Unfortunately email is likely the only federated network most people will know and be routinely exposed to. As such, it is the best way to describe what a federated network is. I describe the Fediverse something like such:

"Think about emails. There are loads of different providers (Gmail, outlook, Yahoo, etc.), each with their own web pages, their own email servers, etc.. But when you email someone else it doesn't matter what email provider they use, as long as you have their address, you can email them (assuming they haven't blocked you).

That's because emails are federated - every email provider sends emails the same way, using the same underlying language (or "protocol").

It's like how different parts of England or the US have way different accents, but because they're all speaking English, you'll generally understand what's being said.

Now imagine instead email providers, you had loads of little twitters doing the same thing. You could make a post and it gets sent out to all your followers, etc. no matter what little Twitter they're following you on. That's what Mastodon is - it's loads of little twitters in a trenchcoat.

Now imagine you did that for Facebook Groups [or Reddit if they're savvy enough]. Loads of little Facebooks where you could make groups and post, and people could join and view these posts regardless of what little Facebook they're on. That's what Lemmy is [or Kbin for the cool kids].

Everything on the Fediverse works like that. You have loads of little providers (instances), which all talk using the same underlying protocols (based on a protocol called ActivityPub), and act as one big interconnected web of social media."

It's a bit long winded, but it's simple and doesn't overwhelm with jargon. If they know what emails are, you can explain this to them..

I struggle to see another pathway in, because as I said before, most people aren't exposed to literally any other form of federation. Emails are to federation what Pandas are to Wildlife conservation.

The real question is why does threads even have users ? Like who is the target audience ?

Ironically, shit like Facebook and Twitter are closer the the dark web what with not being available without a user account and being hubs for illicit activities. Do you think the boomers would have been able to organize January 6th without the Facebook algorithm introducing them to each other?

You explain it to normies by saying it's a link aggregator and discussion site and microblogger, like R/T. What they are really asking for, however, isn't a rundown of federation mechanisms but a rationale for the fed itself. 'How does it work?' really means 'What are the crucial differences and why do they matter?' So a good answer to that must talk about ownership, the profit motive, user friendliness, the perils of consolidation, etc.

I think someone did make a proxy or something to interact with fedi through email, so, technically, yes, you can fediverse with your gmails

Using Lemmy is nothing at all like sending an email, this analogy needs to stop. Don't overwhelm people with jargon, just say there are different servers that interact with one another or something.

The email analogy is bad and needs to end. People hear email and think it's like email. They don't hear the technical how-it-works.

People don't need to know the inner workings to use it. Just tell them it's social media. If you need more, say it's lots of different servers that talk to each other.

I've never a post with more than a thousand upvotes on lemmy until yesterday.

Eventually an email to fediverse gateway will be a thing.

I honestly don't like the email analogy. I mean, there are no email servers that are defederated or something. "Why don't you answer my mails?" "Oh, you have a gmail adress? That's banned on my instance, sorry, not my fault."

But until I find a better one, I will continue using it.

Edit: Since I got some replies explaining that defederation in email servers is a thing, thanks, I wasn't aware of that. Still, my point holds that that's not a basic feature associated with mails. I don't think about which server to choose based on which servers are defederated. So explaining the fediverse to an uninitiated and relying on a feature that's huge in the fediverse but not even I'm aware of it in the context of mails, isn't good.

Tldr, I just moved to goalpost from "this doesn't exist" to "this isn't something normies are aware of"

I want you to picture a series of tubes...

Kinda