In 12 years, selfhosting will be so cheap and one-push-button easy that everyone will have their own instance and federated with each other. It will be called Neo-Geocities 2.0.
There is now Neocities.org so I’d say you’re spot on :)
So, like p2p clients?
I can believe that, honestly.
deleted by creator
Oh man, this takes me back…
Both Neocities and Yahoo! licking their lips over that name.
Related tech: https://small-tech.org/
I kind of feel like a single Lemmy instance will
domonatedominate and become the defacto instance that everyone just joins.I think that’s against the plan with Lemmy and distributed instances, but they can improve sign up, and make it possible to migrate your user between instances, or do some unique username across all instances.
A cool feature would also be that a user could backup all their posts and votes.
Since people post to channels that you can search for and subscribe to, there is no incentive for that to happen.
unless one just feeds you tons of ads and harvests user data. That’s one reason why Gab, which is a fork of Mastodon, was defederated from most of the 'verse before Gab just went ahead and turned federation off.
You could create a Lemmy instance that made it far less user friendly to connect to other communities, and “forced” other users to join its communities because ‘that’s where everyone is’. That’s one of the reasons why there is so much fuss over how to handle threads.net when/if they turn on federation.
Simple fix, just don’t join big instances, create new communities on small instances and self-host. If everybody does so, nobody has an interest into coercing users in a hermetic system, because they have far more to loose through possible defederation
I think a big help to avoid this is if any “official” apps automatically point to something like lemmyverse search or Fediverse Observer rather than Join Lemmy or any single instance.
Mastodon.socialwas already by far the largest before the only app named “mastodon” available in the major mobile repositories was built to automatically have you create an account on mastodon.social to “Make it easier for the normies”.The fact that I dont’ even know the name of any lead developers of #lemmy as opposed to /u/[email protected] is probably a good sign too.
The whole system is crap.
We should have gotten something that’s actually decentralised and P2P like Aether.
What we got was centralised servers + a glorified RSS feed that enables even more echo chambers than Reddit did… The fediverse is doomed to remain irrelevant imho
Then go to Aether. Nobody’s forcing you to stay here.
This is why you should never adopt Google services, there’s a high chance they will kill it off given their awful track record.
At least they let me turn my Stadia controller into a regular Bluetooth controller ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I bought Cyberpunk for Stadia and received a Chromecast Pro and a Stadia controller with it for free. I sold them both which covered the cost of Cyberpunk which later got refunded when Stadia went offline. So I actually made money by using Stadia.
Same reason I don’t get emotionally invested in Fox TV shows.
I’ll still grumble about Gifted getting cancelled for the next 80 years /sigh
I miss my Google music…
I think the biggest miss Google had was with Google Wave. It was way ahead of its time, and absolutely crashed and burned at launch because of the invite-only model.
I bought a Google OnHub router, which was amazing. It was marketed as the most “future-proof” router at the time. Then Google made Google WiFi mesh routers around a year later, and OnHub was never marketed or mentioned again. Now, in addition to my already concerning privacy issues around Google services, I don’t trust that they will release quality, supported products.
Chromecasts are pretty solid
It’s been a while since I’ve used a Chromecast, but they were always reliable.
I threw mine in the trash in less than a month, didn’t even bother trying to resell it and just wanted it gone. What a pile of fucking shit that thing was. I spent more time troubleshooting than watching.
I can’t say I had these problems back when I was using them, but that doesn’t mean much because mine are sitting in a box somewhere and worthless since most TVs and streaming players support it now.
I have a gen 1 Chromecast that I use almost daily, such a beast
I heard that Google is about to drop support of their older chromecasts. (You might want to look into this to confirm though)
I hope not!
I started reading your comment and thought “please be about Wave” haha. The funniest part about Wave is how they learned no lessons from it.
The invite-only model worked great for Gmail because it was an actual service with real utility and people wanted in (1GB storage was huuuuge). But with social networks, the courting ritual is reversed, because without a critical mass of users the product has no utility.
So what do they do with G+? Invite only 🤦♂️
And by then they had something like half the world running Android, with Google accounts… and didn’t just let them in. Youtube should have been a simple “if you want to check out G+, your Youtube account will get you in, otherwise carry on.” Instead they make it invite only and then bully youtubers into registering.
