How do we get "normies" to adopt the Fediverse?
How do we get "normies" to adopt the Fediverse?
This is a follow-up from my previous thread.
The thread discussed the question of why people tend to choose proprietary microblogging platfroms (i.e. Bluesky or Threads) over the free and open source microblogging platform, Mastodon.
The reasons, summarised by @noodlejetski@lemm.ee are:
- marketing
- not having to pick the instance when registering
- people who have experienced Mastodon's hermetic culture discouraging others from joining
- algorithms helping discover people and content to follow
- marketing
and I'm saying that as a firm Mastodon user and believer.
Now that we know why people move to proprietary microblogging platforms, we can also produce methods to counter this.
How do we get "normies" to adopt the Fediverse?
Stop addressing them as “normies” would be a great start.
Can’t speak for rest of the Fediverse as I’m not super active on microblogging anymore, but at least here on Lemmy, there is such a strong “in” culture and quirky skewed perception of the world, and often times come off as actively hostile against those that do not share the same quirky skewed world view. The anti-AI, anti-corporate, would rather shoot myself in the foot if it’s not FOSS, etc kind of views, with their own strong vocal proponents, comes off as unwelcoming. People are addicted to socials because of the positivity they can get, not the negative sentiments that’s often echo’ed.
Amongst those that doesn’t share the kind of view, you’d already be looking at an extreme small minority that might be willing to give the platform a try, but as long as the skewed perception of the world dominates the discussions, you can expect them to go back to main stream centralized platforms where they can get more main stream view points based discussions.
@dch82 first, "normies" have to not get harassed when they come here.
Unfortunately the biggest Fedi software refuses to add automated reporting of offensive posts so if it's not reported, the admins won't even see it.
People coming from corporate social media are used to ignoring the report button because in their experience, it either doesn't work, or gets ignored by admins anyway.
We need automated reporting.
Since most people are talking about the sign-up barriers, I'll mention culture and reputation.
I love Lemmy and Mastodon, but whenever I've seen the fediverse brought up elsewhere, someone inevitably shuts down any curiosity by suggesting that it's a political echo-chamber. I don't think that's accurate for all of it, but if that reputation is out there, we probably need to make an effort to show that there's a broader appeal. If the average person is expecting the fediverse to be the left-wing equivalent of something like "Truth Social", I could understand the reluctance to adopt it.
I'm a developer, and it was a pain picking an instance. You start reading about them, and it turns out one's censored, the other one's communist, third one doesn't cooperate with the other ones so you can't see anything...
As long as it is like this, I don't believe mass adoption is feasible. I would've given up because it takes a lot of time compared to just registering and off you go, but I was interested to see what's all the ruckus after reddit started with censorship. Maybe interesting to mention that I was never an active reddit member (not one post there).
How do we get “normies” to adopt the Fediverse?
We don't. Normies take one look at anything that isn't mainstream and pinch their noses. A significant portion of them can barely make a search on the internet, they get lost at the idea of "websites" and are likely heavily biased against people who aren't using what "everyone is using"
Anedoctal experience: back when I was using dating apps, I've had a fair share of girls that stopped talking to me once I said I didn't have instagram, because it meant I was "hiding something".
You don't. If they don't wanna be here, don't take on this huge crusade to get them here. You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make them drink. They must take the final step themselves.
Focus on making lemme a desirable place to be, less on getting people to use the communication tool you happen to prefer.
By permitting advertising.
"Normies" are not "microbloggers". Most people just want to follow what their friends and family and news organizations and "influencers" are posting.
My biggest gripe with the fediverse (indirectly) is that all the information I would get on Twitter about my city is not available to me - concert announcements, restaurant specials, road closures, major news, hobby meetups, etc. They're posting on Facebook and Instagram (which is IMO the worst of all social platforms) and slowly adopting Threads. My issue with these platforms is mostly regarding the algorithm deciding what it thinks you want. This is driven by advertising.
Twitter didn't really pick up steam until celebrities and news outlets were posting and engaging on the platform. Then they pushed hard for ads to increase revenue and expand features and stability (for better or worse). Then they just got greedy. Then they were sold for the dumbest amount of money in the history of sales.
