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Could federation be a turn-off for more 'mainstream' users? (lemmy.world)

submitted 1 year ago by drubbis@lemmy.world to c/lemmyworld@lemmy.world

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Hey everyone, I'm honestly really liking Lemmy so far. Maybe that's because it feels so much like browsing reddit 10 years ago and I think it's safe to say many of us have migrated from the blackout. I'd been a Reddit user since 2010 so I've witnessed the slow decline over the years but popping here has really driven home how corporate it started to feel--less like a genuine hub of community and more like a manufactured product with low effort content and some genuine discussion/input peppered throughout.

That said, does anyone feel the idea of a federated platform might be confusing to some less network-savvy users? There's other successful multi-server platforms like Discord but somehow for me the idea of a 'chatroom' versus something more like a forum/board seems like it would make more sense to a less informed user. I could see hearing that posts are aggregating from other sites or being cross-visible confusing to individuals who understand web usage as, 'visit site--post to site--view content on site'.

Does that make sense? lol Anyways, loving the site so far--hope to see it grow!

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[-] GiantBasil@beehaw.org 13 points 1 year ago

I think it can be initially, because it sounds confusing, but I personally feel fairly confident after poking around consistently after a couple of days, that was the amount of time it took for me with reddit all those years ago as well, I believe. Once you figure out how to get to other federations and look up things there, things just run nicely, as long as you're into the old reddit/old internet forums look. Honestly, I found figuring out cross federations in mastodon is way harder, and they're doing it.

But I don't think it will be on the long run to most people once they acclimatise. I'm using both Jerboa and the browser and when I search for new communities to join or look up what's going on on All neither feels like a confusing alien experience. The only part of it that feels weird about it is that after so many years, I very rarely had a need or a desire to use reddit's all, so feels a bit odd.