Fediverse

The issue is that without marketing or any big scale advertising, the fediverse is never going to take off. Because it is not backed by a big corporation with enough capital like Reddit, it won't ever reach the masses, even with all the advertising the recent Reddit API changes have brought to lemmy and the fediverse, even if Fedi were to be 10x better than anything else.

I think its going to split and fracture, at least for the forseeable future. Just like how people who want too be free from corporate influence moved permanently from twitter to mastodon, so to will users who want to be free from corporate influence be drawn here. Those who don't care, or who buy into corporate propaganda will stay until and unless they can't tolerate it anymore, and even then they may just move to a different corporate platform.

Not in its current state. Too much admin/mod control

Yes.

The federation aspect of it has to be invisible to the user. The user shouldn't have to pick an instance (unless they want to) and they should see communities from all instances by default. Also we need a discovery algorithm. That's the most needed feature.

For me personally it can. Not sure about everyone else.

As long as a hardware will be sold with microsoft/google/twitter/facebook by default, no chance fediverse replace all these well-established applications. BUT it's not a problem for me : i use what i like, open-source, and i let other use what they want.

Yes, I think so. It could. Is it likely to happen? No!

I see a distributed architecture central to have a “public space” online that works in the long term. The communication infrastructure shouldn't be controlled by any single party.

However the way people work and the way capitalism works, it's utterly difficult for something like ActivityPub to become the standard. F**book joining in frightens and encourages me at the same time.

Absolutely yes, better than the others.

Not sure if it's the solution, but definitely a viable alternative to social media, not just for privacy enthusiasts.

I'm hoping it'll be more like craft beer and become it's own market that overlaps with more mainstream options but still has a solid base of users\customers that keep it separate.

@Bicyclejohn yes

as popular social media is getting crap the fediverse will grow on users and content

a replacement is a very long term action that involves not only the users so nowadays: no maybe in a far future

since there isn't any strong way to collect data or advertise it will always be an underdog compared to big business.

that being said, the fediverse could outlast a few mainstream networks and build lasting strength with that. I'm an ideal setting it could become a defacto network over time.

can we get young people coming here though? that's how we get the tides to turn

Personally, I don't think replacement should be the goal. As others have said, a better, more likely outcome is that the Fediverse become a viable alternative to big social media (in the eyes of the public) & an influential part of the ecosystem.

And anyways, the Fediverse is a solution for me - and others, presumably - but it probably won't be the solution for social media influencers, terminally online political provocateurs, people stuck in the endless, algorithmic (and psychologically manipulative) stream of 'content' which Big Social offers, advertisers, etc. As long as people have those sorts of relationships to social media and as long as capitalism and consumerism exist, big social media platforms will always be around to capitalize on that and fill that niche.

Plus, the barrier to entry for the Fediverse is technical skill, which has impeded its accessibility to the broader public. While making the Fediverse more accessible and cultivating that technical skill and know-how in the public are both things I support, I appreciate the more intentional social media communities which are forming around here and are able to grow sustainably quite possibly because it's harder for the average person to wrap their head around. It reminds me a lot of the older days of the internet.

The best thing for that, IMO, is for the Fediverse to continually exist in its decentralized state and provide unique examples of how social media could be, for it to keep growing slowly, for average people to come here of their own volition, see how things are here, and decide on their own that they want to be part of it.

I doubt it, not just because current social media sites are insanely popular, but also because there's a learning curve to using the Fediverse, and most people would likely find it complicated.