Getting normies here means getting influencers here. Influencers want to make money for being assholes. If you don't want influencers and ads here, don't ask for the normies to come. Accept the beauty of this micro micro blogging platform. If you want to share outside the open fediverse, embrace cross posting to the closed platforms. That's kind of the whole point of it. You can post in your tiny little corner while still engaging with the more popular platforms.
TL;DR: be careful what you wish for.
Make it look like a centralised system initially. Provide a portal to a pre vetted/chosen instance that is accepting new members in their locale/country, that is the same for everyone.
Update: This (above) is badly written. I'm trying to say every potential new member gets presented with the same (pretend centralised) portal that is in fact an (valid long-lived) instance local to the individual potential for them to sign up with. So two local users in Oz get given a proxy to the instance local to them, and a user in Blighty an instance local to that person. The decentralised Lemmy looks centralised, but isn't. The proxy front end should explain that they're joining their local instance and it's like a network of little affiliated clubs that can see each others posts globally. they log in for the first time it will become clear.
It's late, I'm tired, sorry everyone. Is that any better?
I think it's confusing (the reverse of what they're used to) for a newbie who have been bought up in a centralised internet with single front ends of all the big players to be presented with little instances to join to access the whole.
You can't, because normies don't care about tech other than it benefits them directly in some way. They care about the experience they get and doing the same thing everyone does because normies are like sheeps.
Normies barely even get how emails work and it's been like over 40 years. They know if they sign up for Gmail it's free, they get a ton of space and an @gmail.com address. That's it.
And even then, people looked at me weird back in 2007 when I made my Gmail account because "everyone uses Hotmail, why wouldn't you use Hotmail, everyone uses it so it must be the best". Heck just yesterday, the teller at the mechanic shop looked at me weird because I used $storename@max-p.me to place the online order, they were utterly confused. They thought I made a Gmail or Outlook for all of those aliases. People don't think about using emails, they think about using Gmail or Hotmail/Outlook.
Same with Reddit, it didn't become popular until normies felt like they were missing out by not being on Reddit, and arguably that was Reddit's downfall flooding the site with the same repeated arguments and opinions over and over. And for that too, I've been told my "Reddit looks weird" because I use a third-party app. People want to use Reddit so they download Reddit.
Normies don't use Twitter because they want to microblog, they use Twitter because their idols are on Twitter and they want to mimic them. If Taylor Swift opened a Mastodon account and posted exclusively there, we'd get a massive spike of users. And they all would want to register on the same instance as her and it would be the only viable instance to them.
They just want to fit in and do the same as the others, using the same services and same apps and everything. "Influencers" are everything these days.
The best way to get normies on the Fediverse is IMO, endorsing Threads and BlueSky, which will effectively force them to integrate because those platforms integrate.
- Fix picking an instance. It’s an irredeemably bad UX, even for tech people who could run an instance if they wanted to. Gotta remove that as an initial UX barrier first, which would require a new layer of system with integration with all of the clients.
- Accept that this isn’t like mainstream social media and likely never will be, even if instance picking becomes easier for newcomers. So instead focus on what can be done well here. IMO it’s customisable community building.
Currently all the big fediverse platforms kinda suck at this, in part because it likely requires a bunch of features, but also because they’re all made in imitation of big social platforms that were always less “homely” and more engagement farms.
To bring normies, something new and unique needs to be offered. IMO there could be a rich ecosystem of content and structures and communities that draws people in.
My fear is that the protocol and federation are the limiting factors on this, and so I suspect some restructuring or redesign is necessary.
Fedi client app developers need to design fedi client apps in a holistic way to include a custom server (as with Mammoth's moth.social) or create an account for the user on one of a curated selection of other servers, without forcing the user to choose one.
It's a severe problem with trying to grow fedi that general users are expected to understand how servers work and make an informed decision about which one to join. General users don't care about this topic and will quickly turn away when it is forced upon them. That's why the client app needs to handle this for the user without making a fuss about it.
These apps also need good discovery features and feeds with posts that are trending generally and for specific topics. Then devs need to make money with those apps somehow, then they need to market those apps (at this point, it goes beyond just "devs" and expands into an organization with a marketing department, etc.).