It’s just mind-boggling how little they understood about social networks after building such a wonderful piece of software for it.
I don’t really get what the hate was for Google+, it was better than the alternative/competitor at the time (Facebook)
Poorly supported, forced integration with other google services, facebook was good enough TM for most.
The concept of who you chose to share your status was cumbersome. It at least not auntie or uncle friendly
I don’t remember what it was called? Spaces?
I don’t remember what it was called? Spaces?
Circles. It was a killer feature at the time, the idea of different feeds for different groups, all in one profile. Too bad there weren’t enough groups to make it useful.
Being able to share certain posts with everyone (including your parents/grandparents) vs just your friends vs your work colleagues was a brilliant feature that seems to have just been substituted with private group chats instead. Seriously when I was a teenager the amount of stuff I thought about posting but didn’t because it would appear for everyone…
I agree, and the level of user on G+ was of a techy IT variety of person. It was great and you could have good conversations. Lemmy really has that feel now. Enjoy it till either the general public gets hold of it and it turns into a cesspool or it slowly dies a death.
Personally I hope to face neither of those scenarios, but history is not on our side.
It was good but it didn’t really add enough or solve an actual problem. At the time, there wasn’t as much negative sentiment around Facebook. The circles were a neat concept but too much work to use for the average user.
It’s strange to note that if Google had just casually worked on the feature, started gradually integrating it with YouTube etc, they might have beat insta to the punch and also really capitalized on Facebook hate. Instead they made one massive marketing blunder after another.
Google mismanaged the shit out of it, which is a shame, because it really was a good platform.
I liked it a lot, honestly. Was a very cool community and Google’s app for it was awesome. The web interface was great too.
Google+ forced itself on people. I didn’t want it so I stopped using my Gmail entirely. I imagine word of mouth caused people to avoid it.
And the ridiculous part on top of that is that it was the exact opposite situation at first. When it first launched, you had to be a friend of a friend of a Google employee to register or you weren’t getting in. It took me a about a month before a friend of mine studying CompSci at university with the kid of some Google employee was able to pass an invitation my way.
I get the purpose was to generate hype by making it seem “exclusive” like Facebook was in the early days, but it took way too long before the people who genuinely wanted to use it were allowed to openly register for it. It was like that for 3 months, and a lot of people who gave up on trying to get an invite lost interest after the initial buzz died down.
And then Google wasn’t satisfied with upsetting the people that wanted to use it, so they had to go and upset the people who didn’t want to use it by later forcing it on everyone with a Google account.
It’s kind of funny, isn’t this exactly what Meta is doing to everyone with an Instagram account? You have a shadow profile on Threads regardless if you signed up or not.
I wonder why the reaction is so different, maybe because they both are social media? Or maybe just good timing with the whole Twitter debaucle.
I think there is still concern. When Threads launched, the media was full of articles outlining commonly-stated concerns about privacy and the involuntary connection between Instagram and Threads.
The problem is that zoomers who are flocking to it in droves don’t seem to care about any of that. And I don’t think it’s due to ignorance, but probably more like generational defeatism.
Yes, there has for shure been a shift in the culture. Privacy doesn’t seem to be that big of a concern for most.
I’m not so sure it’s just the zoomers that are to blame, plenty of older people don’t seem to care either. But I do feel for the younger generation, having never known the freedom and joys of the pre-corporate internet. Then again, maybe ignorance is bliss after all.
Yea I was annoyed that they were making me sign up for google+ for my youtube account so I never tried it I just set it up so I could keep using youtube.
I still miss Google plus so much… It had the most intelligent groups of people I’ve ever experienced on social media both then, and now.
and from what i remember, staying true to typical google fashion, they fucked it up by not opening up the “beta” when they had a critical mass forming behind it. then only to force everyone into having a profile a year or whatever later. lol, too late. i think most of us understood that anything associated with google is assumed to be a never-ending “beta”, so no idea what they were thinking or waiting for.
