1. Stop calling it “the fediverse”

So I have been on Mastodon and Threads for quite awhile. I’m on BlueSky now too. Threads is the most enjoyable of the three by far. I don’t see how marketing has to do with it in any way, but after spending some time on each, I prefer Threads. It’s the only one that I’ve found content I wanted to engage with.

With Mastodon, I feel like I still can’t get started. I’m not sure what to do.

Create a nice atmosphere.

Make it simple and remove any technical barriers. They should be able to google “Fediverse” click on the first link. Choose a username and be on their way. Find the app with the same name and install it in 2 minutes.

The network effect is a thing. They need to already find lots of their friends, interesting people and their favorite stars there.

And it has to be easy to discover them, if we don’t have an “algorithm” that suggests content.

1. Fix picking an instance. It’s an irredeemably bad UX, even for tech people who could run an instance if they wanted to. Gotta remove that as an initial UX barrier first, which would require a new layer of system with integration with all of the clients.
2. Accept that this isn’t like mainstream social media and likely never will be, even if instance picking becomes easier for newcomers. So instead focus on what can be done well here. IMO it’s customisable community building.

Currently all the big fediverse platforms kinda suck at this, in part because it likely requires a bunch of features, but also because they’re all made in imitation of big social platforms that were always less “homely” and more engagement farms.

To bring normies, something new and unique needs to be offered. IMO there could be a rich ecosystem of content and structures and communities that draws people in.

My fear is that the protocol and federation are the limiting factors on this, and so I suspect some restructuring or redesign is necessary.

People have suggested making a portal/quiz for instance signups, but that adds to the barrier. There are also problems like how in-depth and inclusive it should be. It reminds me of Linux distro pickers that often suggest weird niche distros.

There are already big/default instances in the Fediverse though but there are people who actively discourage this. Maybe Mastodon just had a bad start and Bluesky learned from that. I wonder if Bluesky’s PDS will be like Fediverse instances though. Many Fediverse instances are built around shared interests but the PDS just looks like a glorified handle.

Personally, I think the Fediverse discourse should shift to designing social media with decentralization in mind rather than mimicking mainstream social media with a “decentralized twist”. I don’t think the Fediverse will ever be as big as Twitter, but it doesn’t have to be. It just needs to be sustainable enough to keep new conversations going.

Doesn’t answer the question but maybe it’s worth sharing anyway.

I send people links to posts on Lemmy, and tell people I can’t see Instagram/Twitter/etc.

Is it working? No, not really, but it feels like it should.

At the moment federation between platforms is not useful. The only advantage is federation between Instances. I’ve used my sister at a test for what the average woman would think about it.

Aspects she thinks is cool are that it’s owned by people and designed for people, that its left leaning and inclusive.

Aspects she doesn’t care about are privacy, lack of ads, federation between instances, federation between platforms.

Aspects she doesn’t like are her friends aren’t there, none of the accounts she like are there, no recommendation algorithm. She also hates the name fediverse.

I think that we need to stop being boomers clutching our chronological feed and word of mouth discovery and embrace algorithms. That’s not to say we can have chronological feeds it’s just that we should include and option and serve some form of content recommendations.

I also think threads will be a major player in drawing people in. Its easier to convince people who use Instagram to switch from Twitter to threads than Twitter to Mastodon. Once they’re on threads they can start being a part of the fediverse and then eventually they might decide to try out one of the instances.

The Fediverse needs a hell of a lot of work before we can even consider mass adoption.

With better design and better branding. These poorly illustrated mouse lookin icons are not helping us in any way.

Why do we want to? They’ll just lower the overall quality and bring on the enshitification.

Tell friends and family to get accounts on federated services you use. Word of mouth is how lots of websites get popular.

Recommend it when reddit comes up or gets mentioned.

I think picking an instance is just something people will have to learn and get used to as that’s very essential to the fediverse experience.

I personally hate algorithms picking shit for me and that’s why I use lemmy and why I used reddit back when it first came out. I search out and pick what content I see on my feed.

I definitely agree with more marketing. It’s insane to think there’s a lot of people that still use reddit and never even heard of lemmy

Defeatist opinion.

The commercial alternatives hope to make money with every additional user. They use AB testing and statistics to streamline the on-boarding and to increase engagement. The result may not be in the user’s interest (doom-scrolling, ragebait, …) but it works.

For a fediverse instance, any additional user is a cost, not the promise of money. Financially, you wouldn’t want that. Those who fund instances are giving a gift to the world for their own reasons. You can accept the gift or not. Those who keep instances running with donations will usually want to sustain the community of which they are part. They probably don’t want it to change very much.

So, I don’t think matters will change. Partly because the psychological engineering is antithetical to the fediverse ethos (as I see it, in my humble opinion). But mostly because the outcome we see is an inherent result of the incentive structure.

Tell the people calling for nuking half the planet to stop it, enforce it.

Boom. You just eliminated 80% of the hostility on the platform.

Porn?