Fediverse

Older than 30 nope, tech enthusiast yes, Linux user sort of, because my self-hosting servers run Linux but my personal daily driver is Windows. Windows native art programs have a lot of responsiveness problems and other random issues when running on Linux, and it's annoying to have to boot up a separate OS to use specific programs.

Taking the extremely tech-unsavvy fanartist community as a reference, it's not that federation and choosing a server is that difficult, that's just a lame excuse. Their usual social media platforms do UI redesigns, A/B testing and introduce weird limitations all the time. They just learn to cope with it.

People who don't care about tech don't think about the websites they use at all. In their minds, websites are just omnipresent things that exist naturally, like the sun. They only care about whether the website is able to connect them to their friends and showcase their posts to other people. They will only pay attention to the website if it introduces a change that affects their daily usage of it negatively, just like how people don't consciously think about the sun unless it inconveniences them.

Speaking as a 23 year old windows user (though one that want to move to Linux eventually), the only one of those that I am is a tech enthusiast. From what I've hear Reddit started the same way, tech enthusiasts built it up and then everyone else noticed how good it was getting and moved in.

I (37M) am a broadcast TV tech director so I guess that puts me in the "techbro" world, however, I wouldn't consider myself an "early adopter." I'd say really I'm just tired of corporate social media and all the algorithms and BS. And I'm not alone.

Why am I on Mastodon and Lemmy:

I was looking for something genuinely different, something human focused, something better. Hopefully the Fediverse can be that and hold the line against the likes of Meta. I've gotten four people in my close friends circle to give Fedi a try on three different platforms, all within the last two weeks.

My solution here:

We can't expect hobbyist server hosts, pro bono web devs, and volunteer modmins to pay to advertise this place. Memories of the marketing classes I was forced to take in college are screaming at me right now that what we need to do is begin an honest to goodness word-of-mouth campaign for the whole of the Fediverse... and by that I don't mean "posting aggressively" about it on Facebook, Reddit, Threads, TikTok, Tumblr, Twitter, BlueSky, etc, etc.

Scary as it may be to some of us "techbros," we need to go touch some grass and actually talk to people in the real world. "Word of mouth" means face to face, in person, and it's possibly the most powerful advertising tool ever devised. I'd genuinely advise taking a cue from fundy Christians... evangelize... talk to your friends, your family, your co-workers about what you like about the Fediverse and what they might like. Listen to their problems with Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, Tumblr, TikTok, etc... offer a possible solution that they could give a try. Obviously, don't be pushy or a dick but also, if they do take the leap, help them get settled. Help them find a platform they'd like and how to find the communities and users with whom they'd like to interact.

Perhaps there are some onerous barriers to entry to places like this, but there are loads of people out there genuinely looking for better online communities and just better social media in general. This place -it's various platforms and numerous instances- can be that for a load of people, but they won't know about it unless we tell them.

You just described me perfectly.

I feel like the people who are really upto speed, read between the lines, know their shit, and know what the best shit it.

Generally the people on here take their time, do their research, and invest in some quality product.

I was a Windows user up until last summer, a daily Reddit user since 2011, I was born in 1991, always been somewhat of a computer geek growing up.

In life I work as a barista/manager in a cafe, I set up the whole POS, trained staff, I do latte art.

Outside of work I organize public boardgame groups and movies in the park using a projecto, connected to a steamdeck, connected to a harddrive with 1800 movies.

The second Reddit hit the fan, I came here.

When I go to the bar, I make friends easy, I talk people's ears off about geeky stuff. I eat mushroom chocolates a few times a week that I made my self, mushrooms give me insight and revelations.

I am the only person I know in person who has a steamdeck, no one I talk to is familiar with Linux, and few people are familiar with the fediverse and what's happened to Reddit.

It's odd feeling like the odd one out, but I am happy to have these forums to connect to other odd ones out.

Absolutely It's really nice how this affects the tech related serious communities but damn is it heartbreaking how bad the memes here are

It is obviously. Just look at what Lemmy and Mastadon are. The whole concept of the fediverse is trying to get back to old school, smaller and less controlled services like message boards, IRC, etc.

Most younger, less tech savvy people don’t care about those principles. They just want a cool place with a bunch of people.

Hopefully the balance will shift a little bit to get more diversity and more users in general. In the last few days, stability issues and lack of content have lowered my engagement. It’s early days still though, so hopefully the people developing and hosting these sites keep plugging away and more people come to make it worthwhile.

