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Does it feel like the fediverse is exclusively used by older tech nerds? (lemm.ee)

submitted 1 year ago by gamer@lemm.ee to c/fediverse@lemmy.world

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The mastodon and lemmy content I’m seeing feels like 90% of it comes from people who are:

~30 years old or older
tech enthusiasts/workers
linux users

There’s nothing wrong with that particular demographic or anything, but it doesn’t feel like a win to me if the entire fediverse is just one big monoculture.

I wonder what it is that is keeping more diverse users away? Is picking a server/federation too complicated? Or is it that they don’t see any content that they like?

Thoughts?

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[-] fututio_enjoyer@lemmy.world 55 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Is picking a server/federation too complicated?

Yes.

Absolutely.

Literally the single biggest problem with fediverse adoption, brought up in every discussion about migrating to it. It will never replace centralized sites as long as it remains confusing and complicated.

https://www.reddit.com/r/RedditAlternatives/comments/14t9t66/im_so_lost_is_there_an_easy_mode_to_the_fediverse/

https://www.reddit.com/r/LemmyMigration/comments/145epgc/looking_for_a_lemmy_website_try_lemmyworld/

[-] carbotect@discuss.tchncs.de 24 points 1 year ago

As long as you point towards the easiest way to join the fediverse first, while only "selling" federation as a feature for power users and people who are genuinely interested, then it doesn't really matter how complicated the fediverse really is.

If your mom wants you to make her an email account, you don't explain her how the entire mail system works, along with its history and while reciting a Richard Stallman manifesto about FOSS philosophy. You also don't send her a link with 100 different email service providers, that all have their own small advantages or disadvantages, while also explaining her how to create her own mail service.

No, you just make her a Gmail account.

I think the official Mastodon app does a great job at simplifying on how to join mastodon. You have a big blue button that lets you join mastodon.social by default, while a smaller grey button is for users, that want another instance. I'm sure you could simplify this even more, but this is a great beginning.

[-] fututio_enjoyer@lemmy.world 6 points 1 year ago

I think the official Mastodon app does a great job at simplifying on how to join mastodon.

That's good. I originally looked at Mastodon years ago and it was just as complicated as Lemmy is now. Good that they figured out how to make it easy to use.