this post was submitted on 08 Jul 2023
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Fediverse

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The mastodon and lemmy content I’m seeing feels like 90% of it comes from people who are:

  • ~30 years old or older

  • tech enthusiasts/workers

  • linux users

There’s nothing wrong with that particular demographic or anything, but it doesn’t feel like a win to me if the entire fediverse is just one big monoculture.

I wonder what it is that is keeping more diverse users away? Is picking a server/federation too complicated? Or is it that they don’t see any content that they like?

Thoughts?

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[–] [email protected] 132 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (49 children)

I'm new here, and new to federated applications (and fit OP's description perfectly). This federated stuff is going to remain niche unless somebody figures out a way to make it approachable.

Reddit first time:

> open app
> choose some things I like
> see all the things

Lemmy first time:

> open app
> ?????
> google how to use it
> choose a... server? 
> ?????
[–] [email protected] 16 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Yep, that is literally me. I am not particularly techy or whatever and I came here because RiF shut down and the maker said they would be on lemmy.world. i had no idea what that meant but i made it here.

Much googling was involved and after i made like 4 accounts on different instances, bumbled around, settled down and learned to subscribe to stuff, i subbed to communities specifically about the fediverse and finding new communities. I also tried like 3 different apps and aettled on Liftoff so far.

I still havent figured out how to reliably see mastodon or kbin stuff or if i even want to.

I can see how most people wouldn't bother and have no idea why any of this even matters. I still find reddit much easier to use (and important for ongoing world events like the war in ukraine, where it isnt about what we can aggregate but where posters from that conflict put their content originally, a huge amount gets posted directly to reddit and they dont have time to sit around debating the finer points of internet usage), but philisophically i understand why the fediverse is important.

Also learning sbout the concept of defederation (as it regarded Beehaw) was a brainmelter and i felt like i was missing out on "content" be ause of how big it was. My other issue was around not undersranding who runs all these instances and quite frankly having no reason to trust they wouldnt do some crazy stuff themselves.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

I still havent figured out how to reliably see mastodon or kbin stuff or if i even want to.

Lemmy is community-oriented, and I'm not sure it has a way to see posts that aren't to a community. Mastodon users can post to a community by tagging it, and you've probably seen posts from Mastodon users without noticing. If you want to see some, here's my photography account. Only posts to Lemmy communities show up at that link, but you'll see more if you view the profile on the original Mastodon server.

You should be able to view and join Kbin magazines just like lemmy communities. Here's one.

i felt like i was missing out on “content”

You are. It happens with email too; it's somewhat difficult to reliably deliver email to gmail.com as a small server for example.

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