Then, hopefully fedi's inherent advantages of interoperability and resilience will naturally cause people to choose these user-friendly, effectively marketed fedi client apps over things like Instagram, Tiktok, etc. After all, if it can't compete on its own merits with all other factors being equal, there's no point to it for most people.
I said since I got here that the actual sign up process IS the hardest part. For exactly the reasons you said.
Each instance has it's own personality. As much as EVERY user here will hate to hear this, you need to centralize the decentralized. Have a single point of entry. Signup at Lemmy.com
Now you're User@Lemmy.com. and you're told that you have 6 months to pick an instance. And here's a guide to all known instances, with a wiki style explaination of what each instance's personality is. With an expandable list of each federated and defederated instance.
Now once they switch to their new "home" all their comments stay in their comment history. Everything in their profile comes with them. EVERY instance in the fediverse needs to adhere to a set of protocols. So that when they move instances, the only thing that changes is if you look at a post they made last week, it no longer shows user@lemmy.com it now shows user@lemmy.world. and if in 2 years you move again now it says user@lemm.ee even for posts you made 2 years prior. It always lists your current account. Even if you move to Mbin. Now it says user@fedia.io
It's a learn, and grow as you go situation.
Oh, and if an instance ever shuts down, those profiles aren't lost. They revert back to Lemmy.com, and the 6 month rule is back in effect.
But you have to anticipate the user. Not control the user. And right now the user understands centralized. So centralize the decentralized, and THEN teach them slowly how it works. I understand today leaps and bounds more than I did 4 months ago. I'm still not sure Lemmy.World is my final home. I'm trying out piefed. I'm probably going to try out Mbin. And I'm sure I'll discover new things. But on day 1, I was like ".....do what now? What's an instance? What's decentralized?"
And NOW I can see that the Nintendo account I follow on Mastodon for the past year isn't really Nintendo. It's Nintendo@Lemmy.World and EVERY post gets auto "boosted". A year ago I thought that was literally Nintendo. I was surprised they were not only OBSESSIVELY active, but that they had a Mastodon account at all.
You gotta remember, this is how most people will walk into the fediverse on day 1. Not knowing how shit works, and if it doesn't work for them, they're out. You can teach them later. But also right now the fediverse as a whole is fragmented as shit. There's decentralized, and then theres disjointed.
You'll notice that I post regularly to THIS community. With constant questions. I'M taking the active approach to learning. The average user won't know that they're stupid. They'll think the fediverse is stupid because it doesn't work the way they're used to. Most people don't have the self reflection I have, nor the constant curiousity. If I don't know a thing, it bothers me. If most people don't know how a smoke alarm works, they fon't give a shit. Whereas I watch a youtube video for almost an hour. Did you know there's actually several different types of smoke detection? And that one type is very much more prone to false positives, and worse, lack of positive positives due to light? See, most people will find that boring, not give a shit, and move on. So YOU gotta teach them with annoying popups. "Hey, the fediverse is actually self hosted, and right now you're on the instance of Lemmy.com! Whats that mean? Well...." blah blah blah, you guys already know this part, but that's the message they should get on day 1. Teach them they need to understand what an instance is, and how to pick an instance that works for them. Then they can migrate there. If that instance is ever no longer good enough, they can migrate elsewhere. Even to Mbin, even to piefed, wherever! One account, all the fediverse.
And here's the best part. They can go to fediverse.com and log in regardless of which instance they're on. Just type user is user@lemmy.world password is ********* and login.
And now all the decentralized is centralized. Without losing the benefits of being decentralized. Because it IS still decentralized. But most drivers aren't mechanics. They use the service, but they don't need to know the ins and outs. They just need to be able to use it, without it being confusing for THEM.
The hardest thing I've noticed is that linux user types don't grasp is that just because THEY understand something as easy, doesn't mean EVERYONE finds it easy. And there are a LOT of linux mindset people here. You may "get it", but that doesn't make it naturally intuitive. The fediverse is confusing as shit. Each part works differently. Has a different layout. Has a different interface. Operates differently. Which is a stark contrast to facebook users who just say "DO THE THING!" and suddenly 70 boomers are giving them thumbs up and emojis for a quilt they sewed and sharing the patchwork on.
