Link: https://lemmy.world/post/49993072

Going by comments in the post, the required login is coming in waves, so not all people may notice immediately.
Still, as Reddit is strong-arming its way across, maybe worth signaling to people there that the fediverse may be used without an account, so long as there's even one instance that implements logged-out view as the protocol allows it?
I don't have access to my account any longer, possibly VPN ban, though I never tried to recover it so I can only guess why mine is lost, else I'd post myself.

We definitely need the 1.0 release of Lemmy now more than ever... Keep up the good work devs btw!

Why bother, if they want a good community they will seek one out. Growth isn’t necessarily good for this place.

Any pushing you can do is probably not going to help. Last time it was some API shit that actually generated a small amount of outrage enough to move a small amount of people. Apathy, habit and lock-in will tend to defeat that, so unless this gets people at least as pissed as whatever the API thing was, I wouldn't hold my breath.

Also, y'know, reddit... maybe it's just as well.

I agree, make the place too big and it will become unmanageable the same way it went for reddit.

Overgrowth certainly would have some drawbacks, but stagnation probably isn't good either

I find the fediverse to be quite lively (more than reddit) even if it doesnt have 5 posts a second. Quality > Quantity. Would rather have 1 good post that gets engagement than 10 shitposts nobody ever sees.

Nope, it's the best secret of the internet.

While I think there's some merit to the idea of talking about the fediverse on corporate legacy social media platforms, I think the best and most effective thing we can do is put in extra effort to engage with the fediverse itself, making posts and comments, building up new communities, and so on.

Reddit is no doubt getting worse and more closed off all the time. They treat their users like shit, or at least, like a resource to be harvested for profit.

But at the same time, Reddit users will sit around complaining about the platform until the cows come up, but when it comes time to do anything about it (like, for example, go check out the fediverse...) they don't ever take any action. And this problem isn't unique to Reddit either, people just love to complain about X on X, complain about Facebook on Facebook, complain about Tiktok on Tiktok, etc. It's hard to tell how much of that is just performative internet shit vs genuine addiction to their particular algorithm of choice, but in my view it's a real problem...

In other words, the question is "where we should be spending our energy?"

Should we be spending it on Reddit, trying to convince a bunch of people (who frankly range from ambivalent to straight-up addicted) that Reddit sucks? Or should we spend it here on the fediverse building the communities from the ground up?

Fun fact, safereddit.com still works perfectly fine as a frontend in my experience! (not the only one out there, just an instance of redlib If you need to bypass the login requirement just add "safe" before "reddit" in the URL and it should let you in :)

I'd say the fediverse is somewhat protected against the drawbacks of growth in a way Reddit isn't.

It's always worth pushing for the fediverse.

I'd guess there is a balance to be struck.

goes back to lemmy where every 10th post is a shitpost about beans

As long as instance owners can handle the traffic, yes.

we at least need to make sure we don't shrink, which can sneak up on you and be difficult to stop, better to maintain some growth

Also we need a stream of new users to replace leaving users (there will always be churn), especially when an instance goes down many users won't signup again

They instaban people who talk about Lemmy. It's useless.

eh, kinda? Decentralisation means one instance can learn from the failures of another, and there's bo one thing that can bring the entire Fediverse down. But that's a worst case scenario.

What I fear is this: A spike of interest in the fediverse leads to many instances being overwhelmed, and the general newbie experience quickly turns many people away, leading to lots of people leaving with a sour taste. In the meantime, instances successfully adapt and new ones spring up, but most users aren't coming back.

Imo that's a more realistic scenario than some grandiose failure, and you could say it's already happened several times.

Honestly I've given up on encouraging people to do things to better themselves. We've had open source technology for a very long time. The Fediverse has been pretty mature for a good while now. Xitter and Reddit have been through many rounds of appalling enshittification, not to mention Meta.

RSS is as old as the internet but people overwhelmingly choose Apple News and other dumb shit.

Email is as old as the internet but people overwhelmingly choose corporate platforms like Gmail.

Podcasts are ancient but people overwhelmingly choose to use platforms like Spotify, and worse, YouTube.

People just overwhelmingly make bad decisions, and have been for decades so, yeah, I'm exhausted.

I used to ask people to switch and they would ask "why?" and I would be so appalled that they would even ask the question because, how could you not know any of the litany of reasons to get off this fucking platform?