I don't mind a monoculture if it keeps morons away, that's a price worth paying. The reason I started using Reddit in 2009 was to escape the comment section of YouTube. Erik from Internet Comment Etiquette has been doing sterling work educating the Mongol Hoardes but they're still not ready.

Its the BBS era come again.

I am younger than that demographic and not the most techy person, so maybe not exclusively. But yes, in my experience with Lemmy and Mastodon that is the trend.

Only 1 for 3 there myself, but I get the point.

One thing I have noticed is a big chunk of the memes posted earlier in June were very dated, ~2010-era Facebook style. Made me wonder if the crowd on here didn't at least initially skew older.

My take today after observing for some weeks, is that Lemmy fills all MY needs. Reddit will probably not die. Threads seems to be a hit.

I just don’t care enough. Yeah, I wish everyone stopped using Reddit and Meta apps, but Lemmy is certainly not ready for 500 million new users right now anyway, and if they were, moderation would just be hell again.

I haven’t used Reddit since Apollo shut down unless it’s the only place still I can get in touch with some business, and I’ve blocked Threads on my network and devices.

I’m very happy with this. It would be nice if some cool, open source, free, tolerant and loving network would pop up to save 14-18 year olds and our next generation from manipulative commercial SoMe, but honestly Lemmy would probably never be that.

My only concern currently is that lemmy.world want to allow Threads for the time being while I see absolutely nothing to be gained from that.

Ehhh... might be better that way. Dont whant to act like a gate keeper, but if you are refering to normies, then it better this way, since normie activity usually is politically oriented, and not in a civiliced dialogue oriented manner, specially US politics, and usually on major non isues that i rather not get into since i dont whant to sumon them, and with normie activity comes the political bots that just make the noise louder. Its the main reason that r/whitepeopletwitter never leaves the top 10 of r/all back at reddit and why twitter and facebook are full of extremist viewpoints. Now if you are reffering to other academic/profecional comunities like the historians, medics or phisicyts, then thats because they usually stay on the larger online platforms or standard publishing because they are not on the mindset of being anti-stablishment, rebelious or cyberpunk HACK THE WORLD kind of thing since their comunities are better stablished and they really have no reason to be in on some obscure platform thats really just the second best choise to reddit thats mostly used by ex redditors. Now that might change due to meta sticking their noses up in here or hopefully due to the growing comunities in the fediverse. Although with the beef some of the instances have with each other that might definetly make it harder to sell on other people outside of the alreaddy interested.

30yr+, tech enthusiast, linux user... these are all the same thing XD

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.

This is the big downside to the Reddit implosion. I liked that Reddit had finally attracted normal people. If I want to know what a 30 year old dweeby white guy thinks about stuff, I’ll ask myself.

It takes a while for stuff like this to catch on outside of this specific demographic.

People who don’t care as much about tech aren’t going to bother to figure out the fediverse right now. It’s way too confusing, but Instagram/twitter/threads/reddit is right there.

Once a few apps get going on iOS and Android, and once it becomes way easier to join a server, then we’ll see normal people start trickling in.

Saw a couple polls over on Mastodon about just this thing and it was very much skewed to people 35+. It's no a platform the youths are on, but that can change as the fediverse gets some traction and works on that on-boarding experience.

43 here. IT consultant. Have been on every social media platform since Myspace all the way back to Usenet if you want to consider that social media which is what is basically was. On the major platforms these days, I mostly lurk and DM with fam and friends along with small Discord groups. Since joining the fediverse, and more specifically Lemmy, I've been much more active commenting and posting then I've been in years. I actively encourage friends and fam to join, but the fact is the fediverse is young and isn't as user friendly. It has to reach a critical mass of ease of use and user adoption which is what's being driven up right now like all other platforms before it. The more people join, the more it will be streamlined, feeding back to usability so more people discover and join, etc. etc. This is how all platforms evolved except in the case of the fediverse, it isn't controlled by a single entity which has its pluses and minuses. I don't expect MetaThreadBook, Reddit, Twitter, et al to go anywhere anytime soon, but diversification and competition is always good. If we can reach critical mass with the fediverse, it will provide a good check against these monopolistic entities and hopefully result in better overall communities and interactions.

More demographics will come, it takes time. That and people who are willing to break from the habits of flocking to the next big corporation built social media network for something smaller, but more meaningful.

Hasnt internet started like that?

Younger people may be more affected by social pressure, to be on the already popular apps.