I saw an article from Yahoo (Source: The Independent) last week about Bluesky's current success from Xitter refugees and it also listed other similar groups like Mastedon. What didn't surprise me is that they said Mastedon is predominantly "techie" which includes the majority of it's user base as "supernerds" with the site having the "steepest learning curve." This was an op-ed from an outsider.

Until Mastedon can appeal to simple minded mainstream basic folk (which is a pretty good size of netizens) it will always be a niche group.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago) (1 children)

Until Mastedon can appeal to simple minded mainstream basic folk (which is a pretty good size of netizens) it will always be a niche group.

I think the bigger problem is that the tech press starts from the perspective that Mastodon and the Fediverse is just for techie nerds and then fills out the narrative with supporting details and so unless those narratives are challenged Mastodon and the Fediverse will never be for normal people because the Tech press and the money behind it won't let that narrative stick in the general public's minds.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago) (1 children)

"there's nothing wrong with Mastedon and everyone else covering it is at fault."

"It's the big tech cabal are the reasons why Mastedon is not appealing to a wider audience."

"Definitely not because the the entry point has a slight learning curve and the demographic of users are FOSS and Linux enthusiasts"

Surely not.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago)

I am not trying to argue this isn't also true too, my argument is that the fediverse doesn't have a marketing department so the framework of discussion around the fediverse in mass media will always be fit to whatever the most convenient narrative is for the corporate tech world which will always be the fediverse is an obscure nerdy diy thing like ham radio or something.

That isn't to say the fediverse doesn't also have existential accessibility issues on multiple dimensions.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Until fediverse advocates stop thinking of people as simple minded, they will never understand the steps needed to be relevant.

The main advantage to Bluesky’s architecture is centralized identity and distributed components.

The centralized identity is key. Unless someone figures out a way to do this in activitypub, the fediverse will remain niche.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 week ago

That's more or less what NOSTR is trying to achieve

[–] Chewmungus 1 points 1 week ago

Accurate username