Will the Fediverse reach Mainstream in 2024?

Submitted ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩ by ⁨blue_berry@lemmy.world⁩ to ⁨fediverse@lemmy.world⁩

Regardless of the negative aspects, Meta joining the Fediverse will definitely make the numbers of active users explode. This will probably bring the network and its concepts to many people and also a matter of public debate.

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Linus_Torvalds@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
This is the new “Is $DATETIME_NOW.year the Year of the linux desktop?”.

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- muggedTassi@feddit.de ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  Thank you Mr. Torvalds.
  
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Docus@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
I don’t think it will ever be mainstream. It’s confusing enough for IT literate people with a basic understanding of the concept, I can’t see it ever getting popular with the wider public.
My main concern is the overlap between lemmy instances, meaning me and my mate can be looking at for example a channel named ‘news’ and see different contents because we are on different instances. So you either subscribe to all news channels on all major instances and see lots of duplicated posts, or miss out on some posts.

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- blue_berry@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  Well most of the complexity would be hidden. For example the Mastodon mobile client hides much of it. You can even sign up for a server there.
  
  My main concern is the overlap between lemmy instances, meaning me and my mate can be looking at for example a channel named ‘news’ and see different contents because we are on different instances. So you either subscribe to all news channels on all major instances and see lots of duplicated posts, or miss out on some posts.
  
  Yeah there has been much debate going on about that here
  
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- rglullis@communick.news ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  This can (should?) be resolved by the client application. There is nothing stopping us from developing one single frontend that can pull data from different instances and shows it in an uniform way.
  
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simple@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
Unlikely. Maybe a few years down the line but the fediverse isn’t mature yet. Aside from mastodon and maybe firefish most sites are still in beta and missing features and quality of life. Even Lemmy is missing things like tags and a proper on-boarding experience. Things are slowly trudging along but I think the average person won’t take you seriously when you say the fediverse is an alternative that’s as good as the social media they’re used to.

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- Wiz@midwest.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  Have you checked out Pixelfed lately? The main developer is going like gangbusters over the last couple of months. It’s maturing quickly. I don’t think that guy sleeps.
  
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  - Bebo@literature.cafe ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
    Been hearing a lot about pixelfed. So is it comparable to say Instagram or is it a microblogging platform like Mastodon.
    
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PumpkinDrama@reddthat.com ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
The fediverse will never be mainstream, that would mean using addictive algorithms which open source enthusiasts are opposed to.

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- macallik@kbin.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  IIRC, the fediverse pertains to an interconnnected network of servers that are managed individually. Privacy is an option that led many current users to the fediverse but is by no means a requirement.
  
  If/when threads joins the fediverse, it will have addictive algorithms and collect large amounts of user data.
  
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Bluefruit@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
Yea I’d say its gonna be a while befote the idea of federated social media really takes off. I think one of the bigger reasons is just ease of use.

The federation aspect of this is kinda confusing when your first hear about and most users just want an easy experience.

Now you can say “oh just join lemmy.world and be done with it” but then comes another issue. Which is “wheres my account in this other instance?” Its not there. And it wont be there until porting accounts becomes a more integrated part of Lemmy and other federated socail medias.

I think those are the biggest things holding it back for now. I think it will catch on as more and more folks become more aware of (and care about) corporations like facebook(meta) or reddit don’t care what you think and will walk all over you for a quick buck.

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Roshakk@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
Maybe from the mastodon (microblogging) side, but I think that from the lemmy side it’s still a long journey

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- OldFartPhil@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  I would say Mastodon already has. I’ve been spending a lot of time there over last few weeks and there’s more content than I can consume. Breaking news stories are covered well, including live blogging, although a lot of that content is cross-posed from Xitter. Plenty of people to follow, including authors, photographers, journalists and scientists. An increasing number of media outlets have a presence there, as well.
  
  Xitter still has an order of magnitude more users, but Mastodon is mostly Nazi-free (which is nice).
  
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  - Spzi@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
    
    a lot of that content is cross-posed from Xitter.
    
    Same here, lots of content cross-posted from reddit. Most of which seems to be bot posts with zero engagement, but lately I noticed many of the human posts, which do generate engagement, are themselves just cross-posts of these bot cross-posts.
    
    So basically we’re like 2nd level social media, feeding off what Xitter and reddit pre-filtered for us. To become mainstream would mean to reverse this flow. I’d already be happy if we could shut these bots off and be independent from what we left.
    
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Phegan@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
I don’t want it to be mainstream. I like my small communities full of weirdos.

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- Corgana@startrek.website ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  No reason you can’t have that while being mainstream
  
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lightnsfw@reddthat.com ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
Why would you want it to? Look at all the “mainstream” social media sites. They’re shitholes.

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ron209@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
Don’t think so there is a learing curve to it against the one click of social media

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- macallik@kbin.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  Yeah. I forget that we're still likely in the 'early adopter' phase of things for now, which is why a lot of the UX is hit or miss depending on the instance and iteration
  
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ExLisper@linux.community ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
Haha of course not. Fediverse and mainstream social networks have completely different purposes. One is about creating small communities and the other about pushing viral content to vast amounts of people and generating revenue through ads. There will never be a meaningful interaction between the two.

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awwwyissss@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
Nah, too much extremist propaganda. Most people won’t stay if they’re every even convinced to try it.

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Mandy@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
It will never be mainstream for the fact its a confusing mess for most people to figure out, let alone tech literate ones. Facebooks involvement or not.

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- blue_berry@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  If Threads joins the Fediverse, people will use it - probably at first without knowing it, but they will use it.
  
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