What I want is a way to read content from the different places and then share stuff here.

Inertia is a hell of a thing. Also TikTok has one of the most efficient algorithms of any social media, and I doubt it would be easily replicated. Especially if you're doing it in the classic Fediverse spirit of trying to be non-invasive, non-addictive, caring for the users' privacy etc.

What's stopping you?

Motivation will be the big challenge, for the technical aspect I like to recommend di.day for simple 'switch recipes' for many things tech

Ban them from Reddit lol.

Two thoughts based on what you wrote:

There's a bit of an issue with that. Re-Centralization. If the grand majority of users are in the "Main" or "Primary" instance, it's just moving one mass from one to another, without spread...

I think it's plenty fine to recommend a specific instance to people. It doesn't need to be the main one either, it can even be yours:

Does the Fediverse have an equivalent to matrix.to?

Not really. Probably because Matrix can "get away with" recommending some default software (including web apps) to view a community from any server, regardless of where it is, mostly because there's very few instances of that software to recommend. Matrix.to is a first-class service provided by the same people who run the flagship Element client and develop the server too, after all. And it's still limited: matrix.to will not point you towards a niche instance of Element, for example.

But things get worse when it comes to Mastodon and Lemmy because usually instances tend to act as both data servers and clients. If somebody sends their profile link to a friend, it goes to their server. People have implemented sharing techniques, but these are janky at best, and require extra configuration and pre-knowledge on the part of the recipient.

And I still don't know how to open a post from a different Lemmy instance on my current one without manually looking for the community and then the post.

I think we are too small to care about something like this. I can see a "bad" instance taking people off forever. But it would be nice to have for certain to have more people spread out.

In the first half of the 2010s, Friendica appeared to have the solution for this problem.

People needed a Twitter account to keep up with what's going on on Twitter. They needed a Facebook account to keep up with what's going on on Facebook. They needed a Tumblr account to keep up with what's going on on Tumblr.

And they had to log into these three websites separately.

In came Friendica with the goal to connect to anything that moved and then some.

You could run your Twitter account, your Facebook account and your Tumblr account through Friendica.

Perk #1: Three commercial, corporate, popular services, three accounts on commercial, corporate, popular services, but all on one website. With one login. All at once. Plus a better-than-Facebook Facebook alternative that was fully capable of long-form blogging on top.

Oh, and if you were interested in that diaspora* thing, Friendica had you covered there as well.

Even if you wanted to get into contact with folks on (pre-pump.io conversion) Identi.ca or elsewhere on StatusNet, again, Friendica had you covered.

Perk #2: You could use Facebook without actually using Facebook. You could interact with your Facebook friends, but you didn't have to log onto facebook.com and let Zuck spy on you through that website in order to do that.

Perk #3: You could crosspost to everywhere all at once. You could send literally the same post to Twitter and Facebook and Tumblr. And diaspora*. And Identi.ca/StatusNet. Oh, and, of course, Friendica itself. And LiveJournal and a WordPress blog and Dreamwidth and Libertree.

Not by copy-pasting and sending the same text ten times. But by actually only sending that one message.

And you only had one comment tree under that message with comments from everywhere. Of course, Twitter users couldn't see comments from Facebook etc. But you, you could see them all in one place.

However, and I know this from personal experience, this didn't work. Either it was too technical, or people didn't needed alternatives to stuff that just worked for them, or both.

Also, after a couple of years, Facebook no longer let third parties extract data. If you, as a Friendica admin, were caught doing just that with the old Facebook connector, then Facebook terminated not only the dev license you needed to run the Facebook connector on Friendica, but your entire Facebook account. (For a time reference, all this was before Mastodon was launched.)

Thanks for this link, I didn’t know this existed. Going to spend some time to see if there’s something I can switch to easily.

What's crazy to me is that the barrier to entry is lower on the fediverse in my experience

Note the word "entry." The likelihood that someone doesn't already have an account on Twt/Insta/FB/etc. and is making an account on the Fediverse has got to be near zeroo. No one is ever gonna hear about the Fediverse first before other major social media platforms unless they're a literal child who is getting their first ever account.

So yes, while making a second acc on social media platforms is a major pain-in-the-ass, most people already have their account + app and don't have to deal with that shit.

Automatically, I mean. Is there an app that lets me read reddit stuff and post to the equivalent fediverse communities?

What they do care about though is algorithms and low barrier to entry - and neither need is fulfilled by the Fedi.