I think it was definitely the super long beta period where you needed an invite killed it. I knew a ton of people who were interested that gave up
That’s easy to say now, but Orkut (another Google social network, mostly used in Brazil) also had a beta invite system… And that helped it grow tremendously. The secrecy and “status” of getting invited made people go wild - they would even sell invites.
The strategy can work. It’s just very timing sensitive.
I’m not sure if I’m mis-remembering, but I believe my first Gmail account was by invitation. It was pretty much just an email account back then
Correct, I got my account invite from The Screensavers show with Kevin Rose. They were giving them out randomly to viewers.
Orkut was young when Facebook access was still restricted to college kids only. Google+ was dumb. You’d get and then it was just tumble weeds.
Reminds me of Bluesky which is also in a permanent beta.
It was invite only for too long, and then, suddenly, it was required for everything Google.
It was definitely much better than Facebook at the time. Especially the concept of circles that they implemented.
Google wasn’t comfortable in letting it grow naturally over time. They tried really hard to push on people by combining it with other more popular google products when it didn’t really make sense (i.e. Youtube). Also, as a teen at the time google plus just felt nerdy and weird. It didn’t really feel like something they cool kids would use so no one used it.
For a while, Google bonuses were tied to social integration. That’s why you saw the huge influx of insanity.
Yeah that’s how I felt too. I remember being excited about g+, then I also remember aggressively turning off any association to g+ because no one was on it and it kept pushing it in my face. Come to think of it gmail was similar, invite only and that, but it wasn’t forced even at release and they made it look a lot nicer than what yahoo and hotmail had going on at the time.
I’m not sure, but i’m keen to find out!
Lets see what it will be!
I honestly hope lemmy will not die. It will have to become simpler though. For many people, it will be simply way too complicated to wrap their head around the fact of many instances and most of them will worry about not being able to interact with people from other instances.
Also, the main lemmy web app is not necessarily good and alternatives such as wefwef are far easier to use.
deleted by creator
We just need to be better about simplifying the explanation. Don’t tell people “it’s a federated website using an activitypub backend to communicate like mastodon, but only links to federated lemmys not including mastodon instances…” Tell them “it’s a fourm that shares posts and comments with other fourms that agree to work together”. If they want more detail they can easily find it themselves.
I feel like the explanation using email as an example works pretty well. Most people understand how different emails from different providers can communicate, but their account is hosted on one platform.
Even better is to talk about phone carriers, because people seem to know those better than emails these days. “Just because your phone is using Carrier A doesn’t mean you can’t call your friends on Carriers B and C”
Federation is the invisible glue that makes it all work… I have my own server but i can talk to you on lemmy.world without having to think about it or do anything special. Most people joining in the future won’t need to care federation even exists, just like they don’t care SMTP exists.
That said I suspect there will be a few mega servers anyway… just like gmail… people seem to like being where everyone else is.
Just took a quick peak at wefwef.
You consider that easier?
Significantly. If you are used to the UI it is a very fast experience. The learning curve can be a bit sharp unfortunately.
Google+ didn’t work because they didn’t push it hard enough and they made it an invite only beta instead of just allowing everyone to join.
Yes - I’m being serious they didn’t push it hard enough. If you had a Gmail or YouTube account it should have just instantly become a Google+ account in some sort of private mode so it doesn’t inadvertently leak your info.
If they would have just pushed it out to everyone, day one, mandatory, no opt out, then we’d still have Google+ today.
Like if they made Google Talk the default messaging client on Android we’d still have Google Talk. I don’t recall Apple making iMessage an optional messaging app you don’t have to use.
They started out like that, but then they tried to force it down everybody’s throats and it backfired. It was mismanaged from start to finish, which is a shame because it really was good despite Vic Gundotra.
Eh, the whole reason I refused to use it WAS because they forced it on me so hard. Being forced into having one of you wanted to watch YouTube did my head in and I refused to use it. Same reason I don’t use Microsoft edge even though it’s a little less shit now
If they would have just pushed it out to everyone, day one, mandatory, no opt out, then we’d still have Google+ today.
Is this comment for real, or sarcasm? Did the upvoters forget about Google Buzz already?
That’s what they did with Google Buzz, and that was even less popular than G+ every was.
