This has come to mind because all the chatter about Meta federating.
I see a lot of people saying they’d love to have that type of content here when Meta federates, and that those will be the best instances because they will have the most content, but they will still be accessible without compromising their privacy.
I truly don’t get this.
I’m not here for mass-produced content, if I wanted that, I’d be in other platforms. The beauty of these communities is they are not filled with posts that are all the same, algorithms and bots. It’s just a community of real people having conversations.
If you want mass-produced trendy content, please, consume it elsewhere, and when you are inevitably fed up, then come here and enjoy the slow-paced, real community.
PD: I hope this doesn’t come across as wall-keeping (or however it’s said lol), It’s my honest opinion.
I think it makes sense if you realise that people are here for such a huge variety of different reasons.
Some of us (including probably yourself) are here because we’re hoping that the fediverse might be an open alternative to corporate social and everything that entails.
Others are here because one of their favourite reddit subs might have closed.
Others probably got caught up in the fuck /u/spez thing and just think it’s cool to hate spez without really understanding what’s going on.
Others are probably here because it’s a just a new virgin landscape for trolling, or building a following or being some kind of influencer.
That’s why a lot of these people would see Meta’s arrival as great news. More people more content.
I will say though, the fediverse is the first platform that can cater to all of these people. For example, you might end up with a group of lemmy instances which refuse to federate with any instances which federate with meta. I’m not saying that’s a good idea, just that it allows everyone to be catered for.
Oh how much I hate this mentality.
My morals are so superior that not only will I not be friends with you if you disagree with them, but I won’t be friends with you if you dare associate with anyone that disagrees with my morals either.
As far as I am concerned the fediverse will become the next reddit or facebook as soon as a large enough group starts defederating with instances that refuse to follow its defederation brigades.
Sorry man, we can’t be friends because your friend John doesn’t boycott WorstCompanyEver™. They are fascists and if John supports fascists you must be a fascist too.
It’s not about friends and morals though, it’s about data, open standards, and what you want the net to be.
If John’s fascist friends have very strong views about the way they want the friends of their friends to interact, and the vast resources to influence John into the trajectory that aligns with their desires, then perhaps a refusal to interact with John is the only option for someone with no resources. It’s the paradox of tolerance.
Take for example Google Chrome, at one time it was a plucky little open source competitor to the established browsers interacting with open standards. Now they’re killing ad-blocking. This wouldn’t have happened if no one had switched to Chrome. I personally can’t control what browser everyone else uses, but I can choose which browser I support.
What I’m wondering is go fat would that go. You could have an instance that defederates from an instance because it’s federated with another instance that is federated with Meta. And so on and so forth. To me that will just create a group of instances that aren’t federated with anything else…
I will defederate with anyone who dares associate with Kevin Bacon
As reasonable of a stance as I have ever heard.
More people also = more problems, exactly the reason those places turned to shit too.
More people, introduces different problems.
For example, not having enough people engaging in a more niche community is a HUGE problem, which can only really be fixed with more people.
A big part of the reason yes, but I think advertising has an insidious role also.
Lemmy instance admins have no financial interest in user’s time on site. There’s no outrage machine to drive engagement.
i mean if you want a social media network to grow…
Things don’t need to grow to be successful.
Right. Growth is how shit fails and ends up artificially kept alive.
very diplomatic - but yeah we cant have it all :)