this post was submitted on 04 Sep 2024
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How do we get "normies" to adopt the Fediverse? (lemmy.zip)
submitted 3 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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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 @[email protected] are:

  1. marketing
  2. not having to pick the instance when registering
  3. people who have experienced Mastodon's hermetic culture discouraging others from joining
  4. algorithms helping discover people and content to follow
  5. 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?

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[–] [email protected] 17 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (2 children)

Just send them to Lemmy world

I agree that having a "default instance" would greatly help with onboarding new users, but as many others have said before, centralizing on the largest instance is not a good idea.

There are several other "general purpose" Lemmy instances. Why not send everyone to lemm.ee, until its size is close to lemmy world? At that point, start sending everyone to lemmy.sdf.org or lemmy.zip.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 3 months ago (2 children)

Great point!

I don't know what other instances are viable bit we should have a place to get current preferred.

I just tell my peeps Lemmy.world it is like reddit with out going into details about fediverse since they ignore me once I start talking "federation"

[–] [email protected] 6 points 3 months ago (1 children)

The problem with this approach is that your peeps won't see any reason to go there if it's the same as the R-site only exponentially less popular.

There needs to be an understandable USP.

Perhaps: "But without ads. Ever. Anywhere." Works for me and I know what an ad-blocker is, unlike a ton of normies.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 3 months ago

Sincere question: what does "normie" exactly mean in the context of Lemmy? Is it a person that couldn't get past setting up Lemmy account?

The term sounds like it has kinda elitist connotations. I mean I've set up Lemmy, but I don't feel like I'm god given - maybe I should. 😆 (kidding, of course)

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Yea, instead of a default instance, I think there should be a default system that assigns you to one of a set of participating “general” instances without you having to decide or think about it.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Doesn't https://join-lemmy.org/ do that?

[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 months ago (1 children)

AFAICT, it helps you pick an instance based on your interests, which only barely helps with the problem. If you’re new to the ecosystem, you typically just want to join in and see what’s going on before making any decisions. And you probably don’t want to bother with selecting criteria for a selection guide at all.

What I’m suggesting is clicking a button “Sign Up”, enter credentials, verify and done. Then allow the whole finding an instance process pan out naturally.

Part of the issue IMO is that how an instance advertises itself isn’t necessarily how it will be seen by someone … they need to see it for themselves.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 months ago

Part of the issue IMO is that how an instance advertises itself isn’t necessarily how it will be seen by someone … they need to see it for themselves.

Indeed