this post was submitted on 30 Nov 2023
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Because while the concept isn't too difficult to understand once it's explained to you, it's not easy as going to "Mastodon and signing up".
The different servers, having to remember other people's instances along with their username (for example, you can't just say "omg check out Jack Froth on Mastodon! He's so funny!", because where? What instance? Who is it?
Not to mention Mastodon, much like Lemmy, dropped the ball hard when it came to onboarding during the peak interest. When you downloaded the app, you had to manually type in your instance, username, and password, which you had to go to an instance in your web browser to sign up for first.
Now Mastodon gives you the option to sign up like a regular app and it'll pick a default server for you. Way more friendly, but no one cares, because they already have the bad confusing taste in their mouth.
Then comes the community. Twitter is extremely toxic, but somehow Lemmy and Mastodon are worse. I know a few people I follow have recently discussed wanting to leave Mastodon because the Mastodon community attacks them, saying they don't want them there, because they have a successful YouTube channel. The type of people that the fediverse attracts are FOSS users, and FOSS users can be really.. particular.
I've been attacked on both Lemmy and Mastodon because I made some pro-windows comments. It's pretty exhausting. The hard pill to swallow is that the fediverse isn't accepting and isn't kind towards "normal" people.
God all the imported garbage and dead subs that you have to wade through here on lemmy. You cant find anything and you have deal with digital hoarders veing excited that it's a mess here.
I cant even be bothered with mastodon if its more of the same. I'm here because i absolutely hate the absolute unending barage of ads on reddit and i havent figured put how to patch my app yet. Sometimes i find this place fun when it has its own identity like the star trek memes but im so tired of it.
Social media should be you come for a purpose and then stay for the conversation but now its just people not wanting to be alone but not wanting the conversation either.
This is just like email, I see no problem here.
I think the problem is about the mindset and the onboarding experience. We've used too much proprietary products and prefer something easy and not too much diverge from the norms. Recently, I tried to advertise Mastodon and Lemmy to my non-techie friends, which are using X and Reddit. Some did try but gave up. They said they didn't understand the concept, and didn't want to bother with choosing an instance in the first place, because they didn't understand the federation concept. It's just hard to explain the benefits of the fediverse to non-techie people.
I have the same observation as your view. Current fediverse communities are heavily towards tech. Some of my friends joined but gradually left because they had a few to no interactions or no interesting people in their interested areas to follow.
You have me curious.
I only have Linux on my machine, and have been an advocate for FOSS for many years. But even then I have to begrudgingly admit Windows does some things better. I don't see why anyone would get all bent out of shape about that. Yeah, evil corporation and massive privacy issues, but that doesn't change its technical merits.
What was it that people got upset over if you don't mind sharing?
This is just how the old internet works, embrace the Cesspool my friend
I'd say it's more like Discord as a forum instead of a VOIP client, rather than being comparable to the old internet. A single, isolated instance would be like the old internet forums, where you make an account and it only exists on that once forum. But, the interconnected nature of the federated servers adds a layer of complexity that most people aren't ready for, and then you add in an onboarding process that's more than just downloading the app and making an account, and you've already lost a number of people - especially those who grew up before the age of the internet or after in the age of the smart phone and app based tech world.