Well there is https://quiblr.com/

https://quiblr.com/understanding_your_private_personalized_feed

Not sure if something similar exists for microblogging platforms. I can't believe someone hasn't made a Mastodon app/frontend that does this, or a fork of Misskey/Sharkey with an algorithm built in. Are the microblogging platforms even trying to build features to bring in new users? Lol

Ah I see. I don't think so, unfortunately. Something like that would definitely be useful, I guess as a browser extension? I wonder if something like that exists...

The harsh truth: most people don’t care about decentralisation, protocols or who owns the server. They care whether their friends, memes and creators are there. Don’t sell them the Fediverse as digital vegetables.

Find them a great app, help them follow 20 interesting accounts, and make it fun. Network effects beat ideology every time.

I’d start with Loops.video: TikTok already proved that vertical short videos are basically social media crack, so don’t ask your friends to suddenly become Mastodon power users reading federation essays.

Give them a familiar format without the TikTok ecosystem: Fediverse adoption probably needs to feel boringly familiar before anyone cares that it’s decentralised.

That reminds me that I really must finally mention this on: Fedizen.EU

There is a firefox extension and a linux app for this

There is a kind of network effect or massive synergies to being "the app" for a certain topic. E.g. you can't split up a social network into multiple competitors to break a monopoly. It takes huge investment in marketing budges and content creation to make people change, like what they did with tiktok (paid content creators big bucks).

Help a brother out... Wnat is the name?

I think it’s plenty fine to recommend a specific instance to people. It doesn’t need to be the main one either, it can even be yours:

I would agree. Though I'd personally avoid the main, and suggest them to check any other instance out, or maybe make one in main, and then maybe explore other instances for their particular interests (ie Art, Programmers, Game Dev, Music, Particular Culture, Particular Country, etc)

Not really. Probably because Matrix can “get away with” recommending some default software

That's understandable. And would love to expand on this. My ideal way would be something like an intent:link (like fb:,ig:, geo:coo,rds, tel:, matrix: etc) something like... fedi:(host)/(content)? ie fedi:/lemmy.world/post/123456, fedi:pixelfed.social/username or similar?

But things get worse when it comes to Mastodon and Lemmy because usually instances tend to act as both data servers and clients

I think this could be fine, assuming they continue to show where the poster is from, and linking to that instance.

I don't see it is really yet, mostly in terms of content. It lacks in many topics and is drowning under a few others. I would rather like to try building conversation on more diverse topics with the people already here and let curiosity and the network effect very slowly bring the other people in. Plus, it would make the fediverse more enjoyable for people already here.

Even in terms of interoperability the fediverse make a promise it can't really uphold today. Sure I have my geek fun time publishing my reading note from BookWyrm to Lemmy and commenting on PieFed photos from Sharkey but it is not something a casual user would do. The fediwares need to mature and implement the interoperability ActivityPub allows. That won't be for tomorrow.

Oh yeah that's a good point! I tend not to interact with people who use mainstream social media so I forget how uncommon it is to not have those accounts already

Yeah, the Fediverse needs different ways to promote itself. Very few people give a flying flip about decentralization or open source, but some people might be interested in:

-Giving less power to Sam Altman (partial owner of Reddit), Zuck, Musk et. al

-Not having everything you post directly given to OpenAI for AI training

-Lack of psychologically manipulative algorithms

-Fewer ads

-Different moderation, maybe (if someone has had issues with being threatened on Xitter or having posts auto-removed somewhere or something)

-More human interactions

You’re still not going to get most people to move over based on those things, but you might get more.

Yeah, I’m also a not-very-technical user and I feel this. Fedi is great if I have a tech question or very general human question, but I miss seeing thriving online communities around some of my interests. The people organizing cool offline activities I want to participate in simply aren’t on here. My family’s not here, either. All of those are pretty important “social” aspects of social media that the Fediverse lacks.

I’m kinda baffled at the low-userbase-is-a-feature people. If decentralization and FOSS are so inherently wonderful and this kind of social media is so much healthier, wouldn’t you want all your friends and family to benefit from that? Don’t you want society as a whole to leave toxic algorithms behind and stop consolidating tech power in creepy dudes’ hands?

Those were the days. I remember there existing some Qt app that did similar. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram (before Facebook acquired it) and AIM (via pidgin) all in one app. Then they killed the open standard

I’m a pretty active poster & reader over on Mastodon and think the Fediverse is neat. That said, people who share my interests (vintage signage, 1970s punk rock / new wave, old monster movies, etc.) pretty much only hang out on Instagram, and do all their image sharing and commenting over there. The more general “this is my lifestyle” people head where the action is, and it ain’t here.

