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Could federation be a turn-off for more 'mainstream' users? (self.lemmyworld)

submitted 2 years ago by drubbis to c/lemmyworld

139 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Hey everyone, I'm honestly really liking Lemmy so far. Maybe that's because it feels so much like browsing reddit 10 years ago and I think it's safe to say many of us have migrated from the blackout. I'd been a Reddit user since 2010 so I've witnessed the slow decline over the years but popping here has really driven home how corporate it started to feel--less like a genuine hub of community and more like a manufactured product with low effort content and some genuine discussion/input peppered throughout.

That said, does anyone feel the idea of a federated platform might be confusing to some less network-savvy users? There's other successful multi-server platforms like Discord but somehow for me the idea of a 'chatroom' versus something more like a forum/board seems like it would make more sense to a less informed user. I could see hearing that posts are aggregating from other sites or being cross-visible confusing to individuals who understand web usage as, 'visit site--post to site--view content on site'.

Does that make sense? lol Anyways, loving the site so far--hope to see it grow!

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[–] TheBeege 44 points 2 years ago (3 children)

I mean, it's all about the client. As long as the client makes it seamless, it'll just feel like another sub/community, regardless of the instance it's on. They don't really need to care about or understand federation. Just sign up. Consume content. Ggez

[–] dojan 17 points 2 years ago (2 children)

I think this is where the crux of the matter is. It’s early days still for Lemmy, and where we are right now is great I feel.

However, the user experience for an average user is probably quite confusing. With other platforms you just go to the platform page, sign up, and done. Here you’re greeted with an explanation of the architecture, then you have to find an index of servers, and all that is probably quite overwhelming for some.

I spoke to my roomie about it, and he basically dismissed it saying “eh I might look into it when I have time to waste” - the platform simply wasn’t too approachable to him, and he is quite tech savvy!

Over time I think it might be good to maybe not abstract away, but at least be less in your face about the federation. Streamlining the user onboarding experience would go a long way I think.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 2 years ago

I think this comment 100% reflects how I feel as well, and I especially agree with your roommate. I’m a decently tech savvy person as well and between learning about federation and overthinking which instance to join it took 20-30 minutes to join Lemmy. I think the people in my life who don’t enjoy stuff like this as much will need me to help set up Lemmy or they won’t join at all.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 years ago (1 children)

I agree with you.

On Mastodon, a few weeks ago this topic was raised after the default mobile apps started to streamline signups for the "mastodon.social" server (equivalent to lemmy.ml here). Many were displeased by it, saying that "we cannot have only one big instance, it's Twitter all over again" and something on that line.

But I think it is a good thing, personally, especially since mastodon have an account migration feature. Let the people experience the service, then give them the choices. Other apps and servers use this approach (eg. Mammoth for Mastodon app, Vivaldi browser's instance...)

Lemmy is not as mature right now as Mastodon was during the Twitter migration. This is a challenge, but presents some opportunities for the devs and the community to see what works and what didn't work for all this federation thing. But it does have potential to be "mainstream".

[–] popcornheadlines 3 points 2 years ago

I like the suggestion idea, except it should not just be one instance. I think it would be a great idea to show the top 2 or 3 so that one just doesn't completely dominate

[–] [email protected] 11 points 2 years ago

And I'm pretty sure they're working to make the default web version of Lemmy work more seamlessly.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 2 years ago

Very much this. A normal user doesn't care about federation and much less wants to spend extra effort to get around it.