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Another big obstacle is the general UX of these platforms. Major companies have teams of user experience analysis and researchers that, while not always "winning" as compared to product or business driven decisions, absolutely have a (generally positive) impact on the product. Onboarding, retention, etc.
The fediverse has all the standard frictions of most OSS, like talking about itself, it's technology, etc when the fact is 99% of users dgaf.
I might go so far as to argue the perceived complexity is a bigger barrier than the risk of sabotage from other businesses. I am optimistic the growing list of third party apps will help solve some of these issues, as long as they take things like the sign up process and server selection into their scope.
I don't think UX will be that big of a problem, in the past the unofficial reddit apps were all better than the official one. Major companies design by committee and the UX is meant too maximize profit and engagement statistics for advertising, rather than be "good". A lot of open source UIs are better than their paid counterparts. I think PopOS is far nicer than windows 11.
That and the servers are under such stress that it makes for a stuttery beginning for any new usrrs. Even just trying to upvote you and comment was a process. First this page wouldn't load properly, then then the upvote didn't show, then the screen jumped around when I tried to reply.
This site and any other will only replace Reddit etc if it's got people. It only gets people if new users can use the platform. We're not quite there yet. The people here now are willing to put up with growing pains but if it doesn't improve soon people will move on
I’m testing out Mlem on iOS and so far it is a much cleaner experience than even the desktop version of Lemmy’s webapp. Lots of nice QoL features.
https://testflight.apple.com/join/MelFP11Y
Yeah, the apps have been spotty for me, but at least the layout is cleaner.
Not a good sign when you need an app to properly use your website though.
We've been using reddit for years...
And? I don't remember Reddit being difficult to use when I signed up a decade ago
Why are you even here?
The problem is that everyone has consolidated on one gargantuan server. The whole point of the fediverse is to spread out so no one server is carrying the entire load. I'm currently using lemm.ee and have experienced none of the issues being discussed here.
But yes, I agree that it could be a potential turn off for newcomers.
Spreading out would help the performance of the servers but would still expose inefficiencies in the backend systems that they use to talk to each other. The page might load, but the content will be all kinds of fucked.
It's a huge turn off. And federation itself adds to the problem when the servers don't match up properly.
Create an account off of lemmy.world and see if you have the same issues. A smaller instance can handle things easier. It have 2 but use the one that was most up-to-date and responsive.
See that's part of the problem. You shouldnt need to have to create a bunch of accounts just to use a site. People aren't going to stick around to find time their social media. They want it to just work.
I don’t disagree that it’s a weakness. But that just is how it is for now. I’d guess that it will settle down to a few dozen “strong” instances that are all federated together, with hundreds more smaller instances available, but right now there are like 5 super-packed instances (lemmy.world, sh.itjust.works, kbin.social, etc) which are getting killed with a double-whammy: all the users and all the communities are on them.
Decentralized nature of Lemmy is also going to be confusing for the average Joe. When they to go to web site of Lemmy and see a list of instances to choose from, with communities spread all over them they are just going to nope out.
yeah, lemmy's current web app is very much in the "made for nerds by nerds" category as far as i see. lots of cool tools to express yourself and not many useless limitations, but on the other hand it's kinda confusing if you're not that techy. it's absolutely learnable but it would do very poorly on a hallway usability test.
and it's understandable why that is so, lemmy itself is being developed by two people who have their hands full putting out a thousand other fires, as well as sorting through the community's contributions. but there's still a lot that will have to improve in the future -- although I'm completely sure that when it does, it will be way better than what a corporate alternative would be like. those tend to do well with attracting new users but they also tend to be out of touch and suffer from stupid one-off decisions by middle managers trying to get promoted.