Here’s the thing.
looks around
Hmmmm, yeah. That’s what I thought. Everyone here is the wrong audience to really comment on this.
The reason peoples opinion here doesn’t matter much is because like it or not, Lemmy is a hive mindset.
Don’t like linux? Booooooo
Don’t care about open source? Boooooo
Don’t engage in antisocial behavior? Boooooo
And thats the audience here. It’s impossible for you to comment on the mental state of the general broad population when this site seemingly collects an audience that goes out of their way to stay away from the broad general population. How could you possibly relate to someone like my brother in law, who uses Windows 11, without issue? I asked him how he can stsnd all the AI, and the spying. I was expecting an actual answer, and maybe some insight as to how to not make Windows 11 the dumpster fire that it is. Instead, he defends Windows 11 with blind faith ignorance. Insisting that there is no spying in Windows 11, and the AI is actually a good thing.
And I watched as an entire room nodded along in understanding. All agreeing with these points. I realized in that moment that there is zero conversation to be had with these people. I know for fact that Windows 11 spies on you. I know for fact that there is AI in Windows 11. It’s easy to see that if left at its current rate, that AI and data centers that support AI will inevitably lead to mass water shortages.
And I’m confident that these words would land harder here on Lemmy, where I think 99% of you understand the gravity and real nature of what I’m saying.
The problem is, 99% of Lemmy’s typical userbase accounts for 0.01% of the general population. This website is a bubble. Which is a shame, because I fully believe the model for Lemmys infrastructure is the cure for the problems that the general population complain about.
But it’ll never be tested at scale. Most people do not give a fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck about privacy, or open source, or decentralization. Facebook knows my phone number, and has photos of me. Against my consent. And my mom who’s in her 80s, who uses facebook to keep in touch with her sewing community, sees nothing wrong here.
Thats why the people here, who only support mastodon, will never understand why that stratagy won’t work for the masses. And honestly, even if it did, then it wouldn’t work for you.
Because twitter has something like 375 million users. When taylor swift wants to promote something, she does it on twitter. Because it’s where the people are. It’s also a right wing agenda platform, owned by a literal seig hailing nazi, but yet its still the default service regardless if you’re left or right. It’s just where the people are.
Here is what you have done. You saw an ocean. You took note of all the problems fish have in the ocean. You then designed a new concept where fish can swim in a tiny little manufactured pond. But if it gets too small, it can be scaled bigger. You removed the threats of being eaten. You’ve removed the fishing boats. You managed the algae. You planted seaweed so they have food. You installed everything a fish needs to have a happier healthier life from your perspective.
Except there’s no water in this pond. The fediverse concentrates so hard on the advanced features that would make for a great experience…and then forgets the basics that are needed to support life here. Social media only survives when it has an audience, just as fish only survive when they have water.
All the advanced stuff that goes unused in the fediverse means nothing without an audience. Basically if bluesky dies, the users go back to twitter.
You complain that mastodon is better. But bluesky only got popular because the general population didn’t want twitter with nazis. They wanted old twitter. Bluesky is old twitter without the nazis. Thats all they wanted. But it’s only got a tiny fraction of the audience twitter has. So again, taylor swift says her things on twitter. Not bluesky. Not enough people on bluesky to be considered the default. Just like the fediverse can’t keep fish surviving without water, the same is true on bluesky.
The order it goes is that celebrities need to say things to hold an audience. Before the internet, that platform was tv/radio. There were also a lot less celebrities. Because tv/radio just didn’t have a need to create more celebrities. But now, a celebrity can either get their message across to 375 million, or 14 million.
Celebrities go where there is an infrastructure that can handle their fame, and the audience goes where the celebrities go. Below that are us. We’re not the 14 million. Lemmy has 60k and shrinking. But for us the order goes “infrastructure THEN audience”. Which is never going to pull in a huge audience. It can support a large audience. Argueably better. But it’ll never be tested.
You make some good points, but you’re making the same mistake you’re accusing your audience of making: you don’t understand why people are on the platform they are on.
I can’t speak for everyone, so I’ll just speak for myself: I’m not on Lemmy and Mastodon because I want them to become the next Facebook–even if it were some kind of libre utopia free of commercial interests.
I’m here because these weirdos are my weirdos and they like the same weird things I like. It’s a small enough sandbox that I can still recognize people here and there. These people have similar interests to me, and they post long, insightful rants about stuff that my family and other friends would not care about. The network effect is working in my favor.
The fediverse community feels more like home to me than the big social platforms. This feels more like it’s my community. If Lemmy gets as big as Reddit, I’ll probably go somewhere else.
