If at all possible, lol
I think this is a bad idea because it could turn into a second reddit.
- For one , think lemmy’s default U[XI] could use some improvement
- Needs more diverse userbase that’s not just (tech|news)
- Maybe ATproto support ? Wafrn (activitypub tumblr clone) seems to integrate it , bluesky has more diverse userbase (2nd point above’s common complaint about activitypub side of the 'verse and wy peops tend to go to bsky instead)
BlueSky is partially centralized due to most users utilizing a specific instance. Not to mention that it’s now unusable in the UK due to the Online Safety Act of 2023 now being enforced with age verification.
Bluesky is a for profit venture with a marketing budget it uses to sell the idea the platform is decentralized.
Bluesky is not decentralized and there is no realistic business plan proposed for how to lucratively monetize a truly decentralized network. Bluesky MUST turn a profit, this isn’t an inconvenient detail, it is a crisis the company is on the clock to solve like any heavily speculative venture capital funded startup is.
The only way this works is if actual meaningful decentralization is always “on the horizon” for Bluesky as something the for profit company can periodically point to and say “look how close we are!” while never taking meaningful steps closer.
Bluesky silicon valley techbros will point to their cool blogpost about how they set up a hobbyist project on Bluesky outside of the central network and it will remain a pipedream or like the end of a rainbow for 99.9% of us, an impossible promise that flies away as fast away as we chase it.
I thought Bluesky was centralized, but not fully centralized. My producer thought this, but I wanted a second opinion on it. Do you happen to use Bluesky, by chance, and that happened to be how you know this?
Bluesky theoretically has the capacity to be decentralized. I am sure people will show up in this comment thread and provide a whole lot of technical specifications about mostly proof of concept features that demonstrate that Bluesky is in some sense technically decentralized. Maybe not anymore? That seems a bit less common these days it seems.
To all of those responses theoretical or prophesized lol I ask in turn -why then has the CEO of Bluesky not ruled out serving ads to users as a way of monetizing the currently unprofitable nascient social network?
This isn’t a conversation about details no matter how much people will try to steer it there with an air of expert authority. This is a conversation about values and how we embue them in the structures of our communities.
Bluesky is a for-profit business with investors who will seek a return on their investment. Until proven otherwise we must assume they will monetize similarly to the way every other social media company has so far. The words that people who work for Bluesky are less important than this basic economic reality.
To Explain Specifically
The basic idea of the Bluesky architecture at least how I understand it as it is implemented now is that yes anybody can host their own node to a network in Bluesky, and one can theoretically form alternative private networks between these nodes that are unconnected and thus decentralized from Bluesky the corporation/central servers themselves.
However, to join the main conversation, the main endorsed centralized channels of conversation all the people you want to talk to are on, you have to fully subscribe to the centralized authority of Bluesky and their servers in terms of everything, content moderation, ads, whatever when you participate in that “channel”.
This might seem like a small detail, it seems like I just said that Bluesky can be used as a decentralized social network and yes theoretically it can, but the fediverse, mastodon, lemmy, piefed, peertube and other software projects were designed to mitigate the suffocating of the periphery that the network effect creates. Communities here can grow from small pieces floating nearby other larger pieces, it isn’t an all or nothing participation in one massive commons controlled by a centralized power that allows small private alternatives to hopelessly wilt in its glare…
So then what about Threads? That is a more interesting question, but even in this case my first question is why is Meta interested fundamentally in the fediverse… and why now? If they had any interest other than a narrow attempt to hedge their bets and jump on the bandwagon so they can say they are doing so, they would have funded tiny little accelerator projects exploring this kind of thing LONG ago.
If you listen to any of this long rant, please ask yourself this question. Why are massive social media companies, with so much cash on hand they might as well be small countries, only putting serious effort into creating decentralized social media technology and building out the infrastructure NOW after the path forward was already blazed? Where were they when the fediverse was still just mostly a cute idea without practical infrastructure built out and standards agreed to?
When talking about whether a specific corporate social media platform is decentralized or not you cannot ignore this context, these foundations had already been laid and fairly well built up by a small rag tag team of developers working almost entirely as volunteers funded on a yearly budget so small it wouldn’t cover a single dinner check for the executives of Meta.
