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Not that I think these folks want mainstream appeal, but if you want mainstream appeal, stop federating stuff! Nobody cares about privacy and control over their

Not that I think these folks want mainstream appeal, but if you want mainstream appeal, stop federating stuff! Nobody cares about privacy and control over their own information nearly as much as privacy advocates think they do, and if even one thing is slightly harder as a result, people will simply never adopt your tool or technology.

ryanianian 4y ago
> stop federating stuff Another conclusion: Federation alone isn't enough of a selling point. Federation must also be a key unlocker of other features. Perhaps more branded/tailored sites for different audience segments but which can feed into each other in meaningful ways might be one way to pitch it. But dropping federation entirely is throwing out the baby with the bathwater.
- ElemenoPicuares 4y ago
  I agree that getting rid of federation is not the answer. However, it will be little more than a source of neato developer projects as long as new projects try to get users to think about it, let alone understand it, nevermind actually needing to understand it to use a product to its full potential. People who don't care about federation, conceptually, will never care about federation, even if it yields tangible benefits they care about otherwise. They will prioritize user experience, interface, branding appeal, reliability and speed of operations like finding people in-app, and all of that other stuff that FOSS social media, and many other types of FOSS projects, de-prioritize. That is why FOSS alternatives are still alternatives despite being free, and largely technically superior. The disconnect is rooted in differing perspectives. Developers, naturally, use more sophisticated means of evaluating software than end users, much the way nutritionists evaluate food. We consider interfaces and user experiences to be means of interacting with software, and consider the software on a whole, yielding only so much weight to usability. Since software plays such a huge part of our lives, spending a little time wrangling it doesn't seem onerous. To nearly all end users, the interface/experience is the software. Even people who do care about federation conceptually may not even be willing to deal with admin > 0 for their social media accounts. It's not ideal, but it's reality. Currently, federation hardly matters more to people than HTTP/2 does. Trying to use it as a selling point for general audience software is a failing strategy. So who cares? Social media is a hell of a lot more useful with a critical mass of users... other users are what make it "social," rather than merely "media." If developers are nutritionists, designers are chefs. Calculating proper nutrition to keep us alive and functioning is arguably more important to making food delicious and enriching our sensual lives. But if you take a large group of people and offer them their choice of food either constructed by nutritionists or constructed by chefs, the chefs will win every time. Many of the nutritionists will be mystified by people's lack of ability to prioritize critical body functioning over beautiful sensual experiences. (When I was in culinary school, a fellow student was a career-changing nutritionist saying she was becoming a chef because she was tired of "being the bad guy taking away all the things people loved.) The key is actively enfranchising people who specialize in knowing what users want. Spending an afternoon in Gimp making a punny logo is not branding. Customizable color themes are not UX. Deeply considering, and probably researching users needs and expectations and then trying to meet them is the only way forward for FOSS social media. People are willing to give up some flavor benefits for food that's significantly more nutritious, but we need chefs to help us make it as tasty an appealing as possible, and then spin the hell out of the benefits. It's the only way forward.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
rnd0 4y ago
What's so great about mainstream appeal? These services are designed for folks who do care about those issues, and the folks who are mainstream already have outlets catering to them. I don't see them flocking over if Lemmy is dumbed-down. As usual when chasing "mass adoption" I think that the target demographic would simply be chased off and the project with wither on the vine.
- matai_kolila 4y ago
  If you're billing yourself as a "Reddit Alternative", you definitely care about mainstream appeal.
  - rnd0 4y ago
    Not necessarily. Reddit itself changed to cater to a mainstream audience and by billing itself as an alternative the pitch isn't so much to folks who like the changes reddit made but to folks who think reddit was better "before september came". IE folks who want what they remember (right or wrong) as being a small, niche site that was ruined by chasing the mainstream.
    - matai_kolila 4y ago
      That's a very "snapshotted" view of Reddit, one that doesn't hold up to scrutiny once you consider what Reddit is today.
      - rnd0 4y ago
        or even if you consider what went down on reddit "in the good old days" -yet, I think that's thew view of reddit (real or not) that they're trying to appeal to.
        matai_kolila 4y ago
        Without specifying that, they’re at best doing a poor job of explaining what their technology does, but more likely they are trying to mainstream it.

ryanianian 4y ago

> stop federating stuff Another conclusion: Federation alone isn't enough of a selling point. Federation must also be a key unlocker of other features. Perhaps more branded/tailored sites for different audience segments but which can feed into each other in meaningful ways might be one way to pitch it. But dropping federation entirely is throwing out the baby with the bathwater.