Absolute truth. I was onboard with G+ early. I handed out invites to everyone I could. I pushed my spouse to use it. Ultimately what killed it was it being invite-only, and mainly only tech enthusiasts were on the site initially. When other people got invited by them, and the newer users didn’t see their friends and family on the site, they just left and never revisited it. That was my experience anyways. The model Threads used will be the model that all large social media sites use to roll out new social media products, it just makes the most sense.
I don’t recall Apple making iMessage an optional messaging app you don’t have to use.
But… it is optional. Opt-out, sure, but optional nonetheless. I have disabled it on my work phone.
As far as I’m concerned, barely anyone uses iMessage outside US. If it weren’t for the US market, it would have been discontinued long ago.
To be fair, most Americans don’t know anything exists outside of America.
Nah dude, there’s no way that would have worked, the reason why g + backfired was literally because everyone on yt was forced to make a g account to just comment.
I think you misunderstand what they’re saying. You shouldn’t have had to make an account. G+ should’ve just been a part of your existing Google account.
I hope not 😢
I checked it out because I got early access but then never used it because nobody else was using it 🤷🏻♂️
If Reddit can make it for 12+ years, I’m sure Lemmy can too!
That’s what I’m thinking! As long as we can build our own positive reputation, I’m sure we’ll make it!
I just get never get any of my friends to use Google +. It was just me and a few of my tech nerd friends.
Any hype it had was killed by the gated access that required invites. Plus, Facebook didn’t have your racist uncle on it yet. It was still fun.
Sorry, I’m in the minority that actually liked Google+.
What did you like about it? It was basic af from what I remember. It was a FB clone, at best.
One of its plus points (no pun intended) was that it was the first social media platform to allow more granular control over who saw your posts. You could people to ‘circles’ and limit posts to which ever circles of friends you selected (if I’m remembering this correctly).
I think at that time on Facebook, you only had the option of Public, Friends or Private. It spurred Facebook on to introduce more granular control as well. So if nothing else, Google+ was good for that.
I don’t really know what is the problem with google+ except they are born in the wrong time where Facebook are still on the rise, instagram is new and trendy and Zuckerberg is not dreaming on metaverse
One of the things that probably killed it was Google enforcing people to use their real names on there. Which of course affected also commenting on YouTube as well.
I quite liked Google+ overall. Would have been good to have a proper competitor to Facebook.
I never had my real name on it. Someone said it was based on the real name field of your email address, but I also never had my real name in that.
Sometimes when I leave google reviews, the business owner will respond and be like “Thanks for the 5 star review, Firstname!”
Ive been using Firstname Lastname since I was born, which was 01/01/1900.
Are you my neighbor by any chance? I live at 123 Main Street, Anytown 45678
Nah, I live across the way, at 123 Streets Rd, Cityville. Nice place.
removed by mod
I enjoyed it as well. It was pretty cool. Then I became busy with other stuff and one day I heard the news that G+ would be shut down.
If only you stayed active on it, Google wouldn’t have shut it down.
Kidding lol. I used it too, it was pretty sweet. It felt like a mix of Twitter and Tumblr.
It was a pretty cool platform but their biggest problem was making it invite only, therefore forcing it to be smaller than competing platforms. Invite only may work for Gmail but not for social media.
Circles were a good idea
I thought circles was the best idea. I loved having a bit more control over posts. Unfortunately, only two of my friends used it, so it was worthless for me for the most part.
Circles prevented over sharing with the wrong people, which is the entire business model of social media.
I also enjoyed Google+. I liked the app and the interface. The content was pretty good for a bit.
I’m still wishing the internet could go back to how it was in the 90’s so I’m hoping it will continue to look the same in 12 years.
deleted by creator
Wow what a massive improvement.
So basically it’s the same exact thing as if Reddit became fully open source.
Truly revolutionary
True! I love that idea.
Hopefully more content and more simplicity. I haven’t experienced much of either yet. There’s tons of threads about how great Lenny is but I’m just not seeing it yet ¯\(ツ)/¯
The trick is to start posting interesting content. We all have to do our part for this to take off.
Easier said than done. People make content. We need quality people, not quality content. It doesn’t have to be a race to the bottom.
