Guys, when you talk about the Fediverse to friends, family, or colleagues, how do you explain it?
Do you call it a “decentralized social network,” an “alternative to big tech,” or “a collection of open-source networks”? And how do you convince someone to create an account on Mastodon, Lemmy, Pixelfed, etc., without them getting scared by technical terms like instance, federated, or peer-to-peer?
I’m asking because my so-called friends don’t believe me and even call me crazy when I talk about this “nonsense.”
The future is open source, decentralized, and federated!
I don’t. I passively mention lemmy when I’m discussing my activities, and if they show interest I go into further detail. They have never shown an interest past “Whats a lemmy”
Yeah, I usually joke I’m too hipster for Reddit and use Lemmy when Reddit comes up, and nobody ever asks for more information. I feel like, at least in their current form, federated apps are too complicated/fussy for anyone who isn’t actively interested in moving away from centralized platforms.
I would not talk about the technical aspects of the fediverse at all. Most people genuinely don’t care and they’ll immediately ignore everything else you say if you start talking about what federation is.
Instead, the best introduction is to talk about what they will directly experience if they use the fediverse. I would say something like, it’s basically reddit/twitter, but with no ads and not run by a corpo.
I agree, no need to over-complicate anything. I think even describing the fediverse as being like email confuses people. I just say it’s like old reddit but nicer and no ads.
I say it’s like reddit when it was smaller and less obnoxious. If they inquire more, I discuss federation by describing email. I mostly try to sell that people are nicer and you start to know your netisan compatriots. I haven’t been successful in convincing anyone to join as far as I know.
“Imagine if social media were run by the people who use it instead of corporations selling ads through engagement at all costs.”
That’s pretty much the approach I use. Most people already know how terrible Meta is, so building on that sentiment doesn’t take much.
I share posts they’ll like.
Or tell them about communities I’ve found I think they’ll like.
If they ask how to participate I pick an instance for them and just link them direct to the signup page, then show them how to sign in in an app.
That way there is basically no jargon. No complexity. If they sign up, they do so out of genuine interest for the content. If they ask what federation is, I explain. But the neat thing is, you don’t really need to know about it to have a good experience on the fediverse.
Plus when people see the @ with a url, they kinda just naturally get that it’s like email. They notice that it’s part of a users “address” and that it differentiates users, but they don’t really think about it past that.
Us being here for ideological reasons is extremely unusual. Most people don’t make decisions that way.
Besides. If you find good content FIRST and sign up to engage with it second, it is so much easier to become and remain a regular user.
I say it’s like Reddit but with more Star Trek and less everything else.
I use email as an analogy. Most non-tech people are familiar with the idea of there being different email providers so I use that concept to describe the fediverse.
Before anything, I would check if there is an active community they are actually interested in, and give them that. Otherwise, there’s really not much reason why they should use it. It would be like gifting someone a box full of manga to someone who is not interested in Japanese stuff. I’m saying this because a lot of people including OP seems to think decentralisation/federation/FOSSness are some major selling points to a lot of people, but it really isn’t. Content usually is.
It even applies to you too. If an instance banned you for mentioning Linux or FOSS, you wouldn’t really care that they were running open-source Lemmy, you would ditch that instance. If that happened with every instance, you wouldn’t use Lemmy at all.
Me: Imagine reddit for left wing, privacy obsessed, Linux nerds.
Anyone else: I really don’t want to.
/scene
I have only mentioned the fediverse to one guy I know, and we have many intrest in common, hoe server lab, 3d printing, electronics, automations etc. He looked at me with a smile and called me a nerd…
So I have just accepted that maybe this place isn’t for everyone, maybe they will stumble on to this place when the time is right.
