Fediverse

This site is an aggregator. I want to use it to aggregate content I want to see.

It's trivially easy for you to not be exposed to things you don't want to see here, so I'm not really understanding the issue

Especially given the armies of people who cross post any decent content to all networks. I hope that here, due to no monetary benefit and no karma, it is only for the love of sharing. All the good content will make it here, but rather than being a firehouse of crap, the community nature should make the relevant communities more focused.

I still use Facebook for local groups. I think even they realise that niche communities without outrage are where the growth will lie. That's likely why they are scared of federated networks. It could easily kill them over time.

Federation with Meta will probably not have a huge effect on Lemmy. Threads has no communities after all.

It will probably be mostly a Mastodon thing.

i've seen quite a lot of content from tiktok, over on reddit (basically a repost?)

I refuse to go on tiktok myself

But i will gladly watch a 30 second clip if its funny or interesting, regardless of where it originally came from.

i've already seen older memes reposted here anyway. not like we can avoid it...

I'm a Reddit refugee and I've been moving all the pictures and videos from my old niche subreddit to my new niche Kbin magazine. I'm afraid Reddit will collapse, and the collection of floaty things I've been building up will become lost media if it's not reposted somewhere else. I like the Fediverse's mission and I want to see how the Fediverse develops. Also, I want to have a complete and functional artsy magazine on Kbin to show the others back on Reddit that it can be done well.

For the past couple days, some of my posts have been making Fedia's home page and apparently other instances' home pages too. It's good to be seen, but I'm afraid I'm getting more attention than I actually deserve. I like seeing art of fantasy worlds and interactions, and I'm not alone in that. But, I'm afraid I'm corrupting your feeds with stuff you aren't looking for, just because I'm doing it first.

The Eternal September begins again I guess

I truly don’t get this.

I think it makes sense if you realise that people are here for such a huge variety of different reasons.

Some of us (including probably yourself) are here because we're hoping that the fediverse might be an open alternative to corporate social and everything that entails.

Others are here because one of their favourite reddit subs might have closed.

Others probably got caught up in the fuck /u/spez thing and just think it's cool to hate spez without really understanding what's going on.

Others are probably here because it's a just a new virgin landscape for trolling, or building a following or being some kind of influencer.

That's why a lot of these people would see Meta's arrival as great news. More people more content.

I will say though, the fediverse is the first platform that can cater to all of these people. For example, you might end up with a group of lemmy instances which refuse to federate with any instances which federate with meta. I'm not saying that's a good idea, just that it allows everyone to be catered for.

I personally want to consolidate all content in the fediverse because I see it as more archival-proof. Companies can come and go, brands can sell and change, but a community effort like the fediverse has a huge potential to last.

Just look at reddit and how many useful guides have been taken down.

If you know where to look, there are a lot of useful news, posts, guides, articles and media floating around but often, these are at the hands of big corporations and companies who can turn their backs on their users any time (and with it, our access to these files/media/etc)

Personally I want the Fediverse to become the norm. So that means not having an opinion on what sort of content I do/don't want. I get why people like the "secret club" vibe but secret clubs of smarter-than-average people don't make the world a better place. Letting the masses do what they always did in a better way does.

That's not to say I'm pro-Threads; I don't think gaining users through a single massive server which will be the way 90% of users engage with the Fediverse and can kneecap other servers that don't follow their rules (which particularly worries me because of their ban on porn; I think most popular Fediverse servers ban porn, but not all, and with Facebook it's clearly in the name of "advertiser friendly") is healthy growth for the idea of federation.

Purely text based content is way easier on the servers. If all Lemmy users uploaded videos and high res images all the time, the servers could not keep up, right?

• consider that they use hardware that is run on donation (or their own) money

Some government services use twitter to publish news or information. I expect they will be in Threads too. If I can access them through federation then it's a huge win for the Fediverse.

I agree completely.

I recently compared it to sitting in a comfortable little cafe that serves delicious food and looking around and saying, "Gee, I wish this was a McDonalds."