An aside… also consider the implications of the massive amount of computation that the architecture of Bluesky is set up to require for moderation of channels with the claims they are making about needing channels to processed by servers to be fed back to nodes in turn. Consider the difference in power/leverage between small nodes and massive communities in a situation where moderation is done by humans doing moderation (with automated screening tools to help maybe, but ultimately human) vs when moderation is done by applying a prohibitively expensive amount of computing power to the raw firehose of conversation. The difference is who gets to moderate public spaces and who doesn’t.
Why not a fifth or even just an tenth as popular as reddit? I get wanting it to be more active, especially for the niche communities to feel more active, but the last thing I want is to go to the “All” tab here and see anything remotely like /r/all on Reddit.
Keep using it? Share links from it? How did you get on Reddit in the first place?
Bigger isn’t necessarily better
It’s a reoccurring statement but I miss the niche subreddits. Yes I know I can start my own but Im not looking to become a moderator.
This.
Yeah, sure , but I believe there is a Goldilocks zone we are not yet in
That’s not what she said :'(
- Be friendly to other Lemmites. Encourage them to post and comment.
- Post and comment whenever you can.
- If you have niche hobbies or interests, try posting about them into an appropriate community.
Social networks and message boards get more popular as they get more users. Bring friendly and posting regularly should help us maintain the user base.
Lemmites, that’s a good word.
🤗
I personally enjoy that Lemmy isn’t as popular as Reddit. It feels more home-grown and friendly because it’s not as large. That being said, contributing to and engaging with the content you enjoy is a good start. Finding a niche here can be great and there are tons of interesting communities to contribute to!
Network effects are quite difficult to overcome. Lemmy’s largest influxes of users have been when Reddit does something unpopular enough to warrant people looking for other places. Same was true when Reddit became popular because Digg made bad decisions, or Facebook when MySpace did.
The answer is that Lemmy almost assuredly will never be as popular, but at least its future is not dictated by the profits of a company, or censorship imposed by or on that company.
The best we can do is make Lemmy a viable alternative (it is) and ensure it is of a high quality.
Anything that gets that big turns into a shithole. Enshitification will find a way. So just don’t.
Enshittification is a symptom of capitalism at work. Over time products are laser-focused to be as profitable as possible. Scale isn’t the issue, capitalism is.
The catholic church has entered the chat.
Religion is a superstructural element molded by the mode of production and utilized to reinforce it.
Yeah, but it was around before capitalism.
Capitalism is just one mode of production, religion has changed and shifted to suit each new mode of production over time.
You’re totally right. Lemmy has no way of earning money outside of donations and the only way to earn money from donations is to make an actually good platform, no one will donate if it becomes shit.
Just look at every single big subreddit lmao. The only way to use that site is to leave every single default and join smaller communities.
I agree somewhat in the context of centralization. But the spread of the fediverse is a good thing. If Lemmy grows, alongside decentralization, then it should stay true to its roots.
Have you looked at shit like lemmy.world? Why in the name of Allah would you want more of that shit on here?
But why ?
Why would you want that? I think of lemmy as an old message board. I think it’s better that way.
Because of a severe lack of content. On Reddit you can find a community for basically anything. On Lemmy there are only a few alive ones. E.g. there are very few alive country communities.
Why would we want to do that? Please don’t.
Why would we want to do that?
So that we can discuss more niche hobbies with other people who love that hobby.
if you build it they will come
Factually untrue. There just aren’t enough people interested in certain topics who are regular users of Lemmy & Piefed to have those communities be thriving.
well you gotta advertise too of course.
Why are you being so patronising? It does not work. I told you it doesn’t work. Your patronising comments don’t help. I’ve tried it. I’ve seen others try it. To get niche Communities off the ground requires a latent interest in that community’s subject matter. You cannot just make it spring out of nowhere.
ok, sorry
Why?
I’d say concentrate on quality over quantity.
Exactly. I sort through the top 6 hours or top daily. There’s not a lot of posts, but they are all high quality ones.
Reddit is the opposite. I have to go through trash to reach a few good posts. Bigger =/ better
