For those on traditional social media, I just say "What if Facebook and Twitter and YouTube could all talk to each other? People on Facebook could follow people on Twitter and people on Twitter can follow people on Facebook." Then they usually reply "that would be neat" and then I tell them "yeah, that's what we are building over here in the fediverse."

It usually is easier to give them an analogy related to something they are familiar with.

People are unlikely to switch based solely on "it's decentralized." Most people don't care.

But if a platform has features people want, they may consider signing up. But the real draw is having an awesome community and awesome content.

Rules of the internet:

1. There are no real rules about posting.
2. There are no real rules about moderation either - enjoy your ban.

@pelespirit Because Lemmy is federated, your upvotes and downvotes are also sent to different platforms, which may display them.

If your goal is to solve society's problems, you have to listen to everyone, even people you disagree with, in order to identity the underlying problems.

And sometimes you have to read between the lines because they are not politically and economically literate. And unfortunately, that means people often latch onto ideas that sound good to them, but may or may not be a good idea in real life.

For example, some people may blame immigration for their problems. But that is not the real problem. That is just a scapegoat that the politicians use. The real problem is that they are struggling financially, and don't know how to fix it, most likely because someone is taking advantage of them and/or they don't have what they need to be successful.

If you fix their economic problems, and educate them on what the real problems are, they will realize that the immigrants were never the problem. This will reduce the tension and hate, and expose the propaganda for what it is.

But you can't change anyone's minds if you label them as enemies and refuse to listen to them. And you can't solve problems if you can't identify the underlying issues people are concerned with.

@compostgoblin There were several other protocols such as OStatus, Diaspora, and Zot prior to ActivityPub. Mastodon originally used OStatus, and switched to ActivityPub later. A lot of platforms are older than Mastodon too.

I guess I missed the drama. But it is to be expected. Many people came from centralized social media, and simply signed up for something their friends told them about. For those people, they learned about federation after the fact. It is a new concept for a lot of people.

@compostgoblin Some of the earliest platforms included StatusNet, Diaspora, Friendica, Red Matrix/Hubzilla, etc. All are much older than Mastodon.

For those who are not on Lemmy and can't see the link on the original post:

#^https://theconversation.com/...

And you also have to consider how other platforms treat upvotes and downvotes.

On many platforms, your upvotes and downvotes are not only visible, but sometimes result in a notification alert (i.e. someone commented on your post, someone liked your post, someone downvoted your post, etc.). It is not anonymous at all.

For some reason, links from a Lemmy top-level post do not show up in Hubzilla. Here is the link for anyone who does not see the link.

#^https://forum.wedistribute.org/...

@AnonomousWolf What if you can install it with only a couple of commands and Docker is not required? Docker should not be the gold standard.

Option 1: Execute a couple commands to execute an install script.

Option 2: Figure out what Docker is. Figure out that Docker is not installed. Research how to install Docker. Install Docker. Execute the the Docker command. Screw it up. Ask for help from a developer since you never heard of Docker before.

Option 2 is way harder unless you are a developer and know what Docker is.

It is not user friendly to install if you have to be a developer to install it! In fact, I would call that user-hostile because the average power user or administrator can't install it.

For "easy" I think it should have an install script (of any kind) and that it does not have to be Docker.

For "very easy" it should be like the WordPress 5 minute install. Upload the files, set up the database, and go to a URL to configure it.

That's because most fediverse platforms have no privacy features. You'd have to use something like Hubzilla or Friendica if you want access control, privacy, and groups with limited membership. They also allow users to control what they see and don't see.

There are solutions in the fediverse out there. They're just not widely known.

It's not just that they may not care. They may not know what they're being asked or know what the consequences are for choosing either option. Then they sit there for 30 minutes searching the internet for what the question means.

I think Hubzilla and Friendica are its only links to the rest of the Fediverse. Both support ActivityPub and Diaspora.

@underscores

In some cases it could also be people that genuinely want to follow you. People often talk about one topic but still care about other stuff.

Many people fall into that category. I follow a lot of interesting accounts that have nothing to do with what I talk about on my channel. Sometimes you follow people because they know more about a subject than you do, or are just interesting.

In the short term, I think that Bridgy Fed's multi-protocol bridge has a better chance of decentralizing Bluesky than Bluesky.

@astro_ray This is what it looks like: #^https://spacehey.com/profile?id=3178945

I think the fediverse will continue to grow, and it would mostly be because of projects like Loops and Pixelfed and other new services. But I think that Bluesky has a lead on us and it will continue to grow, mostly because bigger players with money can afford to actually build on the AT Protocol, which has higher hardware requirements.

Eventually, thanks to bridges and multi-protocol platforms, there will be a multi-protocol network, with big players who have money using AT Protocol, and people who want to start a server on a lower budget using ActivityPub.

We never know what the future holds. But one of our goals is to decentralize social media. If we wind up with only a few major players, we have failed in that goal.