I thought you were referring to the posting itself. I see what you mean about the emoji. It’s not some super high level of connection, but it is connection none the less. Someone I know gave me their thoughts. I may not have seen them or even talked to them directly in a number of years, but they still thought of me. That is meaningful, and if you can’t see that, then I guess I don’t know what to tell you. Feel free to minimize the experience all you want.

Sorry I don’t view social media as a second job that should require a whole lot of effort to engage in. What even is that take, for real?

I fully acknowledge that it is not universally good for everyone, and for those who do not find it good, there is plenty of other options out there. However, for the billions who use it daily to keep up with friends, it is good for them, and there are basically zero good alternatives. I agree that we should not invalidate others experiences. Just because something is not good for you does not mean it is not good for others.

Totally agree on the private company seeing everything you do and using it to train AI and monetize your data. That is why I am here after all. Wouldn’t it be better if we got as many people out of that system as possible, and into more democratically controlled systems?

How is it creepy to see what your friends post? I would also argue that you do have a middle man involved in any communication, even ones that are not on social media. Unless you are visiting them physically in person, you have some phone/internet providers mediating the communication. Social media is just another form of communication provider.

I would argue on the loneliness side of things, that having quit Facebook for a number of years, and then returned to it, I felt infinitely more isolated and lonely when I was off Facebook than when I was on it. Returning to it reconnected me with so many friends I had not talked to in forever, and I quickly realized how valuable social media is for social connection. It’s kind of sad that you view it as performative, because that is not how I view it at all. I now have a healthy social circle that is there for me if I am going through a hard time in my life, help me find a new place to live if I’m moving, etc, and who I can be there in a similar manner. That is real value that is a lot harder to maintain by texting people directly.

I just lost my cat. I made a post about it. Dozens of people who would have never heard about it otherwise reached out to me to comfort me. Sorry, but I don’t think I’m going to forget about how helpful that level of connection is.

It may be true that a large number of current users do not want to be publicly trackable. To be clear, I am not saying that all of the fediverse should be public personal profiles. However, the people on Facebook who want alternatives are going to be sorely disappointed. It’s not so much of meeting a goal as it is fulfilling a need. People want this, and it would be good for society if they had it. The infrastructure is here, it’s just a matter of building it.

On the second point, I’m in my late 30’s and have found a great deal of value with connecting with my friends and family. I was disconnected for a lot of years and it was extremely socially isolating. Reconnecting has been therapeutic for me, and it is one of the big reasons I will probably not be deleting my Facebook any time soon.

I’m gonna have to disagree. Today, I am able to keep up with the goings on of my friends and family on Facebook. This is not a ten years ago thing. Nowhere else on the web can I log in and see my friend from high school posting a funny meme, a colleague post a picture of his family, or my mom wishing my brother and his wife happy anniversary. You may not use it for that, but many people do, and I don’t know how you could call that a bad thing. Isn’t social connection what social media is all about? Why would we want to not accommodate that as much as possible?

I think an option on login for “personal account” vs “anonymous account” would be great. Personal accounts could require a phone number and allow import of contacts to help find personal accounts you know. There is a so much untapped potential here, we just need to make it a thing.

I suppose there’s two sides of the network effect. One side is how it works against a platform. In the case of the fediverse, it is working against it, for sure. The other side is how it helps a platform. For facebook, it helps. However, I would argue that these things are not immutable. Why did facebook develop a strong network effect? Because it provided a value that a lot of people saw, and encouraged them to sign up. It attracted users before it had a solidified network in place, because it built the infrastructure for the network effect to take place.

I do agree that open software is a relatively niche concept, but I think a lot of people these days can see very clearly how having one person own a whole platform and control the direction of it is a bad thing. Many of my more “normie” and less tech minded friends are talking about finding alternatives. I wish I had a place to direct them that provided the social networking functions of facebook, but it just is simply not a thing at this time. Even if there was not many people they know on there, as they join, we could find each other. We would do it as a group, as many of them are currently doing for bluesky. However, I am not recommending friendica yet because it is still not quite there.

