The mastodon and lemmy content I’m seeing feels like 90% of it comes from people who are:
-
~30 years old or older
-
tech enthusiasts/workers
-
linux users
There’s nothing wrong with that particular demographic or anything, but it doesn’t feel like a win to me if the entire fediverse is just one big monoculture.
I wonder what it is that is keeping more diverse users away? Is picking a server/federation too complicated? Or is it that they don’t see any content that they like?
Thoughts?
Old tech nerd here. Is this the meeting spot?
I’m called out, although I’m not quite in my 30s yet.
Also… Reddit started out in the same way, mostly as a forum for programmers and nerds
- ~30 years old or older
- tech enthusiasts/workers
- linux users
- hates Elon Musk
- hates capitalism
- loves free software but somehow hates free markets
Op too young to realize who made Reddit popular to begin with.
Also why Reddit used to be better
I’m Gen Z, don’t use Linux, don’t know the first thing about programming (I know how to use file explorer though), and never intend to learn, and I’m here because I don’t wanna use the official Reddit app and because I’m convinced that the Fediverse is likely to become big in the future and I wanna be able to say I was here when it all began.
This is me as well. gen z, hate that trillion dollar corporations run our social media. The fediverse is the future.
I know how to use file explorer though
What are the kids being taught that this is worth mentioning???
Idk I just heard that apparently knowing how to use file explorer is considered impressive in modern CS classes
What in the actual fuck
Unfortunately, computer literacy seems surprisingly rare in the younger generations…
According to what I have heard, other elite hacker skills that are at risk of getting lost in the younger generations include searching on Google and using e-mail.
Younger folks have been raised on apps and other polished devices with oodles of effort put into UX design.
Older folks grew up learning DOS commands, memorizing the IRQ of their sound card, and other clunky shenanigans.
In their current state Lemmy, Mastodon and other services are too complicated for most young folks to bother with. Not all, but most, especially the filthy casuals.
Word! I feel active learning and feeding off one’s brain curiosity diminished for younger folx.
With that comes laziness to “set things up”. “OMG, it’s too complicated for me. I’m having a headache. I can’t, I just can’t.”
This is the answer. I’m 26 and most of my peers didn’t really use the internet beyond the occasional usage of the school library computers until Apple released the first iPhone. By that time places like Twitter, Facebook, and Reddit were up and running.
That’s all their experience with the internet is. Polished experiences through dedicated apps on extremely popular platforms. Now those people have had kids and all those kids know is the same thing. It’s all apps on phones and tablets.
Lemmy: A) Is too complicated in it’s current form for those types of people to effectively understand and use.
B) Lemmy is currently emulating a type of early internet experience that only nostalgic older millennials nerds crave. General users tend to prefer bigger platforms.
Lemmy is nostalgic? Lemmy is novelty for me. Looks and feels so modern. Simplistic, yet modern. Am I weird?
No I feel the same way. I think it’s because it’s part of an ecosystem of concepts built with all its predecessors mistakes in mind. There’s still learning to do but the foundation is simple but is also modern.
yeah, too modern. perhaps they’re using a third party client?
Hello,
Are you aware you are replying to a year old comment?
Also, for less modern: https://old.lemmy.world/
i am also using a third party client
I mean, Reddit killed off ‘polished UX’ and that’s what drove me here. All the great 3PAs are on the Fediverse, after all!
I use Ivory for browsing Mastodon, and I’d bet that the app is more polished than any other first-party social media app.
The problem with Mastodon (and Lemmy to some extent) is that the onboarding process is not as straightforward, thus causing some friction for the less tech-savvy users.
Couldn’t agree more
We are used to Comfort and once you are used to it (or even never experienced else) its hard to lay it off for other benefits
I’m 26, probably among the oldest of gen z. I love lemmy. The quality is higher here because the community is smaller. There are much less reports than there used to be on reddit.
Yeah Im like one of the youngest with an age of 14.But thats okay because lemmy is just awesome for me.
