I read the article but I'm worried about the implementation which you won't be able to choose and while you can change server realistically not many people will even know this happened.
I hope the focus is privacy and people and this change dowsn't have people in mind.
I thought the fediverse was a way to give back the power to the users. This doesn't seem great. I don't want mastodon to be famous because it's useful to companies but because it's useful to people.
I don't know the details but hopefully they do something similar to firefox https://blog.mozilla.org/security/2021/03/22/firefox-87-trims-http-referrers-by-default-to-protect-user-privacy/
I don't think the problem is the UI. Fediverse is more complex by nature than a centralized platform.
You have to choose a server, then an app to visualize (not only online but on the phone too) and there's plenty of alternatives.
If everybody joined the same server we end up with a centralized system and if every large server has to use specific UI what's the point on decentralizing?
I also thought that fediverse had to try to be easier to use but the point is that it's more complicated precisely because the user has more power and hence has to do more decisions.
And I think people have to understand the basics of the fediverse, otherwise people will not stay precisely because it's more complicated. If I didn't care a bit I would be on Reddit not here and I'm currently using both because there's simply much more content there and hopefully with time I can use Lemmy more and less reddit. I'm willing to do the effort of slowly transitioning because I believe in this but people who doesn't care won't stick around.
I think this happens because everyone does this in youtube and by habit people do it on other platforms.
But at the same time, clickbait works and that's the problem basically. If a clickbait tittle gives you more views and you want to be relevant doing clickbait tittles will help to get to that goal.
Hopefully with time and less algorithms promoting this behavior we will have less clickbait stuff but I don't think it will never disappear, specially when there's a big industry behind.
There's people who want to follow other people because you can follow specific associations, independent journalists, etc. If you are like that Mastodon will help with that but if you prefer broader topics no matter the source you have Lemmy. This are two distinct social media which belong to two distinct groups as other mentioned like microblogging and a more standard forum.
I prefer Lemmy because I like to follow topics and I get more involved in the discussions but sometimes I want to check on someone and the best way is to go to a Mastodon like platform.
I mean you don't need to use each social media every day, some will fit more your personality and you will use that more but that doesn't mean you can't open the other one from time to time.