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submitted 1 year ago by gamer@lemm.ee to c/fediverse@lemmy.world

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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[-] WaltJRimmer@lemmy.world 25 points 1 year ago

Early adopters of almost anything tend to be niche. These Threadiverse sites are looking to pick up where pseudo-message boards like Digg and Reddit left off without being extremist havens like Voat and other bullshit. So let's look at who the early adopters of those sites were. Because... They're not that dissimilar to the demographics that you're describing. Reddit didn't start out as the kind of place that just anyone went to. It tended to be tech heads in their mid-twenties or older, gamers, and chronically online people. They tended heavily to be male. And there tended to be some... Really unfortunate widely-shared opinions.

As Reddit grew, it changed. But it took time. It took there being content on Reddit to appeal to a wider set of people. And that's going to be the case here. It needs to reach a first sustainable mass where enough content is being created to engage and keep the users who first joined it. But that userbase is going to be rather similar. There are always going to be subgroups that are different, but for the most part, the same kinds of people are going to be the early adopters. Creating a breadth of content that will appeal to more and attract a wider variety of users over time will help people feel more comfortable with it.

And, yes. The Fediverse is kind of weird to most people. I was in an argument the other day where someone was insisting that saying you saw something on Limmy or KBin was wrong, you saw it on the Fediverse, and could everyone just stop being wrong please. That kind of pedantic culture is only going to make adoption even slower than it already is. Because most people, they like to go to a site and create a login to look at that content. The Fediverse isn't really that complicated, but it takes a little jump in how you think about websites to go from something like Twitter or Facebook to something like Lemmy or Mastadon. But people were kind of confused about the leap from message boards to social media like MySpace and Facebook as first too. They came around. It took time. It took exposure to the content. It took people using it and sharing it.

So, yes. The Fediverse is mostly a monoculture right now, focused on the people most likely to make the most of out it: Tech heads with some time on their hands for hobbies. The kind of people who either might make their own Fediverse instance or who would know the people that would. Those tech heads aren't exclusively Linux users, they're not exclusively over the age of thirty, and tech heads aren't exclusively the user base, but yes, we're going to start out seeing an imbalance. That's normal. That's to be expected. What's going to be concerning is if five years from now we have the same or a worse imbalance. That will mean that the Fediverse is stagnant or shrinking instead of growing. That will be a time to rethink some strategies for sure. But for right now, all we can do is be active, share the site with other people, and try to get it to spread to more diverse demographics.

[-] mcepl@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago

Yes, I am afraid we can expect a lot of “It is not Linux, but GNU/Linux” type of arguments. Sorry about that.

[-] sylver_dragon@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago

Yup, OP doesn't seem to understand that the Fediverse is still in an "early adopter" stage. For tech stuff, that's a demographic which is usually dominated by male tech nerds. I suspect the age range is more diverse than the OP claims. Though, I imagine it centers somewhere near the 25-35 range, as those will be the people with the drive and time to ~~engage in online mental masturbation~~ argue with people on the internet.

Also, the math will make the median age skew older. Each older person will have a larger effect on moving the average age up. For example, consider 3 people with ages 45, 20, and 18. they have an average age of of just a bit over 27. There is a lot of room for us old farts to drag the average up while there is only a small range for the kids to drag it down. There might be the rare 9-10 year old who has the wherewithal to make an account and comment. But, I don't suspect the user base will get all that much younger. Whereas, there's probably lots of late 30's and 40 year old users and some even older. Take those same three ages listed above and add in a precocious 10 year old and a 60 year old grey beard. The average is now just over 30. That older person had a larger effect on the average than the kid.

Also, age doesn't matter all that much. The important thing is that the early adopters are here and making content. Ideally, this will build out the site and others may follow (or not, not every trend works out). But hopefully, this will end up like the Great Digg Migration before it, which fed the Reddit beast. And we'll have something a new, different and maybe actually better this time.

this post was submitted on 08 Jul 2023
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