As for the private posting functionality, I see no options to enable that, if it exists. I think there is a lot of work that needs to be done on the UI and tutorials side to enable and instruct users on how to fully utilize the site.

Considering one of the biggest values that social media provides to society is being able to connect with friends and family…yes?

How can we help the network effect along though? Right now, we’re paddling upstream, because there is really no system in place for making a private circle that you can post updates to. Yea there’s private group chats, but I’m not going to set up a private group chat with this dude I went to high school with 20 years ago, just to show him my kid. We need a way to just add people we know, and show those people we know (and only those people we know) our life updates. That is, in simplest terms, the value facebook provides, which does not exist on the fediverse right now.

I’m saying the reason it is not going viral is for the exact reasons I mentioned. The reason facebook went viral in the first place. We need either a potential modification of sites like friendica to make it more linked to your social graph (i.e., import contacts to find users, require proper names so people can find you, etc), or we need a new fediverse platform to come along that does that. So I would argue we can directly control it, by implementing these features that would make these networks valuable to most people.

Why do you “have to use” whatsapp in costa rica? Other services don’t work there?

OfferUp, while not defederated, seems like a good option for a marketplace alternative for now.
Messenger can be replaced by signal, discord, or any other messaging type app.

You didn’t answer the OP’s question.

I know there has been some controversy around it, but Star Wars Outlaws might be worth a look.

We’re going to have to agree to disagree here, because it seems you’re misconstruing what I’m proposing and potentially just arguing for the sake of arguing.

I’m not telling anyone how to do anything. Again, people are free to ignore my input if they don’t like it. I understand how limited time and resources work. Not sure why you think this is going to be some sort of amazing revelation. This is just how I see it, and what I think should be focused on. If people agree (which many clearly do), then they can help make my ideas a reality, and I will do what I can to help as well. I don’t know why there is such a rush to accuse people of not contributing the second you see an idea you disagree with. Seems like a pretty shitty and condescending way to engage with the conversation, and doesn’t really address the underlying points being made.

So let me get this straight. Are you really saying “we the developers are going to build this however we see fit, and you the user can go fuck yourself, or else learn how to code and build it yourself”? Is that really the dynamic you’re trying to cultivate here? Seems very welcoming and productive.

I’m not complaining as much as I am giving constructive feedback. Don’t like the feedback? Great, feel free to ignore it, or tell me why I’m wrong. Nothing I am proposing will impact how you use the fediverse. I’m not saying we need to cater to everyone or be exactly like big social media sites, but I am saying that a lot of people are dissatisfied with mainstream social media and are looking for alternatives. This alternative has existed for a long time, but still has a fraction of the users as other alternatives out there. Aren’t you at least curious as to why that is? Should we really be satisfied to be relegated to some niche technology that no one really uses, when there is the potential for it to become something more? For me, I just want a platform not controlled by corporations hell bent on monetizing every click and view, where I can keep up with my family and friends and enable people to make content for others to enjoy. Not sure why that is such a repulsive concept to some people.

I would argue that the fediverse is doing just fine enshitifying itself. From apps that have started to integrate ads, to platforms that are still barely functional a decade and a half after they started development, to the stubborn refusal to cater the overall experience to anyone but tech minded users. We need to do better. I do plan to get involved, but even if I didn’t I think my points would still be valid.

If it’s a perennial problem that you keep hearing about, maybe there’s something to it. I will note, I did not once ask “why servers”. I’m fine with servers and I get servers. The issue I see is that while most nerdy tech type folks can easily wrap their heads around the concept, most lay people cannot. That’s not to say that picking a server of your liking should go away, but for the onboarding process for the masses, which I would think most proponents of the fediverse would want to include, the process needs to be a lot more seamless. Automated stuff in the background that keeps the decentralization, but doesn’t bother the user with the need to worry about it. It’s simply improving the user experience. I realize it’s work, but I think it’s work worth doing.