Fediverse

Probably not replace, but certainly it could be a viable and thriving part of the picture. I don't think there's anything wrong with having options.

I expect good and insightful conversations to be moved here.

Reddit is about to become like twitter and facebook where it's ad-ridden, toxicity cesspool.

People will leave to keep having the actual forum experience and will eventually move here as it looks like a very good alternative.

No. And that’s fine. I don’t expect underground music to replace top 40. And there’s a place for both.

The various people who work on the fediverse are all doing it for fundamentally different goals, solving different problems, and building different things for different people. It just so happens that, more often than not, a lot of our stuff works together now thanks to the hard efforts put forward by people who cared about interoperability.

I personally believe that the fediverse will kill traditional social media platforms. Because if you can just communicate around a walled garden, what's the point or value in staying in one?

I think we still have a long way to go in terms of usability and design. Those things, along with marketing, remain pretty steep barriers to adoption by people who are unfamiliar with it. There are also a lot of capital-H Hard problems that need to be sorted out down the road, like better filtering and moderation tools, and more robust controls for privacy. I have a feeling we'll get there, but only through hard work and collaboration.

I guess a different way of understanding things is that, the fediverse might not kill the competition outright, but it has the potential to outlast them as something better. And hopefully someday, it'll be as ubiquitous and ordinary as email.

No, I don't think the Fediverse can replace social media.

People are drawn to social media exactly because of its flaws. The algorithms are what keep people engaged.

When the first waves of Twitter refugees hit Mastodon, a common complaint was that the site felt dead. There was plenty of activity, but the truth is that Twitter's algorithm was designed to be engaging while Mastodon is more of a "you get what you want to get" kind of deal.

Then there's federation. It's impossible for every server to federate and exchange content with every other server in the Fediverse. The network just doesn't scale that well. That means you'll have to be aware of communities on other servers and interact with those if you want to find like minded people. On traditional social media, you can probably find a complete community to your tastes just by using the search bar.

Then there's the technical challenge. Federated series don't scale as well. You can see this when a Mastodon post hits the front page of Hacker News and the instance instantly goes down as hundreds of thousands of requests come in, some users, some bots. Twitter can withstand being linked, but the server running on some poor guy's VPS simply can't.

Money is also a challenge. Servers cost money and moderators are only free up to a certain point. Social media companies can afford their servers, either through VC money or through conducting business, but there's no profit model for the Fediverse. You can set up donations, but you'll probably still be doing all the work to maintain the servers unpaid.

Interestingly, BlueSky seems to be going in a different direction. I don't know if it's part of the Fediverse (they are working on federation) but their designs allow for the things that pull people into Twitter while also being hacked by large spenders. Nostr also solves some of the Fediverse's problems while introducing others, but I don't expect them to end up as big as BlueSky. But hey, who knows, maybe someone will write an efficient bridge between these services so the Fediverse can enjoy the success of its competition.

The Fediverse is great for what it does, and for many people it will be a great alternative to social media. However, without the constant pull of algorithms and a way to make money, I don't think it'll ever replace social media. And, to be honest, I wouldn't want it to; without a significant amount of extra moderators, the toxicity of traditional social media will just overwhelm all the attempted alternatives anyway.

For most of the users currently online it's extremely difficult to understand the concept of federation and how everything works, so I doubt it'll ever be as prevalent as "the big social media platforms", but for technically-inclined users, it'll definitely have at least moderate success.

Fediverse will go through what Linux went through. Be seen by businesses as an existential threat. Then face FUD and EEE campaign.

One day, likely earlier than Linux witnessed the rise of RedHat, Google, Facebook as prominent businesses that became poster children for Linux, new or existing businesses could be built around and/or on fediverse. They may as well come together to form an ActivityPub foundation similar to the Linux Foundation for all we know.

Email went through similar trajectory too. SMTP, IMAP, pop are are open protocols. Yet we have a sort of oligopoly on email.

Similar to how Windows did not die away because Linux came along, existing social networks may remain in existence. The availability of fediverse as an alternative would keep them busy

You have to remember that the vast majority of people are, for lack of a better word, pretty dumb. You say the word “fediverse” and their eyes cross.

@Bicyclejohn I don’t know about "replace", but popular social media could JOIN the fediverse.

