noodlejetskiso, which Big Tech company do you think is going to shit the bed next and popularize its Fediverse/FOSS equivalent in the process?
I'm personally crossing my fingers for Discord.
EcholotDiscord is not a bad bet, but I think they still have like 2-4years in them.
Milanbut that i think would rather make matrix servers go boom ... literally i am afraid when i look at the various bugs and performance bottlenecks of synapse, which at least right now is the most popular server
Absolutely, I tried switching to it using bridges for all my messaging accounts and the performance was abhorrent, mind you just me, a single user on a self hosted instance.
NankeruThere isn't much left.
First Facebook with their whole meta thing, then Imgur deleting all NSFW content and images uploaded by non-registered members, afterwards Twitter and now Reddit.
Twitch made a big mistake with their new sponsoring rules, but seems like they are reverting / changing it again due to bad community feedback.
Discord had a few changes the community didn't like, but nothing ground breaking yet. But they get more and more greedy and their platform is filled with scams, hackers, bots and sadly many bad people like child predators and content which Discord support does nothing against. They seem not to care.
YouTube, well, I think they might be next actually. More and more ads, restricting or demonetizing many videos, bad communication with their creators and less rewards for smaller creators. In addition, they might put high quality resolutions behind their already existing expensive subscription paywall. There isn't any competition which is urgently needed.
Which other big social media platforms are left?
Tiktok, Snapchat, OnlyFans
Signal would actually be a decent Snapchat replacement since it can do both disappearing messages and stories. now if only they'd finally release usernames and phone number privacy.
makingStuffForFunTiktok is Chinese military funded. It's not going away.
Even though Tiktok isn't a one-to-one equivalent of youtube, I wouldn't be surprised to see a closer youtube equivalent come out of China, Russia, or even North Korea (the people are poor because the country puts all its wealth in the military, and it already has extensive foreign espionage and media manipulation arms - if it wanted to, it could pour a lot into controlling a major video platform to get ahold off all that data).
In a more hopeful world, maybe a different small country might invest in it on a governmental level, similarly.
Saudi Arabia is already heavily investing in the gaming industry, in an attempt to diversify their economic reliance away from just their oil.
Qatar already has a lot invested in, and profit from, aljazeera (state-owned news) poking at all its neighbors human rights abuses, too.
Saudi Arabia - or another, unexpected country - could absolutely do the same with English-language social media, especially given the current lack of competition for youtube. Government funding could scale that barrier and snag a source of income and an espionage advantage for the host country.
Especially since Saudi Arabia, though rife with human rights abuses, is allied with the U.S. and thus less likely to become the target of a "ban tiktok specifically" push.
(sidenote: the "ban tiktok" bills would ban a lot more than tiktok, including VPNs - that subject's a whole can of worms too).
The problem with anything video is still that it costs way too much to host, unless you're a giant who already has their own data centers and massive data pipes. You can't just throw it on a cheap VPS like text-based services
You're thinking of as a centralized replacement to YouTube. If you're centralized, yeah, you probably need a data centre the size of Malta. Of course there are decentralized alternatives (like PeerTube) where the cost is also distributed. If you're using PeerTube, you literally can "just throw it on a cheap VPS", and lots of people do, with no problems.
I think the real reason decentralized video isn't going to catch on is because video (and YouTube in particular) has not been a community thing for many years now. There are very few YouTubers who make videos to build a community or connect to a community. YouTubers are on there for money, and there's really no alternative that can both host the videos and pay out big cheques to content creators.
Pēteris Krišjānis@duncesplayed @kalleboo tbh most of YTs I know either run sponsor ads, or have Patreon/paid for community. It is already slowly moving away from ads system in YT, which simply does not work.
That is a good point actually! That means they would have the freedom to move over to a new platform.
@duncesplayed imho making PeerTube or other Fediverse video service very good at UX and easy to use will allow these communities migrate when they feel like it.
I think biggest issue might be running video service like this and having running costs for video storage, etc. As always, communities might be willing to factor those costs in their pledges.
I think PeerTube needs easy to use setup / reliable network of hosters, and good UX to manage community, live streams, chats, etc.
I think biggest issue might be running video service like this and having running costs for video storage, etc. As always, communities might be willing to factor those costs in their pledges.