I don’t think naming it “Fediverse” would help much. The Fediverse is already a confusing concept for a lot of people, while “better version of Instagram called Pixelfed” is more straightforward. I think the best bet might be to improve the UX on the official Mastodon app, make an official Lemmy app named Lemmy, etc. Have “make an account” default to the largest instance, but have a “choose a different instance” option in smaller font as well, complete with a question mark button that gives people a VERY brief explanation of what an instance is, reassures them that they don’t need to worry about it right now, and mentions that they can change it later. This might be tricky on Lemmy in particular, as the flagship instance from the lead devs is controversial and no longer the most popular one, but might work better on other Fedi platforms.

I kind of agree with the rest of this though. The Fediverse simply lacks most of the celebs, interesting people, and dopamine-providing stuff that mainstream social media has. You’d probably need to do some kind of big PR campaign where celebs talk about moving to Fedi platforms (and have them, you know, actually be on here.) Make a big cultural movement where all the cool kids are moving to Mastodon. I’d like to hope you could bring in some excitement without the kinds of shitty, manipulative algorithms that the big platforms have. But it probably would help to make it somehow easier to find interesting/fun/engaging stuff. You might need a more Reddit-style setup where you select some interests and it points you to related communities or hashtags that are popular on your instance or something.

Yeah, this is smart. If we get more thriving communities for different interests groups, more people will want to come and stay in the Fediverse. And that naturally lends itself to getting your friends to join, too, because some of them probably share those interests.

I hope not. Surely we can come up with other ways to help people easily find stuff they like.

https://redirect.piefed.social takes you to your nearest PieFed instance.

Yeah, Lemmy/Fediverse has a very specific brand of niche and very few others. I’m missing those book/media-related communities here too. Fedi needs more niches.

Maybe don’t explain the Fediverse. If they dislike AI, just say you use a Reddit alternative that isn’t partially owned by Sam Altman. If they’re concerned about being addicted to Instagram, say you use an Instagram alternative without the addictive algorithms.

Hoooo boy. I've been asking this for ages. It's INSANELY hard. I don't think it's possible actually. Normies gonna norm, and they're gonna use "what everyone else uses".

Until zucc climbs through their window to take a video of them performing a circus act for "age verification" in order to use their social media platform, people are never going to embrace the weird, scary, darkweb fediverse.

woof!

Bro, after being here for quite a while. Most of the people here are nontechnical. They couldn't actually do much more tech then the average person. And the bitch like no where else.

Enjoy!

I always wanted to write a 1 minute ad for Mastodon. Any artists want to animate it? I figure images of social media posts and a cute little mastodon tooting (from his trunk) might be worthwhile.

If anyone does, here's the copy I was thinking:

So your social media is changing and you don't like the direction it's going. Maybe it's the owner, maybe it's the algorithm. The good news is there's an alternative. It's called Mastodon.

Mastodon works like other social media. You follow people, and they follow back. There's sharing, likes, replies, and everything else. Only, you see your timeline in order, not based on an algorithm made to sell you things. AND Mastodon lets you pick your server based on an interest. So in addition to following your friends on their servers, you can also browse your own virtual neighborhood, choosing from things like video games, music, or even your real life city or country.

You can even create and host a server if you don't see one you like.

Mastodon also offers extra features like hidden posts just for your followers, and content warnings so you can hide triggering content, or use them as spoiler warnings if you don't want to run a new movie for everyone else.

To see list of servers, head to Join Mastodon dot org, and join the herd.

This is exactly why corporations/governments want to keep them tired and not caring. That's how they get them to stay on large social media platforms where they can send millions of bots to shift the vote their way through propaganda, and it never ends, never gets better. It's a dream for an authoritarian who thinks everything big brother did in 1984 was the best idea ever.

And to your point, the people keep having those problems because they are giving every shred of their money and data to massive corporations without a minuscule thought of how it affects other people. It's a downward spiral from there.

Location being constantly tracked because you use google services turns into tracking where you shop turns into tracking your buying habits turns into...hey, we can charge this fool even more for the product they're buying, and they'll keep buying it! Even better we can create 56 fake brands all within a few cents differing price of each other so no one knows what product is actually good, and make millions of bot reviews so those aren't reliable either!

All because people can't be bothered to just think about who they are giving their data to.

I mean I constantly enjoy being as algorithm free as possible and paying far less than any of my friends for better services and no/less ads. I enjoy curating my experience instead of zucc selling me trash I don't need. I think most humans like being fed slop though, so be it.

OK, so I replied to a couple threads, but I’ll put my direct answer here. You have to frame it in terms of something they ALREADY care about, not try get them to care about decentralization.