Everyone here is saying to defederate from Threads, because it's facebook, and I get why. But are you seriously going to cut off the biggest by far userbase to federate with you, simply because you don't want corporate integration? Facebook still wouldn't own the fediverse, but now something like 80 million users will start asking questions about the fediverse. Yes, it's all old people, and people we would rather not interact with, but guess what. They don't want to interact with you in retrogames@lemmy.world either. They don't want to be in linux@lemmy.ml either. They're going to create their own communities, which have no interest to you, but boost the fediverse's numbers. By the millions. And now maybe facebook as a whole integrates. Maybe reddit sees the momentum and they integrate. Maybe hoogle sees the momentum.
And pretty soon the fediverse becomes the default layout of how the internet works. And the decentralized nature means that no corporate entity CAN own it. They can put ads on individual instances that they own.......but they can't control all the instances. And people who don't care about those ads will stay there. People who don't will go to other duplicate instances.
But to defederate from threads before ANY of this takes place is the dumbest idea I've ever heard, while daily seeing those same people ask "How do we grow the fediverse?"
THATS HOW!!! Ok, I've ranted enough....
I think picking an instance is just something people will have to learn and get used to as that's very essential to the fediverse experience.
I personally hate algorithms picking shit for me and that's why I use lemmy and why I used reddit back when it first came out. I search out and pick what content I see on my feed.
I definitely agree with more marketing. It's insane to think there's a lot of people that still use reddit and never even heard of lemmy
Defeatist opinion.
The commercial alternatives hope to make money with every additional user. They use AB testing and statistics to streamline the on-boarding and to increase engagement. The result may not be in the user's interest (doom-scrolling, ragebait, ...) but it works.
For a fediverse instance, any additional user is a cost, not the promise of money. Financially, you wouldn't want that. Those who fund instances are giving a gift to the world for their own reasons. You can accept the gift or not. Those who keep instances running with donations will usually want to sustain the community of which they are part. They probably don't want it to change very much.
So, I don't think matters will change. Partly because the psychological engineering is antithetical to the fediverse ethos (as I see it, in my humble opinion). But mostly because the outcome we see is an inherent result of the incentive structure.
I'll be open and honest knowing whenever bringing the subject up generates anger. "Normies" aren't gonna join somewhere where 99% of the conversations revolve around using Linux. Jump into any thread and someone's talking about it. Doesn't even need to be a tech thread. As soon as someone goes against the grain immediate backlash. It's not welcoming at all.
At the moment federation between platforms is not useful. The only advantage is federation between Instances. I've used my sister at a test for what the average woman would think about it.
Aspects she thinks is cool are that it's owned by people and designed for people, that its left leaning and inclusive.
Aspects she doesn't care about are privacy, lack of ads, federation between instances, federation between platforms.
Aspects she doesn't like are her friends aren't there, none of the accounts she like are there, no recommendation algorithm. She also hates the name fediverse.
I think that we need to stop being boomers clutching our chronological feed and word of mouth discovery and embrace algorithms. That's not to say we can have chronological feeds it's just that we should include and option and serve some form of content recommendations.
I also think threads will be a major player in drawing people in. Its easier to convince people who use Instagram to switch from Twitter to threads than Twitter to Mastodon. Once they're on threads they can start being a part of the fediverse and then eventually they might decide to try out one of the instances.
Create a nice atmosphere.
Make it simple and remove any technical barriers. They should be able to google "Fediverse" click on the first link. Choose a username and be on their way. Find the app with the same name and install it in 2 minutes.
The network effect is a thing. They need to already find lots of their friends, interesting people and their favorite stars there.
And it has to be easy to discover them, if we don't have an "algorithm" that suggests content.
Porn?
Lemmy (or at least lemmy.world) was bonkers levels of buggy last summer during the reddit blackout. Like, literally unusable levels of buggy. Getting the word out that it's (mostly) bug-free now would probably be good, because I'm sure there were many redditors who tried it and quickly swore it off as a pile of shit.
