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How do we get "normies" to adopt the Fediverse? (lemmy.zip)

submitted 2 months ago by dch82@lemmy.zip to c/fediverse@lemmy.world

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This is a follow-up from my previous thread.

The thread discussed the question of why people tend to choose proprietary microblogging platfroms (i.e. Bluesky or Threads) over the free and open source microblogging platform, Mastodon.

The reasons, summarised by @noodlejetski@lemm.ee are:

marketing

not having to pick the instance when registering

people who have experienced Mastodon's hermetic culture discouraging others from joining

algorithms helping discover people and content to follow

marketing

and I'm saying that as a firm Mastodon user and believer.

Now that we know why people move to proprietary microblogging platforms, we can also produce methods to counter this.

How do we get "normies" to adopt the Fediverse?

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[-] The_Picard_Maneuver@lemmy.world 32 points 2 months ago

Since most people are talking about the sign-up barriers, I'll mention culture and reputation.

I love Lemmy and Mastodon, but whenever I've seen the fediverse brought up elsewhere, someone inevitably shuts down any curiosity by suggesting that it's a political echo-chamber. I don't think that's accurate for all of it, but if that reputation is out there, we probably need to make an effort to show that there's a broader appeal. If the average person is expecting the fediverse to be the left-wing equivalent of something like "Truth Social", I could understand the reluctance to adopt it.

[-] ptz@dubvee.org 11 points 2 months ago

someone inevitably shuts down any curiosity by suggesting that it's a political echo-chamber

I've said it before, and I'll say it again: I think .ml acting as the official or at least de-facto "flagship" instance is doing more harm than good. I've seen the same arguments you mentioned, and it always seems to go back to either of the two .ml instances or Hexbear. When political ideology is forced into every interaction, it always seemed it was coming from one of those three.

I've shown people Lemmy World as an example that it's not all political circlejerks, but I don't know how many of them stuck with it.

[-] JubilantJaguar@lemmy.world 7 points 2 months ago

Completely agree. I had no idea how bad this phenomenon was until very recently, when I fell foul of a virtual lynch mob and its political-commissar mod who behaved like a religious inquisitor even in private conversation. It's real.

[-] Blaze@feddit.org 10 points 2 months ago

Nowadays, I point to show that it's more than just politics, news and tech

[-] monobot@lemmy.ml 6 points 2 months ago

Every social media has the same problem, reddit is on one side, twitter on the other, facebook is filtering by their own goals.

People here are just a bit different angle. But each instance is a little different, lemmy.world is more reddit like, lemmy.ml is leftist, hexbear is... something too, there are probably some right wing instances. Much more diverse than other networks and I enjoy seeing all those different point of views.

This is current problem in society that we don't tolerate different opinion.

[-] The_Picard_Maneuver@lemmy.world 6 points 2 months ago

This is current problem in society that we don't tolerate different opinion.

Exactly this. When online platforms become too homogeneous, any deviation from the typical opinions that are shared seems like a terrible, inexcusable offense that someone must do something about - thus, reinforcing the bubble.

We need to be able to disagree with each other and still get along.

[-] IronKrill@lemmy.ca 1 points 2 months ago

Twitter was quite diverse actually (it might still be, I can't say). You had the far left, far right, and everything in between on there but it worked somewhat because the algorithm kept people mostly in their bubbles unless they went seeking it out.