• @[email protected]
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    951 year ago

    No, it’s mastodon but centralized. It takes all the difficulty out of signing up for the fediverse, like finding a server. I said it from day 1 on mastodon. We will never see mass adoption until there’s a simple sign up process. People like centralized because it’s easier.

    • @[email protected]
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      21 year ago

      Exactly, I downloaded Mastodon and deleted it in one day. It was too complicated (in an annoying way) to use. I’m very IT literate, but I don’t want to learn to use a platform, or do research. I want it to work out of the box, and I want it to be easy and the content to be accessible. Now think about all the non-IT literate people out there, of course Threads will do well because it’s just create an account and you’re good to go… If Mastodon was like that I would use it.

      • Square Singer
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        141 year ago

        Tbh, this is not a good solution.

        It dumps you in front of a wall of 22 pages of servers on my laptop (equivalent to 4.35 meters).

        Most of which have completely nonsensical descriptions.

        If I look at e.g. the first page (top 6 servers) I get these:

        • mastodon.social: The original server operated by the Mastodon gGmbH non-profit
        • mstdn.jp: Mastodon日本鯖です. よろしくお願いいたします。 (Maintained by Sujitech, LLC)
        • mstdn.social: A general-purpose Mastodon server with a 500 character limit. All languages are welcome.
        • mastodon.world: Generic Mastodon server for anyone to use.
        • mas.to: Hello! mas.to is a fast, up-to-date and fun Mastodon server.
        • mastodon.online: A newer server operated by the Mastodon gGmbH non-profit

        Ok, so of these I can only rule out mstdn.jp, because I don’t speak Japanese.

        mastodon.social and mastodon.official are, I guess, the “official” instances, with one of them being newer, for some reason. What does that mean? No idea. Is mastodon.social running out dated software? If not, why fork the instances at all?

        mstdn.social and mastodon.world mention that they are general purpose. Without (and even with) Fediverse experience, I would expect any social media platform to be general purpose unless otherwise stated. So they basically have no description.

        mas.to mentions only that it’s “fast, up-to-date and fun”. That basically has no meaning, except all other instances are slow, outdated and boring. So now I am worried.

        mstdn.social says it has a 500 character limit. Without googleing a new user would have no idea what the regular character limits are. And I have no idea whether that will cause issues when interacting with other instances.

        This page is like getting to a used car dealership without a clue about cars and you ask the car dealer to help you choose a car, and the dealer is like “Yeah, so I’m gonna help you. The right car for you is any car on the property of the dealership.”

      • @[email protected]
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        71 year ago

        Yeah but, it sounds like you can read and retain information long enough to make decisions on your own.

        Most people can’t even grasp scrolling past the ads in a Google search. If they even get to Google in the first place.

    • stebo
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      111 year ago

      How is it difficult to find a server? Just pick whatever server you come across first and create an account.

      • Uvine_Umarylis
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        1 year ago

        You tell the average dude about how servers exist and the first instinct is that it matters, so they stop, fret about the importance, look for a second, then just drop it because they dont give enough hoots yet to invest more effort versus using a centralized service.

        Want ppl to join, don’t even tell them about servers. No choice paralysis, no fear of being wrong, nada

        • Square Singer
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          71 year ago

          I haven’t used Mastodon, but on Lemmy the instance you are on totally matters.

          For example, beehaw.org is pretty happy to defederate. It tries to give you a more moderated and curated environment. Feddit.de is slow, laggy and often outdated, and they just deactivated federation in general (at least they said so, to me federation seems to be still working) to avoid that session stealing vulnerability.

          In general, federation is pretty buggy right now, with federated posts/comments having a decent chance of not being replicated.

          So the choice of instance really does make a difference. But there is no help at all up front to choose the correct instance.

          And just hopping over to another instance is also not a great solution, since people are used to build their social media account. It’s not some anonymous throw-away thing.

          • stebo
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            31 year ago

            I the case of lemmy, i feel like it’s definitely some anonymous throw-away thing. We’re not here to build a follower base are we?

            • Square Singer
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              21 year ago

              Much less than on other platforms, that’s true, but after a while you do start recognizing usernames again.

