It’s been difficult to broach the subject and explain the technical concepts to the average person. I did have some success in first sharing the email comparison, which lead into interoperability.
I’m just curious to hear people’s success stories, if you have any.
I don’t, because it’s my escape from most of their bullshit.
I left Reddit because of their shenanigans. The Tiktok crowd deciding Reddit was cool was what guaranteed I would never go back. Now if anyone asks me if I use social media, I just say “No”.
Why would I tell them about “the fediverse”? Tell them that you use Lemmy or Mastodon or whatever. If they are interested then give them a link to a good instance. That’s it.
Definitely. People don’t care what’s behind. They just want an app or a website.
I send a fiend of mine image macros and shitposts from here
They’re like “WHERE DO YOU GET THESE MEMES”
I say “Lemmy, it’s like Reddit minus so much corpo garb”
They say “the fuck is a lemmy”
I send the link to voyager and say “all you gotta do is sign up on one of these places I think you’d like”
They’re still just on tiktok
I have tried
That’s all you can do 🤷♂️
How likely are you to recommend Lemmy to a friend or colleague? Give a score from 1 to 10.
It really depends. I would only recommend lemmy if they’re a techy. If they’re highly integrated into mainstream social media then it would be a 7/10 recommend. If they want to find an alternative then 10/10 recommend.
- I never shut up about this stuff
Fair. I just find it interesting and want to share it. I should just let them decide on their own if it’s something they find interesting or not. I’ll try to remember to just give them an app recommend instead.
I don’t tell people about the Fediverse.
The first rule of the Fediverse.
“It’s like email. You can have an account on Gmail and still send emails to Outlook”.
Edit: just saw that you mentioned email, so that’s usually the easiest analogy.
About success stories, I don’t have many, people I know IRL weren’t interested in Reddit, so Lemmy is the same.
This is literally how I explained it to somebody tonight actually.
How things went? Did you convince them successfully?
I was focused more on making them aware of it, rather than trying to get them to use it. Just socializing the idea. So it was a success! They are aware of it now, but they are not yet using it
Gotta send them more memes.
I just showed one of my friends the memes on it and they said tell me what this platform is
Nice, you won one.
Will you share your name with them? Did you communicate with irl people on the other place?
I’m not sure exactly what you meant here, but I probably wouldn’t tell most people who I am on here. That’s not to say I wouldn’t share in other places, it probably just depends on the platform really.
Hahaha there’s NO CHANCE I’d tell my friends I’m Rai here even if they already know I’ve got a grand in bad dragon dildos that I certainly don’t talk about here
I like using a mall as a really basic analogy for the shared social space:
There are multiple entrances to the mall through various shops, but once you’re inside, you can go visit wherever you want.
That’s actually a great one.
I like that analogy, thanks
I likened it to a room with bidirectional portals yesterday - your analogy is much better, and has been stolen for future use.
I don’t. When people say, “Do you use r/?” I reply with, “I left it during the blackout.” That usually ends it.
It really annoys me how often I see major media others citing reddit these days. It seems it really ramped up after the IPO. It’s never anything good either. They’re just either outsourcing basic journalism or complaining that reddit is too negative.
complaining that reddit is too negative.
Isn’t that a good thing?
I’d rather people not engage with it at all.
TIFU by sex pooping my virgin boyfriend’s dog cum fart shit at a wedding also AITA
edit: crotchspawn
Why not tell them about Lemmy (or other alternatives) instead?
Most of my friends are fully entrenched in mainstream social media and i don’t think there’s much interest in doing something different. I have a couple of friends and family members who i think are probably here, but we don’t talk about it.
i don’t think there’s much interest in doing something different
See that’s the part that I don’t really get though. Why is it so difficult to break free? People always want to complain but never want to be part of the solution.
Interesting that you don’t talk about it. Is that just because you prefer to keep your identity here separate from real life, or some other reason(s)?
Most people i know don’t complain a lot about the other places. When i bring up the constant marketing and such, they mostly don’t care. When interacting with people you know on social media there’s an expectation that you follow them, post/respond appropriately, etc. It’s tiring. I would use a different account.
I have a couple of friends and family members who i think are probably here, but we don’t talk about it.
This. Same as it was on reddit back then too.
I just share posts/comments that others find useful
Do you have anything specific, or do you just mean in general?
I would say mostly general, and it also depends on context and relevance
- like I’d send FFXIV memes to my friends who play it but not to anyone else.
For things that people aren’t familiar with but is useful to know (like PC hardware) I tend to share fedi-links as sources/citations after providing context
EX:
- [Powercolor Hellhound RX 7900 XT], [Partner Model 4070 Ti] - Value Comparison
- [ZOTAC 4080 Super], [PowerColor’s Hellhound 7900 XT] - Value Comparison
I’m a nerd
Makes sense, thanks for elaborating. Nerd!
:P
Don’t talk about the high concept of federation, talk about the community that the different services offer.
The classic misstake is to oversell and miss the point that the other party is focusing on.
Don’t: “Lemmy is so awesome, it can’t be shut down, it is federated, you can even run your own instance and have total control”
What the other party hears: “Lemmy is awesome, and you have to do a lot of stuff to join.”
Do: “Hey, have you heard about Lemmy? It is a Reddit clone with a much calmer community, I have had a lot of interesting conversations over there”
This puts the focus on the community rather than the service, people join social networks for the interaction, not the tech.
I’m not a weirdo, so I don’t. My friends don’t have to buy into my version of wasting time
weirdlybacksaway
Anyone I would tell about it is already on it. I don’t usually meet people IRL that are at all interested in anything online.
Usually as loudly as possible while wildly gesticulating and showing huge quantities of bloodshot eyeball. Seems effective so far, will continue to report in.
I’m going to need to see some evidence.
But have you tried frothing? Just a little at the corners of your mouth really helps get the point across.
I usually save the frothing for people who I can tell are really interested, but don’t want to join up for some absurd reason. I don’t know why they would lie about their feelings like that, but a bit of shouting and frothing in a corner really gets them agreeable fast. Great technique!
I usually wait till they complain about something related to one of the big corporate platforms, then throw out a “you know, the fediverse has an ‘X’ now, come join us!” Just replace X with reddit/tumbler/youtube/etc, whatever platform they were complaining about.
Alternatively, I’ll share fediverse links in the process of showing memes to people.
That seems like a good strategy. I should get into more meme communities.
I dont. Its honestly not great. I’d rather that effort went to preserving and repairing the existing tools of the free and open web – the old protocols are extensible. Imagine if we had an RSS client with a “reblog” feature!
“Federation” adds overhead and honestly creates as many problems as it solves. It’s not a selling point, its a price tag.
What are these “people” to which you refer?