Fediverse

This is a constant cycle.

Tech nerds invent new technology/platform>nerds flock to new thing>the masses hear about it and start flooding it>money notices a large user base that isn't being complete wrung out for money>money destroys the new thing by making it unusable for profit>repeat

There's always a group on the forefront, it makes sense that it's tech interested people Fediverse being based on open source software and all about sharing means it's right p Linux user's alley.

The 30+ demographic not sure, maybe just people a bit grown up and now under as much peer pressure to be on the more popular corporate platforms.

I wonder what it is that is keeping more diverse users away?

One aspect is that federation is definitely a bit harder to wrap your head around technically.

But I think another large contributor is the fact that culturally, the zoomers never really grew up with things like independent forums. I'm 33 and back in t the day it was very common for me to be signed up to many different forums for my different interests. Over time, I've seen the centralization of those communities, forums shut down and centralized services like Reddit, and lately Discord took their place.
I remember a time when the internet wasn't solely controlled by a handful of organisations, I can see the value in federated systems. But someone who only knows centralized services and walled gardens is likely to fear the wild, or at least won't value it as much.

//edit: Another thing to keep in mind, is that it's just very common for this demographic to be early adopters for tech products and platforms. I remember when Twitter started, and a large part of its early user base was people in their 30s or older who were very into tech, or journalists. The reason I started using Twitter towards the end of the 2000s was because most of the podcast hosts and regular contributors on the TWiT network were using it.
Seems to me that if you want to launch a social media platform, your early adopters are either guys who are into tech and in their 30s and 40s or teenage girls.

as a young IT with friends who dont know much about IT i have to say that most around 20 use reddit, instagram, ... cause its the only thing they know. everyone they know uses them and many of them want likes, ...

if they would join the fediverse:

1. they wouldnt understand how it works. what is a server? why choose an instance? its just too complicated
2. all their friends dont use the fediverse. they would be alone and have nobody who they can share things to
3. they would mostly see tech stuff and less in categories they are interested in
4. none of the people they follow on instagram are here. the cant follow their celebrities, ... and see their content
5. the fediverse still has to less users to be successful worldwide. its growing. and just like facebook in its first years, its growing slow.

=> give it a few more years and get your friends, family & collegues on here and see the fediverse grow

Reddit began in a similar fashion, so its a positive trait for sure

27yo tech enthusiast and worker and linux user here

30 is old now? Dafuq

Well it's new open source tech that can be self hosted by the 30+ tech nerds that have the money and interest in it.

If I wasn't a tech nerd I would have given up on signing up for Mastodon and Lemmy. There is a lot of focus on how instances work and it seems a bit overwhelming. I had a lot of internal, 'what if I make the wrong choice', or 'how can I move if I don't like the community' type questions. So being the nerd I am I researched the crap out of it and overwhelmed myself and said fuck it and just chose the popular instances since I know that I can move at a later date.

I personally think this format is favored by a lot of the demographic you mentioned. Most of us, I am generalizing here, grew up being active members in bulletin board systems. Then Reddit came along basically murdered the BB, but there was a good community to interact with. Now Reddit is basically unusable in my opinion because the community doesn't care about the content or the people behind the screen. That brings us here. We learned so much of our trade, laughed a lot, and made real friendships on these types of system and it is a place a lot of us feel comfortable.

I think anyone that fits in those 3 categories just tend to be the early adopters. The normies come later. 😁

Old tech nerd here. Is this the meeting spot?

Currently interning as software engineer and typing this from a Linux machine. I'm Gen Z though.

When did 30 become "older"?

Quite fine by me, to be honest. I was tired of all the pokemon memes and references, as well as gamespeak everywhere (like "10+ XP, hurr hurr!")

Yes, but that's pretty much the early adopter demographic across all tech. I would love for people to realize this and start talking about their other hobbies, not just how they run Lemmy on a toaster and are so radical.

The fediverse is mostly full of FOSS enthusiasts, which happens to heavily include linux users.

That's what attracted me to the fediverse in the first place, all the linux people.

The old people are people who grew up before Facebook and corporate social media, as such have no loyalty to said platforms.

For everything except the memes I agree. The memes are clearly not generated by 30+ year olds though, and there are a lot of memes. (all of those 196 communities)

Well, we (old farts) know shit, kids are brainwashed nowadays.

I'm over 30, but I'm tech stupid compared to everyone else here, but I can follow, and understand the jist ftmp of the conversation. Not my area of expertise. I grown up with the internet though obviously so I do know my way around.

If anything i'm probably just more open to new experiences than the average person, and I like learning stuff.

But in general I agree with your observations, and it seems natural for early adopters of a platform.

Fucking zoomers with their tiktoks and snapchats, what was so wrong with old school forums?

tech enthusiasts/workers

linux users

Those are the primary people who are going to come to a platform like this. The average joe probably hasn't even noticed any major changes with reddit.

• I'm under 30 (Under 20 too) X
• Tech enthusiast/comp sci student ✔️
• Linux User ✔️

we are the kind to early adopt new stuff

It does, yes.

And since lots of people in the Fediverse support blocking popular competitors, like people in Mastodon talking about blocking/unfederating Threads, I'd say we're making sure the Fediverse stays in obscurity forever. Never having a chance to become popular, never having a chance to convince people to leave proprietary platforms.

Lemmy keeps me from doom scrolling like what I did when I still had my Facebook and Reddit accounts, and fck me I'm 25. Some content from mainstream social medias are too noisy, too personal, too annoying, and too short for my taste, and accidentally watched and heard them from public places.

And, I don't consider myself a tech savvy.

Bah, I'm three raccoons in an overcoat.
Who.. have a steady IT job.. dang it.

I think that's probably accurate, but it needs context. When I discovered reddit, I was a teenager and I just lurked for a long time. At the time, the typical redditor was closer to 30 years old and a tech worker. I was a lurker because I didn't yet understand how to write a thoughtful, worthwhile comment. So there might be some lurkers right now because of that.

All kinds of people gravitate towards conversation, but older users will be more comfortable engaging in conversations at first. Reddit is not a good place to converse right now. We just need to focus on building community and encouraging conversations.

I'm 65, so practically everybody online seems young to me