Otherwise I'm in agreement that the instance-selection part of sign-up is a huge barrier, because what instance you choose is actually really important but it's overwhelming when you're just getting started. Plus not being able to migrate your account/communities/posts to another instance if yours goes to shit/shuts down/turns out to not fit your needs makes the fediverse feel really unstable.
It’s way harder to find posts on mastodon compared to bluesky as you have to follow people to start getting a feed, whilst in bluesky they have a discovery feed. This makes it a way more streamlined experience for users, making bluesky and threads far more attractive to users than mastodon
We don't. Normies made Reddit suck and they'll make Lemmy suck too. Always have at least a small barrier to tech entry. When anyone can use it then everyone will use it. So do you want Facebook? Because that's how you end up with fucking Facebook.
I guess this ties into marketing, but I think rebranding the “fediverse” as the “social web” would be a good start. It has a broad neutral tone that I think is easier for regular people to latch on to.
The Fediverse needs a hell of a lot of work before we can even consider mass adoption.
More people would be great, especially for niche communities.
I don't see #2 as that big of a problem. Do we want people who won't expend any effort to join? I guess everyone sees the line between accessible and "dumbed down" a little bit differently. I'm not saying #2 is great. I recognize it is an obstacle. But it's also kind of the point of Lemmy...in the sense that this is not a monolithic corporate one-size-fits-all kind of endeavor. In a way, the obstacle also serves as a teaching moment, if you will, of how this thing even works.
Item 4 seems a bit chicken-and-egg to me. But my guess is, not being able to find those communities isn't nearly as big of a problem as those communities not having any content / participants. I can see the argument that one causes the other, but I haven't found it very challenging to find those empty places. It's just not much fun to hang out there by yourself.
People have suggested making a portal/quiz for instance signups, but that adds to the barrier. There are also problems like how in-depth and inclusive it should be. It reminds me of Linux distro pickers that often suggest weird niche distros.
There are already big/default instances in the Fediverse though but there are people who actively discourage this. Maybe Mastodon just had a bad start and Bluesky learned from that. I wonder if Bluesky's PDS will be like Fediverse instances though. Many Fediverse instances are built around shared interests but the PDS just looks like a glorified handle.
Personally, I think the Fediverse discourse should shift to designing social media with decentralization in mind rather than mimicking mainstream social media with a "decentralized twist". I don't think the Fediverse will ever be as big as Twitter, but it doesn't have to be. It just needs to be sustainable enough to keep new conversations going.
Doesn't answer the question but maybe it's worth sharing anyway.
I think I'd be considered a "normie" maybe. I'm not super tech savvy (maybe a bit more than the average person though as I'm a bit of a photoshop wizard and am interested in tech subjects).
What brought me to lemmy was my moral compass. I've used reddit since the late 00's so it was hard to let go but reddit just isn't what it used to be. I could no longer use Joey, my reddit app of choice so I abandoned it because what they did to Joey and other apps was bullshit.
I still find myself on reddit every now and then when I need information on something specific though. I haven't found communities on the fediverse that I connect with that are super active (things like houseplants, knitting, chronic pain, my specific city I live in, etc).
I use lemmy now for mindlessly scrolling before bed and news as I only use Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok for work so it's not leisurely for me to get on normie social media. I do find some interesting articles and funny memes and that's enough for now.
So maybe the key to get a more robust community is through pulling heart strings? Idk my husband still used reddit daily and I guess doesn't give a shit about the lax morals of the company 🤷🏼♀️
I have to say, as something if a social media virgin, I am puzzled by #4. I have never been a Facebook, Instagram or Twitter user. Previous to getting into the Fediverse, the only platform I engaged with that could be considered social media was Reddit, and I left that behind because of the whole brewhaha over third-party clients.
Since finding my way here, I have become an enthusiastic user of Mastodon, Pixelfed and Lemmy. I could not have imagined that it would be easier to acclimate myself and i have not encountered any barriers to entry, or at least I have not recognized any.
Is my experience atypical?
What made reddit so popular in my opinion was that every sub wasn't filled with agenda driven narratives you could find interests or memes random people with deep insights to whatever the topic was.
