Lemmy probably feels like Reddit when it first started, all warm cuddly and friendly to newcomers eager to discuss and collaborate around central topics.
Lemmy probably feels like Reddit when it first started, all warm cuddly and friendly to newcomers eager to discuss and collaborate around central topics.
I joined reddit on the tailwind, so it was all echo chamber, we hate newcomers, gatekeeping, automod frenzy, too many rulebreakers, too many rules, etc I could be wrong, but thats what I imagine it used to be like.
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I'm afraid you just described everything that begins well, but eventually becomes popular. The more the general public engages with a thing, the shittier that thing becomes. Things that are not yet mainstream or become/remain private tend to have a lasting quality.
A major difference being that the fediverse won't get that "advertiser friendly" corporate sanitization with how it's set up.
It's nice not being advertised to or feeling like a product.
I think you underestimate the sheer fuckery of corporate advertisers.
I think the fundamental question is, as the Fediverse gets more popular, then how will servers get paid for? Here are some possibilities I see for how Fediverse hosting could work at scale:
- Surviving off donations alone: Possible but in my estimation unlikely, and it could veer into the territory of big donors having a controlling stake or exerting their interests.
- Instances limiting number of users to what they can afford: This would require the network of instances process to really work well.
- Big instances selling advertisements: Without oversight or moral commitment, this could easily go towards creepy personal data collection.
- Crowdsourcing the costs: This would require transparency and fundraising or some other model
- Hosts financing the operation in other ways: This could also easily get into creepy data collection practices or other dark patterns.
I hope we come up with some process or plan for avoiding the pitfalls and forging an honest and community-integrating way forward.
Aka eternal September
Ah yes, the common addition that ruins pretty much every equation. People. People suck 😂
The only solution is to make your own private instance and never allow anyone to join. Perfection at last… Oh, wait there’s still one human ruining the atmosphere. Not to worry, there’s a quick fix for that. You just need to ban yourself and then the instance will be completely perfect forever.
I think the next good solution to delay the march of normalcy is stronger community bias / branding.
Especially when the public gets to be anonymous. Then they believe they can do and say whatever they want to, no matter how shitty