I've been trying for weeks to get friends to move to Signal. They don't have to delete WhatsApp or Facebook Messenger to use Signal. Some of these people have got degrees in various computer disciplines and still won't even give it a try. I don't understand the reluctance to try new software either. If their job or uni asks them to use a piece of software they'll try it no bother but if a friend asks it's impossible. It's so strange.

The problem is community.

Lemmy doesn't fill every hole that reddit filled. There are a lot of industry and hobby subs that just don't have the audience here. Especially the more niche ones.

Shitposting and memes...yeah, we got that in spades. But that's not what keeps people coming. You can get top-notch shitposts anywhere.

My subscribeds here are dead. I can't find direct matches for communities I have in reddit, and I have no interest (let alone time) in modding one.

It's relatively easy to quit things like Reddit. There's no attachments to anything, and the content is mostly links to other sites.

When you have followers and follow specific accounts for the content, users are less inclined to leave unless those they follow and their own followers also leave.

Consider that we live in a world where Trump was elected twice and you'll start to get an idea of what the issue is

Most people aren’t intellectually curious like the people here clearly are.

Being on lemmy at all is going to come with huge confirmation biases.

Something to consider is that most of these issues with common social media are intangible at best and straight up invisible at worst for most users.

Most people don't care strongly enough about any of these apps or websites to be bothered. Go ask strangers on the street what they think of spez's this or that and they will say 'who's spez' followed by, 'oh, I don't really care'.

Leaving Facebook will be an enormous deal for half a generation that literally grew up with Facebook being the internet, period. There are enough people that have no idea what can be, so yeah, I see it

I mean I understand because I wanted to find a good amount of matching communities in lemmy, but that didn't fully happen. I just had to make the jump.

Most people's relationship with any given corporate / algorithm driven social media platform is akin to a drug addict.

Start viewing people who can't imagine quitting cold turkey as drug addicts, and it makes a lot more sense.

This is what happens when corpos have oodles and oodles from data on how to drive 'engagement'... and then they do that, via algorithmic content feeds and dark patterns and other kinds of manipulation.

These people are addicted to convenience, to the dopamine hits, to the rage bait, to their validating echo chambers.

They don't care that it makes them stupid, misinformed, angry, takes all their time, ruins their attention span, makes them feel like ugly failures amidst a sea of beautiful, rich influencers.

If you can't stop 'voluntarily' doing something that's bad for you without a giant fuss, without needing a guided intervention, you're an addict.