I’m a non-technical Fedi user. I didn’t give a damn about decentralization or FOSS when I first joined. I only vaguely understood what those things even meant. (I do understand and care now, but that came later after I kept seeing people talk about them in Fedi spaces.)

I joined Lemmy because I cared about getting away from the big tech billionaires, basically. I’m sick of AI and don’t want to use Reddit as long as it’s partially owned by Sam Altman. I wasn’t thinking in terms of joining the Fediverse, I was thinking in terms of “Reddit alternative that doesn’t directly support Sam Altman/OpenAI.” The “choose an instance” thing was a barrier, but that faded after I found out I could change it later and decided to just default to the most popular instance for now.

Your non-technical friends probably don’t care about decentralization (yet), but they might care about:

-Fuck AI companies and the big tech billionaires

-Avoiding psychologically manipulative algorithms that make social media addiction more likely

-More human interactions, fewer ads and bots.

etc.

This part is harder, but you’d need to find communities on here they’d be interested in. I joined when I was thinking about deGoogling, and the thriving tech communities on here appealed to me for that reason even though I wasn’t a techie. This might be easier with a different part of the Fediverse, depending on the person’s interests. Lots of creative people of all stripes are on Mastodon, for instance.

As for Pixelfed:

It's like Instagram but you actually have agency over your content and you're not at the whim of Meta's corporate censorship.

Threads logo

Threads isn't part of the fediverse in any meaningful capacity xD

Its not possible for them to not use Instagram for at least 1h when we meet up.

I don't use Instagram, so what does using Instagram mean?

Do they browse Instagram, liking and commenting on things? It's difficult to leave Instagram if the things they want to see don't exist elsewhere.

Do they take pictures and share them with friends? Because that's easier to move if the content moves.

Treat the fediverse as a pre 2007ish internet and don't expect them to be there just focus on making new friends and creating a good space. If successful they might come but don't put yourself in a position where you require it to use the fediverse.

Oh, not the same. I'm talking about an app that would work like a feed reader + share button. Remember Google Buzz? Something like it.

So true! For example, on Reddit, there are way more active subreddits, discussions, and memes about anime, manga, and manhwa, but here it's literally dead. And one reason people don't shift toward this is also that it's not something easy to understand and is way more work than just going to reddit.com and signing up. Whereas for the Fediverse, you've got to find a proper instance first, then make an account, wait for approval for some instances, etc.. Way more work for people who're used to just signup in secs using login ! The first thing should be a way to fix this and make logging in easier, and also there should be a particular popular app—like a main app—so that people don't need to go search for apps.

True it depends on the frontend. summit is smooth, foss, lightweight adfree what more can a person need..

1. No algorithm.
   They come in, look at all posts, upvote down vote still see 99% of the content they DGAF about and leave.
   * teach them to curate?
   * create tech to curate? Starter Packs? Meta Communities?
2. No niche communities
   We've got cats and dogs and mildly interesting and greentext, but the gaming subs are dead, the automotive and sports and will just about any other community a normie would want either don't exist, are squatted on by someone who made them 3 years ago and left or they're owned by one toxic crackpot mod
   * If you have any interests or hobbies, it's a good time to start some communities, get a couple people to help content. Maybe borrow some stuff on reddit.

If the come here and they can't find what they want, they'll leave

The curation part may make this a fools errand. They want the doom scroll, unending entertainment on tap. This place isn't like that, it's 2003 in here and we want to read what's new then GTFO and go do something else.

In a way, maybe it's better like this. I miss the old internet, and the fediverse is the closest thing we have.

No, they just scroll reels endlessly. Like TikTok. It's a plague, short videos are addictive.

OK, just dug up a list of most popular Reddit subs.

We actually have a lot of places for them already, but the viewership is low so the contributions are low.

look at /r/funny 43k weekly contributors vs our top of funny@sh.itjust.works with 15k subscribers. They throw away 3x more contributions every week than we could even if everyone posted something every week.

we can't solve the posts without the people or we end up in bot hell. But we could probably curate the best stuff they're posting and dupe it here.

We need more niche communities and for them to stay alive. I know when this all started, I tried to field a couple new communities and contribute to a niche gaming community. It was only the mod and me for a coupe months, then it was only me. Zero engagement, and if i posted a useful map or chart from IGN, they just downvoted me. That got old after a couple more months and I abandoned it.

If you look at the content in funny or mildly interesting, The content they're posting over there from their large user base is truly engaging. I hate to see bots, but maybe we could come up with some tooling to make curation borrowing easier?

Thanks for the reminder to engage in my hobby communities