I don’t blame new users to be late on news. But to make a quick recap, the people interested in implementing ActivityPub include:

- Meta (insta/twt replacement)
- Tumblr
- Wordpress.com
- Medium (currently only running mastodon)
- Discourse
- Flarum

Last time I check those were a few popular social media.

Discourse and Flarum in particular are relevant to Lemmy

IMHO these are fundamentally different concepts. Popular social media is made popular by pushing curated 'engaging' content, rather than organic content, to monetize gullible users. It has become an entertainment venue, giving their audience a steady stream of what they want them to see, even if by force. Popular "Social Media" has rapidly devolved into a real-life MST3K. Users feel betrayed that the sites no longer feel like the social experience/experiment they wanted.... but are users really wanting to leave, or just switch to voice outrage?

Alternatively, the fediverse doesn't appeal to those wanting force fed entertainment, or seeking viral fame amongst family/friends, and outraged users will complain it doesn't function like so-and-so site, or work 'their way'. It is more technical and takes more proactive actions to engage with others, which is a positive thing.

Users think they can switch from Coke to Pepsi, but the fediverse is more of a mixed drink with some extra bourbon.

Could it / should it replace popular social media? Probably not, unless more mindsets change over what a social media experience should be... but it can fill a growing gap as this happens (which will in-turn improve features & development).

Unlikely. When users left Digg for Reddit the internet was smaller and the users more technically minded. And even then it was essentially just creating a new account. You need an one stop solution for users to migrate and federation by definition isn't that. As a result discovery (and growth) is still hard even for Mastodon that's been around for a while and it's a relatively mature platform.

It's more closely related to the initial intentions of the internet than most other social platforms. Ideally it could get things going back in the right direction again iif nothing else!

Long term, the Fediverse is the way forward, but social media has staying power even if it dimishes from what it was. It will ages before the Fediverse replaces centralized social media, but I think it will slowly happen.

"do you think the fediverse could replace popular social media"

Already has for me

@Bicyclejohn I hope fediverse helps us return to small blogs and forums that we had before facebook and twitter took over. no more monopolies

I'm hoping it'll be more like craft beer and become it's own market that overlaps with more mainstream options but still has a solid base of users\customers that keep it separate.

Before we had the fediverse - long before it - we had Usenet: people conversing globally in email-shaped units. It was shared and synched.

It was awesome. Questions answered, points debated, everything you wanted.

I don't think the fediverse is a magical solution, but it does have a familiar feel to it. Not as good when it comes to spelling, but "it's just the web," so the rules are maybe different.

This is fine.

No, marketing rules the world. In tech, it seems to me that the average person does not give much thought to their software at all. They will use defaults or the products they know about the most (Chrome).

I do not think replacing centralized social media should be our goal though. I believe the Fediverse needs more diversity of content. Right now, I see a lot of people from the FOSS community. People should be able to see a good variety of subjects being discussed or shared. FOSS is great but it should not be the only thing we see.

Would be cool and technically possible, but I doubt it will happen.

Big Tech throwing millions into marketing and vendor lock-ins vs OpenSource projects that are decentralised and often running on donations and goodwill. That's a very touch battle to win, especially when most people care more about ease of use and amount of possible followers than about privacy and decentralisation.

Mastodon grew, but only took a tiny slice of Twitter and half of Mastodon are bots or people who crosspost to both. I expect the same to happen to Lemmy/Reddit, and any other SNS that goes this direction.

I'm content with a stable and active niche group of SNSs. Hopefully the open source and decentralisation aspects can prevent it from dying and going to the next SNS as the big ones tend to do. Which cóúld be as people can make newer applications that work with the old ones as long as it all runs on ActivityPup. I feel it's the most realistic way of thinking.

But maybe I'm just too pessimistic. Even the biggest people in tech stuggle to predict the future of it. So who knows.

I think the fediverse should replace popular socmedia, but it will never be able to compete financially.

We've already got Bluesky, which is the same thing but controlled (and sponsored) by the usual suspects, poised to snap up any users that bail from twitter. And popular opinion favours Bluesky thanks to the positive coverage it gets compared to fediverse projects.

The fediverse in the form it's in now will never replace twitter while the free market controls the distribution of users. They'll always go to the places controlled by big money.

