I think the real “problem” the fediverse has isn’t that it’s hard to use, it’s that it doesn’t fit the pattern. It’s like if someone asks “what grocery do you order from?” and you respond “My building’s co-op, I get meals & fresh food delivered from participating farms & cooks— I do solar panel maintenance and run the website in return— plus goodie fees”
“goodie fees? … um … so is that like UberEats then?”
And what’s worse is it sounds more complex because it’s atypical— but really it’s easier
"I'm such-and-such on Threads"
"Oh cool I'm on the Fediverse too, I'm @ tim @ union.place"
"What's a Fediverse?"
Hahaha ha, ahhh, if only. More like:
"I couldn't find you @ tim or @ union.place, which is it?"
"I'm not on Fediverse* but I downloaded the app and it was full of spyware!"
*coming from a scammer near you!
It's the verification of and platforming of known hate groups like "gays against groomers" and "Libs of tiktok". That and the labels of disinformation on those accounts applied by people are being removed.
If threads had the same standards of moderation as the Fediverse, I'd be over there selling them books.
@whetstone @leftsidestory @john @tim @futurebird
Well @atomicpoet favours buffer/filter servers as sort of ambassadors. Not sure they'd be able to keep up with the technical demand of federation with Threads.
I'm not an expert but having a massive server look at you is pretty bad for small servers, even if it's friendly. All the messages back and forth are too much for smaller hosts.
That's my understanding anyway.
Well the small server people see a problem, and I would say they're more experts on small servers so I guess we'll find out.
They are ad-driven platforms. They will allow as much hate as legally allowed. Hate and rage clicks does drive traffic and eyeballs.
If your money comes from ads that is your incentive.
If your money comes from users then your incentives are to keep your users happy. Good moderation and consistent uptime.
Any other analysis ignores these economic realities.
@futurebird I saw a take recently that part of the problem is that, to some extent, folks on Fedi are self-selected as somewhat techie, and we collectively are doing a bad job of explaining to less-techie folks by explaining TOO MUCH.
If we would just all say "hey friend, join the Fediverse, here's an invite link" and leave out the "on my server, you can choose another if you want, etc, etc", and let them figure it out from there, would it work better?
@tim @futurebird This resonates with me. Asking overly complex questions, not "stopping at 'Yes' ", adding qualifiers to un-asked questions, all of it.
Certainly my own excitement can cause me to go against what I know are "best practices" for selling.
@TrillionB @tim @futurebird the problem is expecting volunteers and techies to have the laser-focused messaging of a billion-dollar psychologist-enhanced advertising and PR department
all it really takes is one PR person working at Facebook to send out an "explainer" to the NYT that says "Mastodon is for dumb nerds" in diplomatic-sounding language for that to be the entire narrative, because Facebook is considered an "industry leader in social media" and capitalists will close ranks the moment there's any sort of grassroots threat to their exploitative business model
That's fair, the earliest "Mastodon is a failure" article that I've seen dates back to 2017 and quite frankly it sounds dreadful. No usernames, just numbers. *smh*
I mean, I blew in with the November leaves but it seems to have really taken off.
@futurebird for the record, here's the toot in question (thank goodness for starring, my memory couldn't handle the lookup):
https://cutie.city/@reina/110534523068583694
Kudos to @reina for the original post and @denebeim for drawing the connection to Mastodon/Fediverse.
If you want to recommend someone join Matrix, here are some tips based on my experience. Most people don't understand what federation is and it's not essential for them to understand it to join Matrix. Don't explain it before they join, they're more likely to be confused and drop out before even trying and that's a fail. Basically, if it challenges them, you've likely already lost them. This means you should also not explain that it's E2EE unless you're talking to someone who already know what that means. Being E2EE benefits people but it's also kinda supposed to be an invisible protection. There are a lot of different Matrix clients and servers. This confuses newcomers who are used to centralised platforms with highly controlled environments. Don't give them multiple clients to pick from unless you're sharing a join link. Tell them which one to use based on their needs. Let them switch later. So what should you say? You should say that Matrix is a secure and private chatting app. That it respects your privacy by making it impossible for anyone but the people you talk to to read your messages. You should say that it works and feels similar to Discord, Slack, Teams, and TeamSpeak. Then you should send a direct link to your own profile that should look something like this: https://matrix.to/#/@reinacchan:matrix.org The goal is to get them to make an account in the first place. The biggest barrier is the barrier to entry. Once they're in, you can start explaining the more complex stuff, because then they have a point of reference. It's no longer completely unfamiliar. Don't over-explain it, under-explain it. #Matrix #Discord
@globcoco @futurebird yes, generalizations are always wrong (especially that one? 😉 ).
I completely agree that it's not that stark techie/non-techie but I don't have a better way to describe it (especially in limited characters).
Figuring out exactly what that divider between "gets it" and "doesn't" is maybe a "killer app" type thing for Fedi...
@tim I guess it depends of:
* how people are welcomed here,
* the curiosity of the person
* the experience UI (some network have a better experience).
Some people have told me that they are not many people here. And it would be hard to feel the community or create one (people have viewed social network to develop their biz - I'd like to share what I do professionnally but I need to keep things informal and humane). I've had 100% more contact here than any other gafamed ones.
@futurebird
This part
> If we would just all say "hey friend, join the Fediverse, here's an invite link"
Absolutey works better, have tried it
About this part
> and leave out the "on my server, you can choose another if you want, etc, etc", and let them figure it out from there, would it work better?
I am not so sure. It might still be betetr to offer some guidance later
@futurebird I'm not sure I follow. Creating an agreement between several parties to exchange services and food sounds inherently more complicated to me than simply buying something with cash.
Similarly, joining a social network with many different host servers to choose from sounds inherently more complicated to me than joining a network with a single host.
I see the value in both examples, but the complexity seems like a real barrier to entry.
You are skipping over the added complexity of avoiding— or putting up with ads— the lack of responsiveness in moderation— randomly getting your account locked and not knowing why. The creepy feeling of being manipulated to spend more time on the app— crafting your tweets so the algorithm will “bless” them — never know if it worked or not. etc. we can’t just look at complexity through the lens of the sales flyer if that makes sense.
@futurebird I agree all those things are important :)
I guess my unspoken assumption was that the "problem" is lack of adoption, which is why I mentioned the barrier to entry component. But I see your point now about how, if people could take a holistic view and get past that, in the end you could have less complexity.
@futurebird I'm here because I don't have to try and figure out which billionaire I have to please.
And I'm relaxed when I'm here but not on those other places
Where do I sign up for this techno dystopian hellscape you're describing? 😃
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