The mastodon and lemmy content I’m seeing feels like 90% of it comes from people who are:

  • ~30 years old or older

  • tech enthusiasts/workers

  • 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?

  • tiramichu@lemm.eeEnglish
    1·
    1 year ago

    A central account instance rather defeats the point of a federated system.

    With federation it’s ensured that any single instance is only a small part of the whole, and that if any instance goes down (or worse, goes rogue and becomes a bad actor) then the impact of that is minimised. All users being registered on a single instance is akin to putting all your eggs in one basket.

    I do totally understand from the perspective of new users that it’s hard to understand what to do or how to do it but that is a problem that could be better addressed with clearer onboarding. e.g “Choose any one of these recommended instances to sign up. It doesn’t matter which - you’ll be able to see the same content and communities across all of Lemmy no matter which you pick”*

    *mostly, but close enough

    • BURN@lemmy.worldEnglish
      1·
      1 year ago

      To be honest, I’m still not sold on federation, and that’s going to be a huge hurdle to overcome with the general public.

      • mrmanager@lemmy.todayEnglish
        3·
        1 year ago

        I think its the only way to not be completely dependent on some single entity.

        So far we have seen all of them go bad with time. At least with federation, you and me can talk with no corporation in the middle, which brings me back to the lovely feeling of the 90’s with BBS’s and forums. Before the corps took over and put ads everywhere, and basically took the world hostage.

        If something big happens, ordinary people need to be able to talk without censorship. And its going to be very hard to censor a distributed network like Lemmy.

      • TheWoozy@dmv.socialEnglish
        2·
        1 year ago

        Choosing an instance is no more confusing than choosing an email provider. I signed up on several right away. I figured I’d stick with the one I liked best, but since they all run the same software it makes little difference. One instance lost its domain, another is constantly being DOSed. Otherwise it’s simple.