I think PeerTube needs easy to use setup / reliable network of hosters, and good UX to manage community, live streams, chats, etc.
Youtube just went after invidious as well.
I don't really see YouTube failing anytime soon. They have such a massive userbase, it's hard to imagine any other platform taking over anytime soon, regardless of shitty UX decisions. Creating a successful video platform like they have is an enormous challenge, the only reason they succeeded is because they were early.
@hampter @noodlejetski @Nankeru *cough* TikTok *cough*
In all seriousness, Google does not know what to do with YT. It is very hard to monetize. They tried to do whole TV thing, which fell flat on it's face. it keeps being huge money sink, and moderation is nightmare and algorithms seems to fucking up constantly.
They can't get rid of it, because it is huge, but it is not fire sure profit.
In all seriousness, Google does not know what to do with YT. It is very hard to monetize. They tried to do whole TV thing, which fell flat on it's face. it keeps being huge money sink, and moderation is nightmare and algorithms seems to fucking up constantly.
They can't get rid of it, because it is huge, but it is not fire sure profit.
I don't know about YouTube not being profitable, but even if they aren't, you'd be hard pressed to find a company better equipped to handle a money sink that Google. In 2022, they had a gross profit of 156 billion... I don't think they are panicking, scrambling to monetize YT at Alphabet HQ.
@hampter @noodlejetski @Nankeru I think it is just a failure of your imagination...corpos think in terms of "why have only some of money, if we can have *all* the money". Not sure pushing YT Premium subs and being almost torturous obsessive with scam ads indicate they somehow cool with sinking money in YT pit.
Océane ⏚@peteriskrisjanis @Nankeru Hi, honestly I think that PeerTube will grow organically. Most contents creators there aren't addicted to feedback loops but just glad to make 1000-2000 people happier. Speaking as a blogger myself, my previous blog made around 200 views per blog post, sustainably; sometimes I look at the stats and think “wow, people have been sharing this 12-pages blog post these last few days!”, it's humbling. Stats let me know which blog posts get the more attention and time from people and deserve improvements on wording, storytelling, my introduction, etc.
When people think about YouTube they think about extremely successful making a few millions of views per video, but such an exodus won't happen on e.g. PeerTube because it relies on YouTube recommandations being centralized and somewhat authoritarian (by making indirect cultural references scarce and again somewhat centralized). This won't happen on PeerTube, and isn't desirable at all; when YouTube dies, they'll need to diversify their business models/sources of income or just to get hired in communication.
So maybe the YouTube migration is already happening and is already somewhat successful, according to its own metrics.
Christof Damian 💙💛@peteriskrisjanis
I think YouTube is doing fine and seems pretty easy to monetize with ads at the moment.
They also have 80 million paying subscribers.
https://www.businessofapps.com/data/youtube-statistics/
@hampter @noodlejetski @Nankeru
I think YouTube is doing fine and seems pretty easy to monetize with ads at the moment.
They also have 80 million paying subscribers.
https://www.businessofapps.com/data/youtube-statistics/
@hampter @noodlejetski @Nankeru
YouTube Revenue and Usage Statistics (2024)
YouTube was launched in 2005. It was founded by three PayPal employees: Chad Hurley, Steve Chen, and Jawed Karim, who ran the company from an office above a small restaurant in San Mateo. The first video uploaded to the platform was “Me at the zoo”, featuring Karim. By the years end, YouTube was hosting over two million videos per day on its website and was averaging over 20 million daily active users. It wouldn’t be long before Google scooped up YouTube, acquiring the startup for $1.65 billion in late 2006. What was considered at the time to be a huge reach for a startup which had shown no capability or interest in generating profit is now recognized as one of the smartest acquisitions of the
Matrix synapse and dendrite aren't great implementations of the protocol so people probably won't host them, but conduit is 90% of the way there. Another 5% and I bet discords start to drop like flies.
RandomVanGloboiiYouTube has been enshittified long ago, especially after the Adpoclaypse
Haunting_Tale_5150I think it would take a while for any social media to have one, then again I didn't expect Reddit to shit the bed the way it has. If there's any that I think will be specifically fast, it would be Twitch.