I don’t want it to. I enjoyed reddit the most when it was mainly a techier and generally thoughtful crowd, large enough to always be interesting but not so big as to be a gluttonous mass of nonsense. The ever-so-slightly higher barrier to entry to the Fediverse compared to other platforms (which spooks mainstream users even though it’s really not that hard) gives me hope that the Fediverse will keep its character for a good while.

Not in its current form. Anyone who's tried to start a tech company knows you have to make your solution simple to use. Making software easy to use is actually surprisingly hard, involving experts in user interfaces, a lot of thought on user onboarding and training.

Lemmy as it currently stands is relatively new-user hostile for non-technical users. Content discovery isn't very clear, people are confused about how to find communities to follow, and the mobile apps are barebones.

That's not to say it can't get there, but until you never need to mention that the system is federated, I think a lot of people will be turned off from the complexity of using Lemmy. The community right now is motivated to use Lemmy and I would imagine a little more on the technical side, but getting your parents to use Lemmy or Mastadon would be a challenge currently.

@Bicyclejohn

It depends on what you mean by "replace".

The Fediverse may cause centralized social-media networks to join the Fediverse.

There are some hints of that happening now.

Facebook / Meta has created a new social-media network that is part of the Fediverse.

Tumblr and Flickr are said to be joining the Fediverse.

So, some "popular social media" may become one with the Fediverse.

since there isn't any strong way to collect data or advertise it will always be an underdog compared to big business.

that being said, the fediverse could outlast a few mainstream networks and build lasting strength with that. I'm an ideal setting it could become a defacto network over time.

can we get young people coming here though? that's how we get the tides to turn

No. Fediverse is great by design, but is too complicated at the moment (maybe it's just how platforms are set up at the moment).

The design is not too intuitive in looking at other posts from different instances/servers.

For example going to this post:

• Clicking [!freemediaheckyeah@lemmy.fmhy.ml](/c/freemediaheckyeah@lemmy.fmhy.ml)
  in the sidebar directs me to
  lemmy.fmhy.ml/c/freemediaheckyeah
  (different instance)
• Clicking FREEMEDIAHECKYEAH@lemmy.fmhy.ml
  at the top of the post directs me to
  lemmy.ml/c/freemediaheckyeah@lemmy.fmhy.ml
  (same instance)

I think it could, and I also think it won’t and that it will stay in the relative niche. But that’s a good thing. So it replaces all social media for me but doesn’t bring the general public. Win-win situation

Personally, I don't think replacement should be the goal. As others have said, a better, more likely outcome is that the Fediverse become a viable alternative to big social media (in the eyes of the public) & an influential part of the ecosystem.

And anyways, the Fediverse is a solution for me - and others, presumably - but it probably won't be the solution for social media influencers, terminally online political provocateurs, people stuck in the endless, algorithmic (and psychologically manipulative) stream of 'content' which Big Social offers, advertisers, etc. As long as people have those sorts of relationships to social media and as long as capitalism and consumerism exist, big social media platforms will always be around to capitalize on that and fill that niche.

Plus, the barrier to entry for the Fediverse is technical skill, which has impeded its accessibility to the broader public. While making the Fediverse more accessible and cultivating that technical skill and know-how in the public are both things I support, I appreciate the more intentional social media communities which are forming around here and are able to grow sustainably quite possibly because it's harder for the average person to wrap their head around. It reminds me a lot of the older days of the internet.

The best thing for that, IMO, is for the Fediverse to continually exist in its decentralized state and provide unique examples of how social media could be, for it to keep growing slowly, for average people to come here of their own volition, see how things are here, and decide on their own that they want to be part of it.

Probably, since it's decentralised people can just move to another instance if the mods on theirs abuse their power.

Not sure if it's the solution, but definitely a viable alternative to social media, not just for privacy enthusiasts.

I think ultimately that is going to be the goal. Security advocates for years have insisted that we OWN our own data.

I think its going to split and fracture, at least for the forseeable future. Just like how people who want too be free from corporate influence moved permanently from twitter to mastodon, so to will users who want to be free from corporate influence be drawn here. Those who don't care, or who buy into corporate propaganda will stay until and unless they can't tolerate it anymore, and even then they may just move to a different corporate platform.

No I don't think it will. I would be shocked if Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, Reddit, LinkedIn, etc etc ever truly went away. If people remain dedicated to improving and promoting the fediverse it could carve out it's own space in the social media landscape. And once that happens you never know what the future holds. But I'd be surprised if it took over everything in the space