My Soundblaster used IRQ 7. Why do I still know this.
Because when the great reset happens and VHS is hot shit again, you’ll be ready.
Ahh, the great modem connection sounds, letting you know that the internet was only just (roughly) 2 minutes away. Or longer.
56k4life
aka: early tech adopters!
these folk are always the ones trying new things, especially anti-corporate things. They aren’t keeping people away. this is just how the bleeding edge of new technology. The communities natural grow out over time as more people show up and start to outnumber them. But it’s thanks to them that niche new stuff gets supported in the first place while it builds up it’s audience (and reduces the friction to joining)
In reddit’s early days, it was exactly like this. I remember that it felt like a Linux user forum, but with some conspiracy theorists. I actually feel that lemmy is a little more diverse than that.
Young people don’t even understand that the internet isn’t only the 5 websites that have existed since before they were born lol
That’s probably a big part of it. We kind of designed the internet to become an information super oligarchy, even if it wasn’t intentional.
I’m 33 for the record so I guess I’m an older tech nerd. Nice. 😎
That’s what I’m here for lol. I mean this is how reddit was when I first started there. Same with digg
This place reminds me so much of early reddit. It’s been a strangely nostalgic experience so far. The part of that which I’m enjoying the most, is that commenters are more polite to each other as far as I’ve seen
That’s what I’m here for lol. I mean this is how reddit was when I first started there. Same with digg
This is what people always miss. Generally, sites become popular because niche subcultures form outside of the “big” websites as they no longer really serve their purpose of connecting to like minded individuals. They never “start big”, they generally snowball from small hardcore users to larger more generalized userbases over time.
I don’t know what you’re talking about, I’m just your average Hollywood celebrity here to promote my new movie “Barbie”, only in theaters July 21st.
● under 30
● i mean im getting there in terms of tech interests
● Yeah ok i use linux
30 is old now? Dafuq
If I wasn’t a tech nerd I would have given up on signing up for Mastodon and Lemmy. There is a lot of focus on how instances work and it seems a bit overwhelming. I had a lot of internal, ‘what if I make the wrong choice’, or ‘how can I move if I don’t like the community’ type questions. So being the nerd I am I researched the crap out of it and overwhelmed myself and said fuck it and just chose the popular instances since I know that I can move at a later date.
I personally think this format is favored by a lot of the demographic you mentioned. Most of us, I am generalizing here, grew up being active members in bulletin board systems. Then Reddit came along basically murdered the BB, but there was a good community to interact with. Now Reddit is basically unusable in my opinion because the community doesn’t care about the content or the people behind the screen. That brings us here. We learned so much of our trade, laughed a lot, and made real friendships on these types of system and it is a place a lot of us feel comfortable.
100% this
I’m a tech nerd and software engineer and even I struggled to figure out how to signup. Most people I know just want something that works. And those things tend to be centralized because of ease of use. The Fediverse isn’t easy to use, and makes the user make major decisions before even signing up or understanding the tech.
Eventually there should probably be account migration and a somewhat “central” account management instance that most users are on, with the option to migrate their user to other instances.
A central account instance rather defeats the point of a federated system.
With federation it’s ensured that any single instance is only a small part of the whole, and that if any instance goes down (or worse, goes rogue and becomes a bad actor) then the impact of that is minimised. All users being registered on a single instance is akin to putting all your eggs in one basket.
I do totally understand from the perspective of new users that it’s hard to understand what to do or how to do it but that is a problem that could be better addressed with clearer onboarding. e.g “Choose any one of these recommended instances to sign up. It doesn’t matter which - you’ll be able to see the same content and communities across all of Lemmy no matter which you pick”*
*mostly, but close enough
I started back in the Wild West BBS days on the 80s; graduated to USENET in the 90s, website forums in the Web 1.0 days, /., Reddit, and now Lemmy. Yeah, I’ve been around. Been “Yaztromo” all that time too.
I don’t mind that “Eternal September” hasn’t infected this space yet — that’s a feature, not a bug!
Yes.
