'll like it. It's in the app store".

Don't get them to try to find the perfect pixelfed instance, just use the default main one. They can move later if it clicks for them.

[-] victorz@lemmy.world 1 points 51 minutes ago

This dude federates

😉

[-] birdwing 2 points 1 hour ago

Threads is not part of the fediverse, it's part of Big Tech's attempt at Embrace, Extend, & Extinguish strategy!

[-] Th4tGuyII@fedia.io 2 points 28 minutes ago

Yeah, there's a reason many instances are defederated from Threads. It's a classic strategy, and the only way to avoid it is to not give them the foothold they want.

I do understand wanting to give people a trial of sorts without having to dive in - but personally I reckon that's the best way to do this, and its the way I did during the first Reddit Exodus (RIP kBin)

As long as you do some research to avoid the more toxic spaces, and are respectful, people here will help you figure out the rest.

[-] JupiterRowland@sh.itjust.works 5 points 1 hour ago

No dice.

It needs to be completely for dumb-dumbs. A phone app named "Fediverse" or something that's even easier to set up than the official Mastodon app.

It needs even bigger dopamine kicks and even worse brainrot than Instagram and TikTok.

It needs influencers and other hyped-up online celebs with millions upon millions of followers and tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of likes every week.

The only other alternative would be the big corporate silos being shut down or blocked with no other corporate silos to take their place so that your friends can't get their kicks from corporate silos anymore. Even if that amounted to cold turkey.

[-] Auster@thebrainbin.org 2 points 1 hour ago

For the Instagram people, if they're also using Threads, poke them to enable ActivityPub. Several medium/large instances defederate, but it's an entry point for them.

Also, don't be forceful and try not to pass a sense of superiority. Apply pressure when you see opportunities, such as if they complain of a platform, how a given alternative solves that, but know your boundaries. And all the while, be patient, for it could be a years-worth endeavor.

[-] HieroProtagonist@lemmy.ml 5 points 2 hours ago

You don't.

[-] ben@ly.eok.me 3 points 2 hours ago

So will it always be a niche? Does the fediverse even try to get to the mainstream?

[-] HieroProtagonist@lemmy.ml 5 points 2 hours ago

I think, unless the big players are forced out of business (either by law or by a BIG societal shift) it has simply no chance to win over the mainstream. At least not worldwide... in the EU it might stand a bit of a chance but even that is more wishful thinking on my part.

[-] Coelacanth@feddit.nu 3 points 2 hours ago

If anyone knew, you wouldn't have to ask. Everyone'd already been here.

[-] ben@ly.eok.me 3 points 2 hours ago

My friends know the fediverse. But why should they switch, when they are addicted to the algorithm?

[-] KssioAug@piefed.zip 5 points 1 hour ago* (last edited 1 hour ago)

Do they want to make the switch? If they don't, they won't.

You can't force or convince the mainstream to get to the Fediverse when pretty much all of their connections are on the mainstream network.

That's why I think Lemmy/Piefed are the ones that have the biggest chance of sticking, because they're aimed to a public that's not necessarily mainstream.

I know they exist and I totally respect it, but I'm not even sure if it makes much of a sense an Instagram/TikTok alternative on the Fediverse, considering these social media are aimed around getting visibility either by personal relationship or by popularity (volume over quality). And I don't think that the Fediverse public as of now is looking to become that.