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So far, Americans using RedNote have said they don't care if China has access to their data. Viral videos on TikTok in recent days have shown Americans jokingly saying they will miss their personal "Chinese spy," while others say they are purposefully giving RedNote access to their data in a show of protest against the wishes of the U.S. government.
"This also highlights the fact that people are thirsty for platforms that aren't controlled by the same few oligarchs," Quintin said. "People will happily jump to another platform even if it presents new, unknown risks."
If you want more people to join the fediverse, you have to improve the user experience. People don’t want to read an article breaking down what the fediverse is, how to join an instance, how to find content, etc.
Streamline the join process so it doesn’t require learning the lore and technical training. Stop promoting the fediverse generally, and instead push people to easy to use frontends and popular instances. Remove the barriers to entry. If they want to dig deeper into different instances and the technical stuff, let them do that later. Stop loading the info dump at the front.
The internet use to be about discovery, not convinience. The reason big companies like TikTok can exploit people so well is because the barrier of entry is so low and people would rather get their content quick than to have any involvement in how it works. When someone creates a federated community or a server, it's not plug and play. Work goes into that, so yeah, if you want simplicity, stay on X and Facebook and Insta. If you want control and more clarity about how these protocols work, welcome.
Fediverse and decentralism confused me initially but then I learned I can just sign up at lemmy.world and use it normally without having to know the backend.
A site goes to shit when everyone and their grandma hops on it. At the risk of sounding elitist, I would prefer to a part of the userbase that hasn't been Eternal Septembered into the lowest common denominator.
All right then, keep your secrets. But then let's promote a normie instance to Grandma so she doesn't get brainwashed.
I agree that promoting the fediverse generally kind of doesn't make sense. People join communities, not web protocols.
I wonder if we shouldn't talk so much about "the fediverse" as we do about individual instances, because that's what people actually join. They get the rest of the fediverse for free, but their home server will always be home. Just like with reddit back in the day, how I may not have identified much with the reddit overculture, I did love some of its communities.
Like look at the difference between the slrpnk communities, and the programming.dev communities. That's something to be celebrated, like, come join this server - look at all the cool things we're doing!
You get it. Well said.
I've seriously thought about starting up a website to do exactly this. The problem is I already have a mile long project list. Oh and I suck at UX lmao, backend and hosting/infrastructure stuffs that's my jam. Putting together a nice UX with a good flow and then successfully promoting it....
Pixelfed’s app release seems like a good start.
That would just turn the fediverse into tiktok/facebook/whatever. The whole point is that you have to engage intentionally here, which prevents you from being served things that other people/countries/companies want you to see.
Its not hard to join here, but its not going to serve up the same experience so people leave. People also follow others, so there aren't many people on those other platforms suggesting people join them in the fediverse.
I dont understand why anyone cares if the next big social media exodus off-ramp is to the fediverse or not. A huge influx of people that dont like this style of content and how its served to them isn't going to make this better for those who do.
This is ridiculous gatekeeping.
The point of the fediverse is to get decentralized platforms not in the hands of corporate or government interests.
If you want a cliquey, niche space, then stay on an instance focused for that.
I never said they shouldnt come here, I said I dont understand people here wanting them to come. Most of us left those spaces for multiple reasons, one of them being the userbase.
I want those who like what we have here to want to come here, I dont want a bunch of pissed off tiktok refugees who will come in and demand we cater to their increasingly fleeting whims, slowly turning this platform into tiktok or facebook or whatever.
Its okay for communities to not fit every single demographic, and like another person stated, there are many lemmy instances all with their own appeal.
The fediverse allows us to do both. Some instances will go one way, others will go the other. Each can have what they want. And both can communicate if they do wish.
I don't really understand this seeing as you're commenting this on a post from your own instance. Therefore, in an ironic sort of way, it seems like people within your own instance are against the fleeting whims of mainstream platforms as well. So, I agree with your counterpart: you are not owed a lower barrier of entry if the entire idea of companies not manipulating your algorithms and selling your data is for it to be community-driven effort. And so, it is not a lot to ask people to learn how things work so they may be able to service themselves, or even past that knowlegde forward.
No matter how you slice it, decentralized networks require a lot of work and maybe, the people who put their computers and hardware out there to make it possible just want people in that circle to appreciate the work put into it. Not hop on their instance because it's quote, "easy".
Like, the idea of the internet having been more fun years prior was because it was experimental and community-driven. You will need to sacrifice simplicity and functionality for that. And if you don't care about that, well, use Reddit, Discord, or any other service that's easier than this.