ElemenoPicuares 4y ago
I agree that getting rid of federation is not the answer. However, it will be little more than a source of neato developer projects as long as new projects try to get users to think about it, let alone understand it, nevermind actually needing to understand it to use a product to its full potential. People who don't care about federation, conceptually, will never care about federation, even if it yields tangible benefits they care about otherwise. They will prioritize user experience, interface, branding appeal, reliability and speed of operations like finding people in-app, and all of that other stuff that FOSS social media, and many other types of FOSS projects, de-prioritize. That is why FOSS alternatives are still alternatives despite being free, and largely technically superior. The disconnect is rooted in differing perspectives. Developers, naturally, use more sophisticated means of evaluating software than end users, much the way nutritionists evaluate food. We consider interfaces and user experiences to be means of interacting with software, and consider the software on a whole, yielding only so much weight to usability. Since software plays such a huge part of our lives, spending a little time wrangling it doesn't seem onerous. To nearly all end users, the interface/experience is the software. Even people who do care about federation conceptually may not even be willing to deal with admin > 0 for their social media accounts. It's not ideal, but it's reality. Currently, federation hardly matters more to people than HTTP/2 does. Trying to use it as a selling point for general audience software is a failing strategy. So who cares? Social media is a hell of a lot more useful with a critical mass of users... other users are what make it "social," rather than merely "media." If developers are nutritionists, designers are chefs. Calculating proper nutrition to keep us alive and functioning is arguably more important to making food delicious and enriching our sensual lives. But if you take a large group of people and offer them their choice of food either constructed by nutritionists or constructed by chefs, the chefs will win every time. Many of the nutritionists will be mystified by people's lack of ability to prioritize critical body functioning over beautiful sensual experiences. (When I was in culinary school, a fellow student was a career-changing nutritionist saying she was becoming a chef because she was tired of "being the bad guy taking away all the things people loved.) The key is actively enfranchising people who specialize in knowing what users want. Spending an afternoon in Gimp making a punny logo is not branding. Customizable color themes are not UX. Deeply considering, and probably researching users needs and expectations and then trying to meet them is the only way forward for FOSS social media. People are willing to give up some flavor benefits for food that's significantly more nutritious, but we need chefs to help us make it as tasty an appealing as possible, and then spin the hell out of the benefits. It's the only way forward.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

rnd0 4y ago

What's so great about mainstream appeal? These services are designed for folks who do care about those issues, and the folks who are mainstream already have outlets catering to them. I don't see them flocking over if Lemmy is dumbed-down. As usual when chasing "mass adoption" I think that the target demographic would simply be chased off and the project with wither on the vine.

matai_kolila 4y ago
If you're billing yourself as a "Reddit Alternative", you definitely care about mainstream appeal.
- rnd0 4y ago
  Not necessarily. Reddit itself changed to cater to a mainstream audience and by billing itself as an alternative the pitch isn't so much to folks who like the changes reddit made but to folks who think reddit was better "before september came". IE folks who want what they remember (right or wrong) as being a small, niche site that was ruined by chasing the mainstream.
  - matai_kolila 4y ago
    That's a very "snapshotted" view of Reddit, one that doesn't hold up to scrutiny once you consider what Reddit is today.
    - rnd0 4y ago
      or even if you consider what went down on reddit "in the good old days" -yet, I think that's thew view of reddit (real or not) that they're trying to appeal to.
      - matai_kolila 4y ago
        Without specifying that, they’re at best doing a poor job of explaining what their technology does, but more likely they are trying to mainstream it.