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this post was submitted on 01 Jul 2023
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Showerthoughts
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A "Showerthought" is a simple term used to describe the thoughts that pop into your head while you're doing everyday things like taking a shower, driving, or just daydreaming. The best ones are thoughts that many people can relate to and they find something funny or interesting in regular stuff.
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I know a lot of fediverse users are very principled on federation and decentralization, but in think the real question is does it really matter? To the average user that just wants a website with funny pictures, bad memes, and posts looking for advice, why should they care that lemmy is decentralized other than the fact that it mages it harder for them to use the service in shell but real ways?
The fediverse has opportunities here to gain mass adoption, but taking a super principled stance that users should join small instances and avoid popular ones because that’s hire the fediverse is “supposed” to work pushed it into the sense problem Linux has for a very long time (and to some extent still does). The average person wants something to work and doesn’t really care if it’s free/libre or decentralized. If those things bring real, actual benefits then great, but if they introduce friction and trade offs then they will go right back to Reddit (or twitter, Instagram, YouTube, etc). Some may say good riddance, but social platforms need people and if enough leave then the whole thing falls apart.
Another important factor to consider is that it doesn't need to be perfect to be better. Having options to continue using a platform is better than not having viable options. The fact that Lemmy is open and has some built-in resistance to being owned by a single entity is a huge step forward--even if it's not without the drawbacks of generalist instances.