Sometimes they ask and I explain and then the only thing that changes is that they think I'm a weirdo.

This may be unpopular to say here, but the fediverse needs to be less toxic for the average user. I'm probably going to be downvoted to hell for this, but here goes: the whole tesseract situation was a clusterfuck and the dev is a jackass, but in one regard he is right - there is a toxicity problem. I mean, let's look at it:

• Lemmy's main dev is what many would refer to as a tankie. He regularly spreads misinformation, supporting fascist governments, so long as they claim to be socialist or communist - and don't belong to the west. Anything the West does is, by definition, evil.

• Lemmy's flagship instance is lemmy.ml. An instance where many communities have a "be nice" rule, but say anything against the (similarly aligned) group think and you'll be ridiculed, insulted, and banned. Meanwhile, some pretty insane calls for violence stay up. And lemmy.ml isn't even the worst in that corner of the fediverse.

• There are many other instances that aren't great, either. Wander into an instance and accidentally say something absolutely factual that someone doesn't like - ban, because some thin skinned mod sees it as derogatory. Remember the whole dragonfucker saga? Yeah, that's very off-putting to your average user.

Look, I'm no stranger to Reddit group think, I've had it turn on me, and trust me, it's no fun. Hell, I've had it on Facebook back when that was still a thing (yeah, I'm dating myself here). But it was nothing on what I've seen on here. I've been able to avoid it here (or, sometimes I've purposefully wandered into it in an attempt to disrupt an echo chamber, but then I knew exactly what I was getting into and expected as much), but what I saw happening to others - holy shit. I mean, to be fair, the instance I'm on is an instance that very rarely defederates, which I like because I like seeing different viewpoints including ones with which I vehemently disagree with (although the viewpoints are very unbalanced, that does have to be said). But it's a hell of a lot more fun to not have to keep your guard up all the time.

So, you might argue, be careful which instance you chose. OK, so I chose an instance like Lemmy.world, which as far as Lemmy goes, is definitely more on the normal side of things. But then, who are they federated with? The next rabbit hole. And how do you know which ones have less crazies? Experience. And as a saying goes, experience is what you needed just before you got it. Then many people suggest putting together blocklist and what not. Another rabbit hole. Put briefly: it involves work, a lot of it. People aren't on Reddit to work (for the most part), they're there to have fun. If you need to put in so much work, at some point it's not fun anymore. And that's what's off-putting for the typical user.

What can be done to make it more palatable for normal users? I honestly don't know. I see it as a chicken and egg problem. We need more "normal" people to drown out the crazies, but then the "normal" people won't come because of the crazies. Maybe Piefed is better in that regard - although I've heard there were/are?tesseract-style problems there, as well - I just haven't had the nerve to go down yet another rabbit hole to figure out what's actually going on. Which brings us back to square one - that's already gone way, way too far for the average user. And I can't exactly blame them. I'm "only" here because I care about open source and decentralisation. And I insist on staying here on matter of principle. But I can't in good faith recommend it to anyone I know IRL.

Anyway, sorry for the long rant. Maybe someone has some better ideas.

Lemmy needs to grow organically, so communities can form their own cultures, instead of importing it wholesale from the largest forum on the internet.

A spike of interest in the fediverse leads to many instances being overwhelmed

they could just disable signups when they get too many users, or maybe use an invite system to limit signups

im never going back to ad supported algorithmic brainwashing. decentralized open source, or nothing for me

Yeah Lemmy is the last place before I just go hang out in parks and be outside

Yeah, came to say more or less the same thing. I genuinely believe we're big enough where we don't need to tell people we exist. We can spend our time making the fediverse a better place so that anyone coming to look for an alternative to Reddit can look at the fediverse and think "that looks like a cool place".

I believe Lemmy has the potential for a wider range of discussion and debate than Reddit, or any other social media platform I've been on, simply because of the defederated & community-based system. The issue, as you describe, seems to be saying the wrong thing in the wrong place, which, to be honest, is similar to the real world. There are a lot of topics people probably shouldn't talk about in public, but it's normally fine for them to talk about in their chosen groups/community. Lemmy just kind of brings these groups and communities closer together, igniting more discussion, but simultaneously causing issues you describe.

