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Forget growth, lets enjoy what we have (self.lemmyworld)

submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by andobando to c/lemmyworld

152 comments fedilink hide all child comments

There is a huge emphasis I see on just growing community size and creating an alternative to reddit.

Back in the day we used to hang out in irc chats with 5-10 active users or forums with few thousand users max. I made friends there I visted across countries. Years after Id log in and people would ask how you've been.

I had a reddit account for over 10 years and I dont think a single person would recognize my username. Its always felt like people aren't talking to you but trying to appeal to the whole audience for points. Reddit exploits our psychology for attention but nothing humane is gained there. The super massive "community" ends up as a void where 99% of posts go completely unseen and any discussions suffer heavily from mod mentalities.

If this a place where even just ten people call home but feel good doing so, that is more good than a million being miserable. Maybe the best alternative is not to be reddit altogether.

Besides, good things have a natural tendency to spread, we don't need to focus on it.

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[–] SterlingVapor 28 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I think you're 100% right, but frankly this issue is more important than just a nice home for us

Social networks are being pressured to start extracting value with interest rates no longer being nil, and their efforts aren't just inconvenient, they're bad for mental health.

And how long until they start selling control over debate to the highest bidder? Musk has pretty explicitly gone over plans to do exactly that - he wants to charge per-user to send out tweets to your subscribers. He says there would be a large limit before you have to start paying, but this is a great way to control voices that rise out of the crowd

Social media has been a disaster, but there's no putting it back in the box - it's the primary way we communicate. It's terrible for mental health and can be leveraged as a tool of control, so a decentralized system is very important right now

That being said, I think it'd be great if the fediverse encorages fragmented groups instead of a main subject monolith and refugees in fringe groups - smaller communities are just healthier and more fulfilling

[–] thesilencenoise 9 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Agreed. I feel bad as someone who advocated for the adoption of this technology for many years only to see the shit show that it has become. It's terrible as it is and I think some of this return to smaller communities will humanize things a bit more and that definitely seems to be happening with what I've seen so far.

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

This is a new era. Welcome to the Great Rehumanization of the internet.

Oooh I like that, it's got a nice ring to it.