People have to be willing to give things a try, so I think it will definitely grow. I was never a Reddit user, I tried this on a whim, just to try and have conversations with different people. The one good thing is that there are many functional apps, and you will only see things you are interested in, and when you don't, you down vote it.

But ultimately it's still the same echo chamber that all social media is, but without ads.

[–] [email protected] 41 points 5 months ago (3 children)

Don't downvote stuff just because you're not interested in it! There's no algorithm you're training, you're just being rude to people.

Downvotes should be for worthless content and people being dicks.

[–] jeffw 28 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (1 children)

I run many small communities and it kills me when people from “all” downvote stuff.

If you don’t care about the topic, block the community or skip the posts

[–] thesocavault 6 points 5 months ago

Correct. If you don't like the content in the community, then why be there? Just join things that interest you, no need to be a 💩

[–] thesocavault 0 points 5 months ago

I agree - no algorithm - but if someone is posting 💩 then it's 💩 they get. Hey if I post 💩 I would fully expect that. Lol

[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 months ago (1 children)

All social media, and irl too, has biases. As we do ofc - e.g. we linux Linux, especially Arch btw:-P - but it seems to me that the Fediverse is fundamentally different, b/c of the nature of consent.

On Facebook, YouTube, Twitter/X, and Reddit now that it is acting more like the former, ThE aLgOrItHm makes choices for you, whereas here if you want to create an echo chamber, you have to put in a LOT of effort to ensure that you are never exposed to anything that you would disagree with.

For one thing, you would have to subscribe to communities first, and those would have to have enough content to hold your interest, which means a continual search for more of such communities. Scrolling through the All feed would absolutely be prohibited if you wanted to make an echo chamber for yourself.

Again, literally every social media platform has biases, but here those do not rise to the level of "echo chamber", imho? I do concede that it is not entirely unlike one of those, and yet on the spectrum, aren't we far less than most other common platforms?

[–] thesocavault 4 points 5 months ago (1 children)

I think it's really easy to make an echo chamber here, make a community and only follow said community? I enjoy Lemmy, because look,we are having legitimate conversations, but some posts I have come across - it's like no conversation, just putting down an opposite point of view.

Me personally, I do my best to try and avoid the political stuff, but even that is difficult at times.

But yes, subscribe to the communities and if the content is there, great, if not, make some or help promote it.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Okay so it is theoretically possible but is it plausible that this could be a common use-case?

Anyway, you said "it’s still the same echo chamber that all social media is" - and that statement goes far beyond using the Fediverse as an echo chamber to say that it is that way for everyone (further implication: all the time). i.e. the most command-language interpretation of your words would be that they meant that that tiny little theoretical possibility is what this place is, therefore I wanted to point out that there is so much more to consider, e.g. there are other ways to use it.

[–] thesocavault 3 points 5 months ago

Ok... it's not that serious. Enjoy your day.