Youtube is the least likely, no matter how many times it shits the bed, people stick to it because all the other video sharing services simply aren't supported by the big content creators.
sukotaii would never watch youtube if i cannot use newpipe : as soon as youtube blocks newpipe, exodus to peertube may happen
as soon as youtube blocks newpipe, exodus to peertube may happen
I'm willing to guess that the percentage of people watching Youtube via Newpipe is at least an order of magnitude smaller than of people browsing reddit through third party clients.
A logical extension of your post really makes you think just how much of social media post-2007 was set up on fundamentally unsustainable business models. Engagement is not a good business model! Making investors pay for users was always a bad choice and sooner or later, investors were going to ask for their money back!
It will be interesting to see how social media changes post-2023. With Meta almost vestigial (except Instagram and marketplace), Twitter and Twitch absolutely clowning away their positions, what's next? Jeff Bezos and/or Daddy Sundar reinvesting in social media?
I highly recommend watching Louis Rossmann's video on Reddit - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JqL-G3GFqRU&t=728s
I honestly don't think the fediverse will become nearly as popular as many seem to.think. It's still complicated to use/understand for many non-tech enthusiasts, and in the case of Reddit, while people are angry, I doubt most of their users are going anywhere any time soon. Some will leave, but it's not going to be a small number.
We may be few, but I’m proud to count myself among those who quit Reddit because of this. (Not that I wasn’t looking for a good reason for a long time).
As long as there's enough of us to maintain a community here, then we're golden 🙂. And I'm definitely under the impression that we're getting there.
I hope so.
burgersc12Imo Reddit is dying, and while I'm sure some people will get confused by the way it works at first, i think people will stick around
I don't have statistics to back this up, but I'd be willing to bet an entire doughnut that most reddit users have never posted even a single comment.
People with that level (dis)engagement aren't the type to seek out alternatives.
They just kind of drift away.
TwigReddit started out with more tech-y users, then got more mainstream. Maybe the same can happen here.
Reddit blew up when it got decent mobile apps. If the fediverse (is that really what we’re calling it?) gets decent mobile app support that helps simplify the onboarding process and connection to communities there’s a much higher chance.
🦊 OneRedFox 🦊I honestly don’t think the fediverse will become nearly as popular as many seem to.think.
Probably not gonna get Twitter/Reddit-sized, no, as those platforms have userbases the size of a large country. It's mostly a question of "can we attract enough users for the ecosystem to be workable" and I think the answer is "yes." Hell, for me it already is.
It’s mostly a question of “can we attract enough users for the ecosystem to be workable” and I think the answer is “yes.” Hell, for me it already is.
And this I completely agree with.
I really hope communities like [email protected] and [email protected] get up and running
asklemmy - Lemmy
A loosely moderated place to ask open ended questions If your post is 1. Open ended 2. Not offensive (At this point, I do not have the bandwidth to moderate partisan political discussions) 3. Not regarding lemmy support ([email protected] [https://lemmy.ml/c/lemmy_support] ) 4. not ad nauseam inducing (please make sure its a question that would be new to most members) it’s welcome here!
Nicholas Karl@alehel @noodlejetski I'll add that when Twitter first hit the fan there was a large influx of Mastodon users, but it quickly fell off. Perhaps there are more tech-savvy Reddit users who will dive into the Fediverse than did with Twitter/Mastodon, but for your average user we're not approachable enough yet to overcome the inertia of familiarity.
Even if it quickly fell off, I think approximately 70-80% of current Mastodon users came from Twitter, and a big reason for people leaving (after poor onboarding experience) was the small size of the Fediverse. There just weren't enough people in the Fediverse for the network effect to take hold. With each influx of users I expect to see a slightly higher proportion to stay, although I don't see this influx as being particularly large in the first place.
amkiundefined> A lot of that stuff isn’t original, and the deep conversations are, in my opinion, few and far between. Sure there are some communities whi h have this, but they’re not exactly over represented.
If you get the deep conversations and the conversationalists the fluff will follow.
MattIt's hard to predict - because despite the bad decisions from platforms like Facebook, Twitch, and Reddit, they are still always going to be immensely more popular than Fediverse / FOSS equivalents due to the network effect.
Despite all the bad moves from YouTube, Twitch, and Reddit, the vast majority of people aren't interested in another platform, they just want the current platform to not be rubbish, so they don't lose their current communities and contacts.
