Recently, there was a question by @taylorlorenz about how you explain the Fediverse to someone who doesn't use it
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Recently, there was a question by @taylorlorenz about how you explain the Fediverse to someone who doesn't use it.
And usually, what we tend to do is we talk about servers and decentralisation and federation and ActivityPub and all these highly technical concepts.
I've been thinking about it, and all that technical stuff is really impressive work by people far more clever than I'll ever be.
But for me, that technology is a facilitating thing. It's like trying to describe how a bicycle works, rather than why you ride it.
Instead, what the Fediverse is, is a place to have conversations online without algorithms, AI, and ads getting in the way.
Which is increasingly a rare thing online.
Almost the entirety of the internet, from SEO on the web to YouTube to TikTok to Spotify to Instagram and X and Facebook, has been turned into a race to game an algorithm designed to sell ads.
What makes the Fedi unique is that it's not that.
And I suspect if you're trying to persuade someone to try Mastodon (or Lemmy, or Pixelfed, or GtS, etc), you'll get a lot further explaining it as algorithm-free, ad-free, AI-free conversations, rather than trying to describe a decentralised protocol.
#Fediverse #Mastodon #ActivityPub -
Recently, there was a question by @taylorlorenz about how you explain the Fediverse to someone who doesn't use it.
And usually, what we tend to do is we talk about servers and decentralisation and federation and ActivityPub and all these highly technical concepts.
I've been thinking about it, and all that technical stuff is really impressive work by people far more clever than I'll ever be.
But for me, that technology is a facilitating thing. It's like trying to describe how a bicycle works, rather than why you ride it.
Instead, what the Fediverse is, is a place to have conversations online without algorithms, AI, and ads getting in the way.
Which is increasingly a rare thing online.
Almost the entirety of the internet, from SEO on the web to YouTube to TikTok to Spotify to Instagram and X and Facebook, has been turned into a race to game an algorithm designed to sell ads.
What makes the Fedi unique is that it's not that.
And I suspect if you're trying to persuade someone to try Mastodon (or Lemmy, or Pixelfed, or GtS, etc), you'll get a lot further explaining it as algorithm-free, ad-free, AI-free conversations, rather than trying to describe a decentralised protocol.
#Fediverse #Mastodon #ActivityPub@aj @taylorlorenz "it’s like a conversation on market square, where you chat with friends, and nearby people can occasionally listen in a little and comment, and you can do the same to other visitors’ discussions, but it won’t be printed in the newspaper the next day, even though people who stumble upon it later can often still comment afterwards or share with their friends, and this is how you find interesting people"
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M malte@radikal.social shared this topic
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Recently, there was a question by @taylorlorenz about how you explain the Fediverse to someone who doesn't use it.
And usually, what we tend to do is we talk about servers and decentralisation and federation and ActivityPub and all these highly technical concepts.
I've been thinking about it, and all that technical stuff is really impressive work by people far more clever than I'll ever be.
But for me, that technology is a facilitating thing. It's like trying to describe how a bicycle works, rather than why you ride it.
Instead, what the Fediverse is, is a place to have conversations online without algorithms, AI, and ads getting in the way.
Which is increasingly a rare thing online.
Almost the entirety of the internet, from SEO on the web to YouTube to TikTok to Spotify to Instagram and X and Facebook, has been turned into a race to game an algorithm designed to sell ads.
What makes the Fedi unique is that it's not that.
And I suspect if you're trying to persuade someone to try Mastodon (or Lemmy, or Pixelfed, or GtS, etc), you'll get a lot further explaining it as algorithm-free, ad-free, AI-free conversations, rather than trying to describe a decentralised protocol.
#Fediverse #Mastodon #ActivityPub@aj Great reflections. You've influenced me and I think you're right. I'll start describing the fediverse in that way as a start - a rare place on the net where you can talk and surf around withiut ads, algorithms and AI slop.
