I wouldn’t say it’s the main selling point. Because if it is, there is no selling point.
The fediverse is a series of social networks. Social networks rely on being SOCIAL. So in order to have a healthy social network you need a large number of people. The more people, the better the platform. It’s that easy.
The current audience for Lemmy/Fediverse is a niche group. This group highly prefers linux. It cares (and knows about) federation. It cares about adblocking. It highly prefers political discussions. It cares about privacy.
As for the majority of the country? They don’t give a shit. About any of that. At all.
Linux is a platform that if you based user numbers on features, it SHOULD be the number one operating system. It’s not. It’s not even close. I’ll put it this way. The Dallas Cowboys play in a stadium that can fill 100,000 people. If you filled a sellout crowd for an event, the ticketing ushers would outnumber the linux users in that building.
And the reason for this, is the average American does not give one shit if something has enshitification. Or even notice enshitification. That’s the reason products keep shrinkings, ads keep appearing. If people stopped using the products, they would stop doing that. It’s only profitable because people don’t care.
So if the major selling point is “we don’t have corporate enshitification”, and the majority of people don’t even know what that means, then it’s not a selling point is it?
The current audience for Lemmy/Fediverse is a niche group. This group highly prefers linux. It cares (and knows about) federation. It cares about adblocking. It highly prefers political discussions. It cares about privacy.
But it’s not, actually. The instances you choose tend to federate with similar instances while the instances for the people who are not like that, are just not shown to us as a group. And I’m perfectly fine with that. Does it make Lemmy a bubble to some degree…sure. And are the vast majority of instances exactly as you describe…yes, I’m not denying that.
But outside of our circle of instances, there are hundreds of little instances that are just for themselves; their family groups, their workplaces, their DnD Campaign, etc… We don’t see them because we aren’t federated with them, but that doesn’t mean they don’t exist.
Lemmy is more than just where we sit, typing away at each other. Lemmy is the technology itself, and it’s used in far more places than just our little bubble of politically minded privacy respecting tech nerds.
Edited: Heck, I’d be willing to be you that somewhere out there right now, there is a dark-universe Lemmy made up of all the Nazi, right-wing instances that federate with each other, and we would just never see them in our feeds because that’s the beautiful thing about federation/defederation.
I wouldn’t say it’s the main selling point. Because if it is, there is no selling point.
The fediverse is a series of social networks. Social networks rely on being SOCIAL. So in order to have a healthy social network you need a large number of people. The more people, the better the platform. It’s that easy.
The current audience for Lemmy/Fediverse is a niche group. This group highly prefers linux. It cares (and knows about) federation. It cares about adblocking. It highly prefers political discussions. It cares about privacy.
As for the majority of the country? They don’t give a shit. About any of that. At all.
Linux is a platform that if you based user numbers on features, it SHOULD be the number one operating system. It’s not. It’s not even close. I’ll put it this way. The Dallas Cowboys play in a stadium that can fill 100,000 people. If you filled a sellout crowd for an event, the ticketing ushers would outnumber the linux users in that building.
And the reason for this, is the average American does not give one shit if something has enshitification. Or even notice enshitification. That’s the reason products keep shrinkings, ads keep appearing. If people stopped using the products, they would stop doing that. It’s only profitable because people don’t care.
So if the major selling point is “we don’t have corporate enshitification”, and the majority of people don’t even know what that means, then it’s not a selling point is it?
A niche group who is here because capital destroyed other platforms we loved.
I don’t think my statement is untrue but I also don’t think it will remain true for much longer for exactly the reasons you put forward.
edit: @LEVI@feddit.org
Hard disagree, quality matters as much or perhaps more than quantity. A billion Nazi network is still Nazi, see Xitter for instance.
But it’s not, actually. The instances you choose tend to federate with similar instances while the instances for the people who are not like that, are just not shown to us as a group. And I’m perfectly fine with that. Does it make Lemmy a bubble to some degree…sure. And are the vast majority of instances exactly as you describe…yes, I’m not denying that.
But outside of our circle of instances, there are hundreds of little instances that are just for themselves; their family groups, their workplaces, their DnD Campaign, etc… We don’t see them because we aren’t federated with them, but that doesn’t mean they don’t exist.
Lemmy is more than just where we sit, typing away at each other. Lemmy is the technology itself, and it’s used in far more places than just our little bubble of politically minded privacy respecting tech nerds.
Edited: Heck, I’d be willing to be you that somewhere out there right now, there is a dark-universe Lemmy made up of all the Nazi, right-wing instances that federate with each other, and we would just never see them in our feeds because that’s the beautiful thing about federation/defederation.