              • stebo
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                41 year ago

                Sure there’s exceptions like SrGrafo on Reddit but most are here to lurk around or engage in random discussions

        • @[email protected]
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          01 year ago

          The average dude who can’t figure out how to sign up for an account on a website can go fuck off back to Facebook, where SOMEHOW they managed to create an account.

        • stebo
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          41 year ago

          you could also simply recommend them an instance

      • @[email protected]
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        61 year ago

        It looks like most people don’t have enough braincells to do such a simple task. Isn’t it just nice to live in a world like this?

        • @[email protected]
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          21 year ago

          At least this is one thing that’s not as bad as decades ago. Just remembering how computer illiterate most of the developed world used to be.

        • queermunist she/her
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          11 year ago

          Most people weren’t ever taught about this shit and had no reason to spend time learning about it on their own. Most of us are either professional or amateur nerds, figuring this out wasn’t really that hard because of our circumstances rather than our ~superior brains~

          They have just as many braincells as you, throw that attitude away.

    • @[email protected]
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      1 year ago

      I’ve been trying to hammer this point home.

      I wish devs would wake up and create a default easy mode sign-up for the fediverse with an option to click “advanced sign-up” if you choose to do so.

      The easy mode would just automatically assign an instance based upon some algorithm.

      • @[email protected]
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        31 year ago

        I wish the devs would wake up and create a default easy mode sign-up for creating a web site. The web will never catch on with all this complicated stuff.

        • @[email protected]
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          21 year ago

          Honestly I like the fact that there is some difficulty in the sign up. I think it brings a better quality of people to the Fediverse.

        • @[email protected]
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          181 year ago

          Well, like asking users what their preferences are and select the servers based on the criteria users have chosen?

          • Noodlez
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            91 year ago

            Hmm actually yeah this is a good idea, but the problem is that there’s so many servers that I feel that after choosing criteria there’d still be a bunch of servers in the list and the problem remains, right? Just bouncing ideas. I quite like this idea though.

            • Square Singer
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              61 year ago

              Then the algo recommends the one with the lowest load and hides the others behind a … icon or something.

              • Noodlez
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                31 year ago

                Mm this could be a problem because server load is too unpredictable. I would actually say just randomize the list, so that it kinda does its own “load balancing” by incentivizing to pick whatever random top one it selected?

                • Square Singer
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                  1 year ago

                  Yeah, whatever metric. Could also use a mix of number of users, some form of reputation measurement, uptime, etc.

                  I mostly meant that the system should pick a “best server” and recommend that. Smarter people than me can come up with the best metric.

                  But swamping the user with >100 servers to pick from is counterproductive.

    • @[email protected]
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      81 year ago

      Centralization is the core problem of social media though. It allows a single entity control over the data and as soon as you have that, you have Zuck.

      • queermunist she/her
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        31 year ago

        Centralization isn’t the problem, privatization is. If the single entity that controlled the data was democraticly controlled and not run for profitability it’d be the best of all worlds.

        • @[email protected]
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          1 year ago

          In 2023, there is very little democratically controlled anything left that has not been tainted by the ‘capitalist gains mindset’ - most democratic social programs that are far more fundamental than a social network have either been corrupted and impaired by corporate greed or have had enough legislative protections or funding sources cut out that they can no longer operate properly, allowing the argument for ‘privatisation’ - a one way ticket back to corporate greed. They operate at the whims of corporations and no longer serve the people.

          While I believe what you say is true, it’s not something we’re capable of in the current state of civilisation.

          • queermunist she/her
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            21 year ago

            Everything you said is true, democracy does not exist under the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie. I’m just saying, centralization isn’t the problem. Furthermore you can’t escape capitalism by decentralizing.

            • @[email protected]
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              21 year ago

              True, but it makes it possible to breakaway from an instance or leaders that are toxic/circumventing your privacy for profit without having to find a new tool or network. You can just hop to another instance.

              • queermunist she/her
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                -11 year ago

                It’s possible as long as competition exists, but every market trends towards monopolization. EEE is real.

    • @[email protected]
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      41 year ago

      I’ve seen people lose their shit over having to “sign up for another app” and honestly I don’t want people who have no respect for their data, privacy and have the personality of a wet cardboard right-wing conservative on the fediverse. That’s why Fb exists. We are here as users because we chose to, as other people chose what best suits them.