For example, you can't walk up to a group of homosexuals and try to convince them they shouldn't be gay. You can discuss topics related to LGBT+ rights of course, but there are definitely off-limit discussions in that group, same as any other group. I think it's a matter of paying attention to where you are in the Fediverse and who may be reading your response before blurting out what's on your mind.

On the comment about tessaract; I cannot agree on the idea that the dev of tessaract was "right" about toxicity. Even if he was, he was in no place to take it into his own hands to address (especially in a secretive way). Lemmy is a community-based platform and we need to figure that stuff out as a community. We don't have a corporate-level moderation team ensuring the platform is safe for those under 18, and we don't have anyone enforcing political views in any way other than in specific communities (who have every right to enforce their chosen views). Just as some say we wouldn't need police if we had strong communities, the same goes here, strong communities are the key. If you see a lot of toxicity where you browse, maybe your chosen community just isn't a healthy one.

I don't remember the dragonfucker saga. What was that about?

I'm still not banned yet

This period has been regarded as the "golden age" of every successful social media website.

Getting big comes with its own problems. This isn't an IPO, no one is trying to juice stock price, there's absolutely zero reason to rush shit.

Well yeah, that's what being overwhelmed means

I believe in reality, the kneejerk reddit mod multiban just transitioned seamlessly into fediverse multibans and defederations - I know, who could've foreseen such shit. Some defederation happened for good reasons, but I've been cluster banned from a bunch of communities I never even been in as a "lemmy.world zionist", apparently, and that last bit is news to me at least. People bring their sad, incredibly petty bullshit with them.

People here are no fonder of "alternate viewpoints" than on reddit, you can tell the hivemind kicking in just from the person who pointed out a couple of blatantly realistic issues 8 seconds ago.

It'd be a good way to get people to spread out and make sure they don't all join the same instance

There's an account that insisted people address them as that, because that was their username.

Then they had a handful of accounts named some version of "dragon" who they would borderline roleplay fuck in random communities.

It was really weird.

Like, no judgement if you're into that. The ick was they seemed to enjoy doing it in front of people to make them uncomfortable, and people that get off on violating consent like that, are going to be giant trolls about it. That account even created their own instance (pretty sure they ban anyone else that comments or creates an account) just so they could get onto the admin comms and cause drama.

Like, Ive hooked up with a woman who (at least at the time) claimed to honestly believe she was a dragon. So technically I'm a dragon fucker too, I just don't throw it in everyone's faces unless it comes up organically

I'm also very aware that she wasn't actually a dragon, and was most likely just trying to psych out of the military.

Speaking as a ln anarchist/council communist... There are some good instances and I simply don't see the bad ones if I'm on an instance acc with good defaults.

I don't view it as problematic if people are put off by Lemmy holding more normal, less capitalist and less reactionary views.

That said, in terms of preference, I'll pick free communist groups over tankies and liberals (I decline to ever consider fascists an option at all).

In these dark times I'm not quite sure whether we can afford to lose what allies we have. But we do need to mold what can be sympathetic to our progressive and left-wing causes.

Piefed is problematic for me - although it has a lot of modern features, I oppose the karma system there. I prefer a system that cannot be abused by bots.

Blåhaj has that, works pretty well

You should stand on a box and shout at people for the irl social media experience

I got banned from reddit, and it took me 2 weeks to think to search up "reddit like alternatives." This is not a problem with disenchantment with Reddit, this a problem with Fediverse visibility.

Bump. (he he he) :p

https://youtu.be/7ZWQMvHNOnI

Would you search up "reddit like alternatives" if you hadn't been banned? And if someone came on Reddit a few days before you got banned and said to you "hey, this is the Fediverse, come join us", would you join, or would you say "I have no reason to leave Reddit or to use any other Reddit-like platform"?

I also don't it's a "disenchantment" problem. I believe it's more of a "refusing to change because it takes effort" problem

Just holding up images of memes outside

Me neither. But god damn if I just want a thriving community where I can get lost in threads on subtopics of topics that I’ve never heard of in my life.

There's a difference between advocating for a "set the world on fire" attitude, and a "we must take up arms to defend our continued existence" attitude. I think we are well past the point where we should be pulling our punches on fascist ideology. Putting flowers in the gun barrels of the oppressors just means there'll be pollen on the bullets. I'd absolutely LOVE for there to be a peaceful solution*, but let's be real: we've seen this horror movie before. We know what's around that dark corner. I'd much rather go on the offensive and nip this shit in the bud.