I don’t use Linux because I want it to dominate the world. I don’t care if others use Linux or not. I use Linux because my computer finally feels like it’s mine again. I do what I want with it and I don’t have to worry about AI running or spying happening on it without my knowledge. As a bonus, it runs smoother.
The tradeoff is there are a few rough edges, and I have to learn some new things. But I enjoy learning. Lots of people don’t enjoy having to learn new things to just veg out with IG or YouTube. I get that. So, then don’t. Veg out with Windows, if that’s your thing. We can all do our own thing at the same time.
Choice is a good thing. Small communites are good. Decentralized is good because then big bullies can’t come in and take your community away. Small size and fragmentation are features, not bugs.
If Taylor Swift wants to set up her own Mastodon instance, she can. If she wants to cross-post between that and X, she can. I won’t be seeking out her content and it will be trivial for me to stay in my bubble without Taylor algorithmically popping up inside of it like she is on IG, FB, and X.
Choice is a good thing. Small communites are good. Decentralized is good because then big bullies can’t come in and take your community away. Small size and fragmentation are features, not bugs.
Would be nice if the Fediverse had more of that.
There are three or four different “Technology” communities. But there might as well just be one, it’s the same bubble in each of them.
The brutal truth of social networks: people don’t stay for protocols, decentralization, or good intentions. They stay because everyone else is there. Building better infrastructure is impressive. Building a habit people refuse to leave is harder.
Everyone I know who’s tried it tells me that big corporate brands and their slop / astroturfed content is why Bluesky is less enjoyable. Haven’t myself, as I’m perfectly content on Mastodon and Lemmy, so I understand that’s anecdotal.
I use Bluesky all the time, and I barely ever see corporate brand stuff.
My actual gripe about Bluesky is that somehow they haven’t dropped an iPad app after four years. Or at the very least fixed issues with their iPhone app while using an iPad.
bsky is just another VC-funded corpo platform. The initial wave of Libs who moved over gave it some gas, but ultimately, it’s just another toxic, bland platform like all the others.
I have found Bluesky to be less toxic than Twitter, but that’s not exactly a huge improvement.
I remember that on Twitter, if somebody decided to reply to you and to be a jerk, not only would you get a notification of that reply, you would get a notification if people liked that reply. Bluesky by default allows you to only view the feeds of people you follow or are mutuals with. These are all good things.
But since there is VC funding, and because they are looking for ways to expand, at any moment that rug can basically be pulled out from under people’s feet. It’s technically decentralized, but in practice, it’s probably 90%+ controlled by one company.
Mastodon is the same, its a cesspit. Its the microblogging format that attracts the worst people and fosters the worst interactions.
I tend to agree. I simply don’t like the short form content. I never did. When twitter launched, I didn’t understand it, and I still don’t. It doesn’t facilitate conversation whatsoever. It’s just shitposting and one-liners and toxicity. We really lost something special when we moved from forums to shorter and shorter content platforms.
Bluesky is pretty weird in its own way. It’s full of really irritating leftist politics plus a lot of unsolicited porn.
Nothing happens in Mastodon.
Twitter seems to be the only place that has anything going on in that style of social media.
There is a considerable number of users that stopped using Bluesky because of the Age Verification. I think that is playing a significant issue, along with corporate accounts being few and far between compared to Twitter. I really liked how it was set up vs my Mastodon and Twitter account I keep for contests and giveaways. It is a shame they had to go fascist like that.
Did those users not hear they can dodge Age Verification by using a different Bluesky compatible app?..
Bluesky are transphobic and Islamophobic “centrist” twats, but the protocol they’ve developed is kinda decentralized and so can be used against their wishes… there’s even one app where you can keep posting even if bsky.social or whatever your home instance is marked you as “banned”… lol.
Oh, I can post anywhere. I’m in my 50’s, and I know that alt clients can get around it, but that doesn’t change the fact that the service itself chose to “Papers Please” RLID its users when there wasn’t even political pressure to do it at the time in most of the places it operates. If it had changed to be trans and islamiaphobes then I am glad to be off there.
If it had changed to be trans and islamiaphobes
It hasn’t. Or the block lists I’m using are fucking amazing.
From what I gather, the admins could be stepping in more like they do on Lemmy for hateful behaviors/users. If BlueSky were more federated like Lemmy, I think they would have been defederated by now for not taking direct action.
The block lists themselves work great imo and should be used universally on the Fediverse, but people do have understandable gripes with admins there for not stepping in more and are instead differing moderation to the user level tools in place.