While I'd like for all the Fediverse platforms to become relatively "mainstream" that people will sign up for them, I don't think it's ever going to happen any time soon, but I'd love to be proven wrong.
Absolutely right. What makes or breaks any social media platform is the ease of forming large communities (which goes hand in hand with the number of total active users) first and the user experience second.
"Fediverse" seems to suffer greatly from a UX point of view, mostly due to decentralization, which creates this isolation effect for newcomers.
Take mastodon vs twitter for example. For someone used to signing up for twitter and instantly gaining access to virtually everything the platform has to offer, mastodon has a big threshold to jump over before you can have a twitter-like experience. At least it feels like it until you get used to the experience. That's still the biggest barrier in front of large scale adoption of decentralized social media platforms.
Right - I think people are willing to learn things, but only if they have an incentive to do so.
Using bigger platforms such as Twitter or Reddit took some learning, but people and content were already there, this gives people the incentive to figure out how things work.
When you sign up to something like Mastodon, you have to learn how it works, and while it is not particularly complicated at all, why put the effort into figuring out Mastodon when you can just go back to Twitter and have the content and community already there for you?
Yes please Discord, it is so worrying how everyone has all their private messages and content in an unencrypted app owned by a corporation who gives 0 shit about privacy. They won't even delete your messages if you delete your account/leave servers / get banned. In fact there is no way to delete all your messages
DawnOfRikuFeels like I've been stuck using it just by default, because everyone else I know is, and there's nothing decent fitting that particular use case. Skype definitely wasn't cutting it. I at least avoid communities that are trying and failing to be forum-like, and just keep it to ones with people I know, and my viewers. Still run a Teamspeak server for a select set of friends to do YT recordings on, as it predates Discord, and is generally more stable (avoiding voice dropouts).
Discord is a likely contender, but I think it's likely to be Instagram. It's got a very dissatisfied userbase, and there's already a few reasonably active pixelfed servers
Why is (part of) their userbase dissatisfied? I know almost nothing of instagram.
Ads upon ads upon ads. And then for some it is just that it is owned by Facebook.
I'm not very familiar with Instagram either, but it's infamously bad for its users' mental health, it's recommendatiom algorithm is unreliable, and it collects a lot of data. Honestly it's possible that a lot of its regular users do like it and that I just don't tend to hear from them
Honestly, I believe the problem is the format rather than the platform, pixelfed isn't really the solution in my mind
As others have said, ads. The app is also overrun with spambots posting links to scams to buy followers or ForEx or whatever they're selling. The algorithm is really, really bad, at least if you're an artist of any kind. IG was one of the first apps to attempt to steal TikTok's short-form video format, which means it's hard to get your content out there if you're just posting images. And there are a LOT of content reposters.
It’s got a very dissatisfied userbase
I really don't understand where you're getting this from. Because, at least my Instagram, is thriving. Honestly, I see so much wonderful art on it every day, it's ridiculous. I also follow many news outlets, magazines on it. The platform has never been better. Also, it has the advantage of having my entire professional and social circles on it. Everyone I know is using it daily, interact with each other.
Also, you can hide that barrage of reels very easily. Just tap [...] on a suggested reel, then tap "Disable suggestions for a month". It does exactly what it says.
aceI think people become less likely to adopt a new service with each one that falls. This could be for the best as I hope it turns into real word engagement with other humans leading to less overall interpersonal conflict.
Discord might be it but not for a while. Right now they're one of the places people are flocking thanks to their forum channels.
The day I don't see "join our Discord" where I would earlier expect to find "visit our forums" will be a good day.
A bloated live chat monolith is not what I want to use to discuss game bugs or podcast episodes.
that's my biggest pet peeve, too.
GloriousEggroll, the mastermind behind modified version of Valve's Proton, posts his code on GitHub, and then links to his Discord as a place for reporting bugs.
Thats uhhh… interesting. Why..?
RoboRayI actually quit using his Linux distro, in large part because the communications were so terrible with Discord being the only way he disseminates information (so so poorly).
Agreed. Live chat has its place for certain things, but for other things a forum type interface is better suited.
FaceDeerYeah, several groups of friends of mine are using Discord to chat and arrange roleplaying nights and such. I use those regularly. But I've got several "project" Discords that are forum replacements and I find I almost never go there. Certainly never when I don't have some specific goal I'm trying to fulfill.