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> if we want something that can reach more than a few thousand people This is the premise I'm questioning — what does success look like? I suppose for me it's

> if we want something that can reach more than a few thousand people This is the premise I'm questioning — what does success look like? I suppose for me it's that I don't have to create an account with any particular company to participate. So for example: Matrix displaces Discord and Twitch; ActivityPub displaces Twitter, Facebook and GitHub; podcasts displace iTunes and Spotify; Flatpak displaces Google Play; something(?) displaces Amazon (as a shop front) and PayPal. > there needs to be some kind of economic incentive for it to be viable There's no economic incentive for people to publish blogs or run Gemini capsules, yet they do. By “viable” I mean “useful for some real use cases”. (Fun is a use case.) By “viable” do you mean “people can make money off it”? Profitable technology is a very different goal from useful technology. And frankly, get rich quick schemes are the reason the net is full of so much garbage.

rglullis 5y ago
If you just want to interact with others in the same fringe groups as you, then sure, you can be satisfied with just these alternatives and their current audiences. But you can't run your PTA group on Matrix (believe me, I proposed!), there is no single influential person that is interested in leaving Twitter and joining the Fediverse. There is not a single business, news media channel or podcaster that cares about putting their presence on Mastodon, etc. So, success is quite measurable and it is certainly not achieved yet. This is not to say that we should just give up and be assimilated by the Borg. It is just a reality check and a reminder that there is a huge world out there.
- grey_earthling 5y ago
  > But you can't run your PTA group on Matrix (believe me, I proposed!) I'm curious: why not? Is it just name recognition of WhatsApp? Are people unwilling to create a new account? and if so, what made them willing to create a WhatsApp account?
  - rglullis 5y ago
    Yes, people have not heard of it before and are just used to WhatsApp. The few that were at least aware of the issues with WhatsApp were proposing Telegram and/or Signal, depending mostly on if they had one or the other already installed. I know that the onboarding process from the Element client still is quite painful, and I didn't want to play tech support for a group of 30+ German parents and teachers. > What made them willing to create a WhatsApp account. The easiest authentication/onboarding process ever. That was the 19 billion dollar problem they cracked.

rglullis 5y ago

If you just want to interact with others in the same fringe groups as you, then sure, you can be satisfied with just these alternatives and their current audiences. But you can't run your PTA group on Matrix (believe me, I proposed!), there is no single influential person that is interested in leaving Twitter and joining the Fediverse. There is not a single business, news media channel or podcaster that cares about putting their presence on Mastodon, etc. So, success is quite measurable and it is certainly not achieved yet. This is not to say that we should just give up and be assimilated by the Borg. It is just a reality check and a reminder that there is a huge world out there.

grey_earthling 5y ago
> But you can't run your PTA group on Matrix (believe me, I proposed!) I'm curious: why not? Is it just name recognition of WhatsApp? Are people unwilling to create a new account? and if so, what made them willing to create a WhatsApp account?
- rglullis 5y ago
  Yes, people have not heard of it before and are just used to WhatsApp. The few that were at least aware of the issues with WhatsApp were proposing Telegram and/or Signal, depending mostly on if they had one or the other already installed. I know that the onboarding process from the Element client still is quite painful, and I didn't want to play tech support for a group of 30+ German parents and teachers. > What made them willing to create a WhatsApp account. The easiest authentication/onboarding process ever. That was the 19 billion dollar problem they cracked.