In Lemmy it seems every sub is skewed with left wing or DTS filled insane ppl and to find just normal shit is the rarity
Much like when there is an exodus on other platforms to host only right leaning viewpoints a "normal" person viewing it will see the same thing Lemmy has become and just go back to what they were using before
The problem is not the platform its the people. Chill tf out with all that propaganda horseshit and u might get regular ppl to use your product.
Tell the people calling for nuking half the planet to stop it, enforce it.
Boom. You just eliminated 80% of the hostility on the platform.
A sweet interface like Sync for Lemmy and respectful content and engagement are the key to me.
So I have been on Mastodon and Threads for quite awhile. I'm on BlueSky now too. Threads is the most enjoyable of the three by far. I don't see how marketing has to do with it in any way, but after spending some time on each, I prefer Threads. It's the only one that I've found content I wanted to engage with.
With Mastodon, I feel like I still can't get started. I'm not sure what to do.
There are some loud voices in the fediverse who don't want it to be very welcoming. Here are a couple examples:
Threads defederation - what could onboard people to the fediverse faster than a giant platform run by Facebook joining? Yes, I hate Facebook as much as everyone else here, but they're making an offramp for their users and half the fediverse wants to close that off?
Overbearing enforcement of norms - yes, it's good if people put alt text on their images and content warnings on stuff lots of people find upsetting. It's harmful to hassle people about it until they leave.
I think people who a small network with strong social norms are better off on servers that are selective about what they federate with to ensure stricter adherence to the preferences of their users. One of the great things about federated systems is that users can pick a place that's run in a way that works for them.
I've had more than one person tell me they don't think microblogging is worth any learning curve whatsoever. They'd rather not use anything than have a single conversation about federation or feed building.
Here’s your answer: “Lemmy wouldn't really takeoff to replace Reddit until it's content is search indexable”
Is it an option to not? Cuz if so that's what I'd choose.
I'd like less focus on the network and more on individual servers, with their own names, policies, and reputations. Then users aren't thinking about whether to join one huge network - they're thinking about whether that server is the kind of place they want to be. (https://wandering.shop is a good example of an instance that is explicitly going for certain vibes.)
It would allow individual pre-existing communities to create their own spaces, ones which would prioritize those communities' experiences and needs over their connection to the rest of the fediverse. I'm imagining something like Dreamwidth or Fur Affinity or the many old-fashioned forums out there, just with the ability to follow users or navigate to topics on other instances if you know their names or URLs. I'm really not worried about discoverability outside the instance - to me, the instance is the platform, and anything outside of it is just an additional thing I can get to if I want it.
That being said, I think this approach is probably incompatible with trying to create a general-purpose social media site that also attracts a large number of users, at least not without a hefty marketing budget.
In order to get more people on Fedi, we have to get more people on Fedi. People will go whereever everybody else already is. That's the only thing keeping Twitter alive, even though almost everyone there will openly admit they hate it, no one will actually leave Twitter because everyone else is still on Twitter.
It's a chicken-and-egg problem that I don't think Fedi can actively do anything to solve. Or rather, I think it's too late to solve. If there's any competitor that has a chance, BlueSky has established a much bigger userbase in far less time, and that's enough momentum to potentially get there. Anyone who's leaving Twitter will go to BlueSky before they ever look at Fedi.
To do that in the short term, the Fediverse probably just needs more money. The competitors have a fuckload of it and can introduce features way faster because of it. I think Mastodon's been "exploring/planning" quote posts for like 18 months and haven't even begun working on it. I'd love to have user-controllable, optional algorithmic feeds in Mastodon (not replacing the main reverse-chron feed) but I can't imagine it existing in less than 5 years.
Mods cracking down on the plague of 'polite' harassment (ex. passive-aggressive FYIs about CWs) wouldn't hurt. It's not as bad as it used to be but it's chased a ton of people away.
I think in the long term the Fediverse has an advantage. The only real goal Fediverse services have is to get better for users. At some point, Bluesky and Threads will have to make money or die. I don't think they have a way to do that without damaging the user experience.
With better design and better branding. These poorly illustrated mouse lookin icons are not helping us in any way.