Fediverse

For me it does. I'm really enjoying Lemmy, and have curated a bunch of communities that I follow and participate in in a way that feels helpful, hopeful, and not toxic.

Having been around since the early days of identica/statusnet: no, not really.

It's always been small and a generally nice set of communities but it won't reach a large enough audience to matter. US (and to some degree) global politics are such a clusterfuck that it'll take more than some little servers with people discussing open source software and art or whatever to create substantial change.

that's not to say it's pointless. it's nice to have these little groups to focus on. it doesn't give me any hope but it does regulalry lift my spirits.

EDIT: I also dont think it needs to be any kind of agent or tool of change. Why can't it just be what it is? Groups of people socializing with one another?

I don’t think you’re dramatic.

For me it’s about reclaiming my right to participate in online discourse on my own terms. In a way the fediverse is freedom.

I plan on trying to self host a mastodon instance for myself and rebuild my blogs.

I don’t think I’d ever want to self host a lemmy, I like being anonymous to a reasonable degree. But I like that lemmy lets me have a voice without acquiescence to reddits enshittification.

Also the community is largely great. I love the memes, I love the comments and discussions, and I like that I learn things from fellow internet users again.

It gives me hope, but hope for a slightly better future; not for a cure for fundamental ills of online communities.

Nothing gives me hope these are the darkest times ever

Hope ? Maybe, maybe not

In general yes, but I would prefer if it had a wider variety of viewpoints on societal issues. I don't even always disagree with the prevailing circlejerk here on everything, but I would occasionally like to read counterarguments to it too.

There are a few specific people on fedi who do give me hope.

The response is to tune-in, turn-on, and drop-out.

Start making things from scratch. Stop buying shit.

Opt-out.

…abd this goes on anticorporate. Thank you very much. And yes, I think it does and we do make a difference. Keep it up. Organize and search for people like yourself. Instead of turning the naysayers one by one and burning out, find your allies and spread the word efficiently. Think of the ideal situation and make it happen. I‘m here, lets fucking go (same mission, different continent)!

Fediverse? Maybe. It will stay small and not monetized. For some that's good.

Lemmy? No hope. Lemmy and the pessimistic world views here give ME no hope for anything on this planet. I want to leave, but keep finding myself back here doom scrolling. Some communities seems good though. The platform is good though and seems to be picking up.

It gives me hope yeah, alot of my family and coworkers are extremely conservative and it's given me hope that they're not the default for cis people. I've since gotten away from alot of them and met irl friends who're more accepting but the presence of people online who didn't begrudgingly tolerate me before then has given me hope and the courage I would need to advocate for myself and not accept the bare minimum

set up a monthly contribution even if it’s just $2/month

~~I remember somewhere on the fedi, some instance admin saying that on average it cost $2/month per user. So, if you are relatively active on the server, $2 monthly recurring donation might cover your share of expenses.~~ maybe not a very good idea

how I can make a difference

https://blog.elenarossini.com/supporting-the-fediverse-one-small-act-at-a-time/

The Fediverse and open source world do give me hope. But my worry is seeing people not adopt them. I know they aren't pertect but compared to the big tech alternatives they're a no oasis.

Yep. I think that we're on the precipice of what's to come.

I don't live in that country, but while I like Lemmy, no, I don't have hope any more. I've not had that for a long time now.

It's interesting though, to see the US slowly turn into our enemy, and to consider that Germany will be one of our strongest democratic, antifascist allies against the new axis of evil when the time comes.

Thankfully I'm too old to be forced to fight in the next war against fascism, but I suppose poverty and climate change might kill me before then anyway. There truly is no hope left for me.

I mean it's really depressing even being in Europe honestly but at the same time it's a huge opportunity. It's time to take it :) Let's show them how decentralization AND open source can be a new standard! I'm seeing the same trend in Linux too and this is so important as well.

Also a lot of new projects to help decentralization are emerging, check https://spritely.institute/ which there's Christine Lemmer-Webber a co-author of the ActivityPub protocol :)