(*and I hope there's still time to have one, let me be clear)

people go where the content is. That's just the nature of the beast. Like I'm pissed at the reddit mods for kicking me off of reddit more because that's were 90% of the minecraft community lives, (most of the reason I used reddit in the first place) and less because they got the ass pains for me calling them out on their corporate bootlicking behavior.

Something has been lost over the past 15-20 years. It's like nobody has the mindset anymore of the world wide web era. Where's the curiosity. Where's the discovery. Where's the malleability to find something new to you and try it. Inertia has locked them into subservience.

The internet flipped upside down. It was new frontier for you to explore. Now you lay there as it spoon feeds you.

People have been quantified into units. So they can be packaged and sold as datasets. They're boxed into what the ad industry categorizes them as. This person is an Apple News user, reddit user, and Youtube watcher. That user is on Twitter and Facebook. Much more fine grained than just what platforms they use of course. They told the system what they like and the system built a reinforced box around them. And then charge them for an air tube for good measure.

We are far gone from the days where a user would be so excited to post a wall of text about using a thing that another user doesn't know about. These days the reaction is more likely to be,"Who are? Who sent you?!? What's your real motive???" Skepticism. Distrust. Paranoia.

Often these days, outright indifference. People know these platforms fuck with their minds. With public conscious. They mould the world we live in. People don't care. The world chose to be Cypher. They wanted to be plugged into the Matrix.

Though that's not really a good analogy because outside the system isn't a desolate landscape. The outside world is still normal.

honestly, in the months leading up to it I may just have. The AI posting ragebait problem was/is getting very untenable over there and it would have been a nice safety valve to come here and gripe about the world without having to dance around corporate boilerplate ass covering "rules" governing what you can and and can't say. I suppose you're not without a point though. Hindsight is 20/20 after all.

People know these platforms fuck with their minds...People don't care.

Exactly. The vast majority know how terrible they are, but continue to subject themselves to it anyway. Why? Lack of self-respect? Unwillingness to explore and learn new things? I don't get it.

The Fediverse has shown me that what these companies have isn't anything special, aside from the network. People don't go there for the software, they go there for the people. But they can't move the people to new/other software.

I actually just got the "You used old.reddit.com you need to log in to view" and decided to see if any more people had adopted Lemmy. It's more active than it was last time I was here, but probably still not active enough to move most casuals.

I'll probably come back for the next couple days and re-build my communities, and see if it can keep my attention, but I'm not holding my breathe.

It's unfortunate that Mastodon has also struggled, I'm glad Bluesky exists as an alternative but it would be nice to see federation more widely adopted by the masses. Maybe in time, with constant growth.

I saw the r/FauxMoi post today about the subreddit being marked sensitive information and de-prioritized by the algorithm and it's clear enshittification is in full swing, so it's just a matter of time before Reddit is mostly abandoned.

I’d toss a quarter in yer bucket for that.

No, just no. Just stay off reddit lmao, not trying to be harsh or whatever but it's a very simple answer.

there will definitely be some users over there that discover the fediverse and join us, there will also be some that won't. And we don't want them all to come, ghislane maxwell can stay on reddit forever from her country club prison computer, for example.

So just keep doing whatever it is you're doing to contribute to the fediverse, either by being a powermod or just a lurker, and as the fediverse grows and adapts it will attract those it should attract.

Going back and contributing to a website owned by literal trump funders just seems like a complete nonstarter to me.

Idk, tell your IRL friends, discord friends whoever, sure, i just don't think posting on reddit is the answer to doing anything positive for the fediverse.

People need to change their ideas about what the fedi/threadiverse is in relation to social media. It is an international forum of everything.

The lemmy.ml situation is heavily offset by instances that either limit them or block them enitrely, as well as Piefed acting as a direct foil.

The *iverse cannot be unified entirely. Lemmy/Piefed/Mastodon and Pixelfed should be seen as a platform unto themselves where one may find likeminded people. It is not tailored to anyone's particular personal taste, and is open to anyone of literally any personal taste.

Lemmy does have a bit of a reputation for being the Fight Club of the fediverse... which is tbh, kinda fair but it kinda comes with the territory - literally. We're all here and we aren't all going to agree.