Mastodon

I’ll add to this that most people don’t understand the difference between a service and a client. Yes, even though they use email, to them it’s just “my gmail” and they don’t think past that. They don’t know you can use different clients, or the web. They just don’t. It’s an app on their phone.

The reason the internet was so great in the early 2000s is that THOSE PEOPLE WERENT ON IT.

I'm sure it's not lack of technical skill it's a mental block, I've helped so many people set up software that is literally clicking ok a dozen times then they're like 'oh let me print this, hang on I need to compile a firmware update and flash it using a telegraph key...' big brands have the shittiest software, but people feel they should be able to understand because it's professional but something like an open source federated social network is nerd stuff so they feel the the shouldn't be able to.

Case in point, I installed MPV on a friends laptop because VLC wouldn't play the file without crashing, the install process is super simple but they have green on black hacker terminal output instead of a process bar and you type Y when prompted instead of clicking yes -- it gave her anxiety just watching me do it, said maybe we should try uninstalling VLC and reinstalling instead... Of course mpv played the video flawlessly and used less CPU and ram doing so which warmed her to it. There's no way she couldn't have understood everything and done it herself but the fact it's not as corporate as VLC would have written it off (and wow that's a crazy thing to say, I love that there's so much great open source software that VLC is middle of the road)

Which is funny because if you open the App Store and search for Mastodon you'll find an app you can install and will prompt you to create an account and login.

Yes it will default to mastodon.social or whatever but that's a fine default.

Folks that say it's too hard just don't even want to try.

i couldnt count how many times my younger brother has asked me to delete files for him

Their voices are missing online simply because they are basically tech illiterate. And I think that is a huge problem.

I've seen a number of polls on the age demographics on the fediverse, and they've all been pretty consistent ... the fediverse is basically on average a Xennial place with a surprising amount of Boomer. There are younger folks, of course, more so on lemmy/kbin than mastodon it seems (which is interesting).

But generally, in line with your comment, there's a generational filter here that attracts those who remember the value of and how to use the old internet and old computers.

Which, if you think there's value in what the fediverse is trying to do (free our expression and ownership on the internet), is a problem. Another way of looking at it is that the failure of allowing big-private-monopoly-social platforms to dominate for so long^1^ will have long lasting side effects including the erasure of what the internet can be in many people's understanding of the world.

[1]: I'd estimate 2008-2023 as the era of dominant big social, where the closing year of 2023 may be too early or even open ended. That's 14 years. Which, if we take the web as having started in 1993, and being ~30 years old, is about half the age of the internet. So, it's a decently objective approximation, then, to say that the web is Facebook etc, especially as the relevance of older things fades. Which only amplifies the harm we allowed to transpire.

Also ... check it out ... lemmy can do footnotes!! Click the view source button to see how I did it if you're interested.

Given the number of people I've had to walk through downloading my store's loyalty program app and set up their accounts, I'd believe it.

I saw numbers from some study about tech and people's relationships with it or whatever and it's insane how many people think Facebook is the entire internet now that they've had that integrated browser for so long. It's just all they ever learned of technology, magic rectangle go to Facebook.

I understand not being "tech savvy," a "hobbyist," whatever - but I can't fathom not bothering to consider how something I use daily works AT ALL. I hate cars but I learned enough to understand how to tentatively diagnose a problem and handle minor maintenance myself, but some people take their car to the dealer like 4x a year instead.

Is madness.