It just doesn't even begin to make sense to me.

And I'm with you - gatekeeping or no - anyone who wants Twitter or Reddit or Facebook content can already go to Twitter or Reddit or Facebook to get it, and that's exactly what they should do.

Couldn’t agree more. The reason I came here was to get away from the algorithm driven inanity of big social.

And I can’t help feeling that the only reason Meta wants to federate Threads is to kill the threat of the fediverse off.

Personally, I am fresh enough to all this that I feel it's prudent to kind of sit back on the discussion, and am leaning toward the "defederate" option.

However - I deleted my Facebook years ago, and never had Instagram or Twitter. It would be nice to interact with my own family and friends who do most of their online presence in places like that. So I kinda get it. I'm not after the mass-produced content but it would be cool to hear from people I know again that I've lost touch with because I'm stubborn about FB.

Just spitballing - and please consider that I haven't been at Lemmy long enough to know if this is a terrible idea - but what about an instance that hasn't blocked Facebook and other big corpos, but doesn't raise their content by default? Like what if you have to actively connect with people on them? Seems like a decent middle ground, until Facebook decides to break it anyway.

"can't wait for all that meta content"

the content: someones racist uncle yelling at you in the comments

I agree with you. This place can actually be above all that shit. Plenty of apps to use if you want that sort of mass produced trash.

I believe most people just want more content than anything, but with opening it up to all of those other social media platforms, you get all of the junk that comes with it.

I personally left those platforms to get away from all of the social media drama, and I don't mind less content as long as it quality.

I agree, if i want to see memes o pure shitposts there are tons of alternatives

On my Instagram account, I follow a whole bunch of zoos, rehabilitation centers, parks, etc. that would never join a niche platform but make absolutely amazing content. I would love for there to be a commercial product for that kind of content to reach directly the fediverse. I also enjoy minor "celebrities" (drag queens, podcasters, voice actors) who again, don't really care for quirky alternative social media products. I wish I could see their content directly from my more private Lemmy account.

Having been on the Internet through the period when AOL connected to it, I'm a little skeptic of the idea that linking a behemoth to the fediverse won't totally fuck up the culture of the latter.

I’m not here for mass-produced content, if I wanted that, I’d be in other platforms. The beauty of these communities is they are not filled with posts that are all the same, algorithms and bots. It’s just a community of real people having conversations.

The problem with the fediverse is that it's not really filled with posts at all. Maybe the Tech or Random magazines, if that's what you're looking for, but if you want to talk about cars or suits or model trains or whatever, you'll be lucky if you see one post across the fediverse in a month. Niches are empty, because most people here mostly have one interest in common, which is the fediverse itself.

Conversely, the value of large-scale social media, and the theoretical ideal of the fediverse, lies in positive network effects. You're into some obscure Japanese manga only four people who speak English have ever read? odds are, three of those people are on reddit, and you might find them. Looking for a review on a bootmaker you saw at the thrift store? Go to /r/goodyearwelt, there will be twelve threads about it, none of them sponsored or anything, diving way too deep into details you never could have imagined wanting to know.

But right now, look through lemmy.world or whatever, and tell me:

• What are some good anime? Some good Shonen anime? Some good non-Shonen anime? An anime that represents trans issues well?
• Where is a good place to get a suit under $400? In the US? In Europe? What's the difference between Huntsman and Edward Sexton's cuts?
• What's a good recipe for a cake? What about a salad? How do you deflame a red onion?
• Who is the vice president of the United States? Who is the secretary of state? Who is the Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property and Director of the United States Patent and Trademark Office?

Trivial questions, right? Most of them haven't come up here at all. Reddit is a massive corpus of knowledge, answering questions way more obscure than these, with enough people around to answer whatever question you might have in a variety of niche communities. People want that on a service they can trust.

I don't think many people want more tools to talk to strangers about nothing. Scale gives rise to better conversations and interactions in niche areas.