Yes I am. I know reddit has a very american bias, which can piss some redditors off sometimes.

I don’t really care about the size overall. What I care about is whether my friends are on it or not. That’s why Facebook is great, because you can literally find anyone and everyone (for the most part). Looking for that person you knew back in high school, or a cousin? They are likely on there. Want to find musicians? There are lots of groups in your area that people go to very often to find other musicians. Want to find people to play D&D? Join a d&d meetup group for your area.

Nothing about a federated site precludes any of that from being possible. It may make it somewhat more tricky, since searching between instances can be a bit wonky, but it is very doable. I think the fact that different instances can connect between each other makes things seem bigger than they actually are. You can be on a one person instance, but still be able to connect with everyone else on the entire fediverse. So overall, size is generally irrelevant, other than building a network effect, which I think is very important for any social media site to succeed.

It almost seems like it is too flexible. Like, it pulls in posts from all over, which is interesting and cool. But do people join a site like Facebook to see random posts from everywhere, or do they join it to see posts from their friends?

Lemmy is good because it is a closed ecosystem. It doesn’t take in posts from every site on the fediverse. That’s not to say that it should not be an option on Friendica, but it should definitely not be the default view. Which is definitely a part of what also drives people away when they try it, I think. They don’t know how to connect with their friends, and just end up connecting with lots of random people. The fact that “list in directory” is checked no by default doesn’t help either. It seems like it almost tries to make it hard to connect with people you know.

I do agree with that assessment. I feel like it almost just needs to be rebuilt from the ground up, with that specific focus in mind. A new site all together might be the best way to go.

I do not think that is accurate. I know plenty of non-tech people using reddit for a variety of things. Everything from music to personal advice to fashion, interior decorating, and food. It is far from a tech only forum. Very few people I know use tiktok. Instagram is definitely used mostly by normies, I will give you that.

Where have I said that I want them to turn into a full mega corp? All I am hoping for is enough success to be useful for people. Like Mastodon and Lemmy are already. Like blue sky is.

Efficiency == effectiveness.

Maybe not within the “geek” world, but Facebook is one of if not the largest social media platform out there. So I am not sure it’s quite accurate to say “not many people” want to use a site like that. I know for a fact a lot of my friends would join one of an alternative existed.

Between the tarriffs and now this, the maga crowd really owned themselves when they voted for the price of eggs to go down. Good job guys, who could have seen this coming?

I am not a programmer or web developer. This post is meant as a contribution to those that are capable. If there is some user feedback forum more appropriate, I would be happy to contribute there. I apologize for not being able to contribute more. I will work on my programming skills and see if I am able to help in a more concrete way.

Was the smallness the magic? For me, I did not notice or care about the size. It was about personal connections first and foremost. The feed was full of your friends posts, and nothing else. Then they all started going all in algorithms, trending/engagement, advertisements, bots, and AI, and it all went to shit. In other words, corporate profit seeking is what ruined it, not the size.

I fully agree with that. Personal choice is a big part of what the fediverse is a big part of what the fediverse is about, after all.

That is pretty depressing then. I always viewed the fediverse and activitypub as a transformative technology that could reshape the state of corporate control of the internet. What you are saying that that will never happen and we should just basically give up.

That second one is actually pretty good. The first one needs to die in a fire.

Eh, I think rejecting anything associated with Meta seems perfectly normal for people trying to get away from corporate social media.

The poking was annoying, but somewhat endearing. I feel like myspace was where it was at to be honest. There is a site called spacehey that replicates it, would be nice for something like that to be on the fediverse.

You’re the third person I’ve heard this from. Seems marketing is not the only issue.

Forgive my ignorance as I am not a developer, but how hard would it be for a new development team to take it over? I know that open source software is a collaborative process, but it feels like most of the biggest fediverse platforms have dedicated teams that drive it. What exactly happened that led this one to fizzle out? What would it take to get another one engaged? Or would it just be a start from scratch type situation?

I do agree that the functionality is pretty good, if not a bit wonky at times. I’ve heard those hosting servers discuss how hard it is to keep an instance running smoothly.

True, but then why have Mastodon and Lemmy been able to make it work? I’m not sure about Lemmy, but I know Mastodon is a non-profit that has a paid development staff. What is stopping friending from following a similar model? Do they just not care enough about it to try to pursue it full time? I do know there are grants and different types of funding structures for fediverse projects, but I do see how funds can be a limiting factor. For me, it seems more of a matter of passion and dedication. I could be wrong about that though.

Totally, the name and overall functionality is decent, and I actually do enjoy using it once I figure out how. It just needs a bit of a face lift and overall marketing rework.