The mastodon and lemmy content I’m seeing feels like 90% of it comes from people who are:
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~30 years old or older
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tech enthusiasts/workers
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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?
My take on this is not that this is the default early adopter demographic (bereal, TikTok, etc…cmon old dudes don’t act like we are “leading the charge”). But, there’s a good chunk of older tech oriented folks that see a glimmer of hope in the fediverse bringing back some bits of the “old web” imo.
While most of the people like me don’t love meta or Twitter it was kinda good enough, but Reddit was kind of a last straw. I was there when all these companies were born and at the time we were all teen and 20-something early adopters (believe it or not even Facebook used to be cool!) and we’ve watched them all slowly degrade. Very young folks prob don’t care as they don’t really use any of these services, but us old nerds want to avoid the pitfalls of the Web 2.0 era.
Web3 and the crypto-decentralization efforts were really ham fisted…I think most experienced techies saw through all the BS and recognized how wildly inefficient it all was, not to mention outright scammy in many cases. Fediverse is unproven but I think it has potential, and I think many of us older techies feel that way.
First thought when I read the title. Surprisingly, the early adopters of a new, not particularly user friendly tech platform are the same as people who use other niche technologies
Even as a crypto enthusiast, the web3 movement smelled like VC manure being dumped on a field hoping something grows.
Younger folks have been raised on apps and other polished devices with oodles of effort put into UX design.
Older folks grew up learning DOS commands, memorizing the IRQ of their sound card, and other clunky shenanigans.
In their current state Lemmy, Mastodon and other services are too complicated for most young folks to bother with. Not all, but most, especially the filthy casuals.
aka: early tech adopters!
these folk are always the ones trying new things, especially anti-corporate things. They aren’t keeping people away. this is just how the bleeding edge of new technology. The communities natural grow out over time as more people show up and start to outnumber them. But it’s thanks to them that niche new stuff gets supported in the first place while it builds up it’s audience (and reduces the friction to joining)
I don’t know what you’re talking about, I’m just your average Hollywood celebrity here to promote my new movie “Barbie”, only in theaters July 21st.
I’m Gen Z, don’t use Linux, don’t know the first thing about programming (I know how to use file explorer though), and never intend to learn, and I’m here because I don’t wanna use the official Reddit app and because I’m convinced that the Fediverse is likely to become big in the future and I wanna be able to say I was here when it all began.
I know how to use file explorer though
What are the kids being taught that this is worth mentioning???
Idk I just heard that apparently knowing how to use file explorer is considered impressive in modern CS classes
What in the actual fuck
That’s what I’m here for lol. I mean this is how reddit was when I first started there. Same with digg
This place reminds me so much of early reddit. It’s been a strangely nostalgic experience so far. The part of that which I’m enjoying the most, is that commenters are more polite to each other as far as I’ve seen
Everyone writes in clear, concise and grammatically correct sentences too lol. It’s slightly surreal.
If I wasn’t a tech nerd I would have given up on signing up for Mastodon and Lemmy. There is a lot of focus on how instances work and it seems a bit overwhelming. I had a lot of internal, ‘what if I make the wrong choice’, or ‘how can I move if I don’t like the community’ type questions. So being the nerd I am I researched the crap out of it and overwhelmed myself and said fuck it and just chose the popular instances since I know that I can move at a later date.
I personally think this format is favored by a lot of the demographic you mentioned. Most of us, I am generalizing here, grew up being active members in bulletin board systems. Then Reddit came along basically murdered the BB, but there was a good community to interact with. Now Reddit is basically unusable in my opinion because the community doesn’t care about the content or the people behind the screen. That brings us here. We learned so much of our trade, laughed a lot, and made real friendships on these types of system and it is a place a lot of us feel comfortable.
as a young IT with friends who dont know much about IT i have to say that most around 20 use reddit, instagram, … cause its the only thing they know. everyone they know uses them and many of them want likes, …
if they would join the fediverse:
- they wouldnt understand how it works. what is a server? why choose an instance? its just too complicated
- all their friends dont use the fediverse. they would be alone and have nobody who they can share things to
- they would mostly see tech stuff and less in categories they are interested in
- none of the people they follow on instagram are here. the cant follow their celebrities, … and see their content
- the fediverse still has to less users to be successful worldwide. its growing. and just like facebook in its first years, its growing slow.
=> give it a few more years and get your friends, family & collegues on here and see the fediverse grow
