Guys, when you talk about the Fediverse to friends, family, or colleagues, how do you explain it?

Do you call it a “decentralized social network,” an “alternative to big tech,” or “a collection of open-source networks”? And how do you convince someone to create an account on Mastodon, Lemmy, Pixelfed, etc., without them getting scared by technical terms like instance, federated, or peer-to-peer?

I’m asking because my so-called friends don’t believe me and even call me crazy when I talk about this “nonsense.”

The future is open source, decentralized, and federated!

  • pugnaciousfarter@literature.cafe
    5·
    1 day ago

    This is how I do it.

    Brief

    Imagine if there were 5 clones of twitter, all owned by different companies, but they could all still talk to each other.

    So, a person from Twitter could talk to people from threads and bluesky.

    Why do it this way?

    • Each twitter clone could have its own quirks. Like one could have a dislike button where as the rest won’t.
    • If one of the clone owners decides to become a nazi, we can just migrate to another clone.
    • This makes sure power is not concentrated in one place!
    • If the system is open source, you can even start your own version of twitter where you rule!

    Don’t care about talking to people on twitter!

    But you say “I don’t want to have to talk to people from Twitter!”. Well, doing it this way allows you to choose not to do so. (There’s an option to block clones you don’t like!)

    What is fediverse?

    It’s the network through which all these different but similar apps can talk to each other.

    Social media formats like reddit, twitter and Instagram have been replicated for fediverse and available for people to join or create their own version.

    • Lemmy is a fediverse alternative for reddit, there are 100s of lemmy apps that can talk to each other (or choose not to if they don’t want to).
    • Mastadon is alternative for twitter.
    • And there are more.

    To get them to join

    Join the biggest instance or join any instance! You can figure out what you want specifically later, easy migration allows that!

    But if you want You can read about them before joining: Each is focused on different things like privacy, literature, tech, and even gaming.

    Fun Extra

    Unlike with instagram and twitter and reddit, fediverse apps like mastadon and lemmy can theoretically talk to each other. So you will be able to see your “tweets” with your “reddit feed”.

    Notes

    Emphasize pain points and incentives like:

    • being banned for no reason
    • free speech
    • safe spaces
    • like minded people
    • Tighter knit communities
    • Decentralisation, if they’re into some form of socialism or left leaning ideologies.
    • fajre@lemmy.worldOP
      2·
      1 day ago

      This is how I do it.

      Brief

      Imagine if there were 5 clones of twitter, all owned by different companies, but they could all still talk to each other.

      So, a person from Twitter could talk to people from threads and bluesky.

      Why do it this way?

      Each twitter clone could have its own quirks. Like one could have a dislike button where as the rest won’t.
If one of the clone owners decides to become a nazi, we can just migrate to another clone.
This makes sure power is not concentrated in one place!
If the system is open source, you can even start your own version of twitter where you rule!

      Don’t care about talking to people on twitter!

      But you say “I don’t want to have to talk to people from Twitter!”. Well, doing it this way allows you to choose not to do so. (There’s an option to block clones you don’t like!)

      What is fediverse?

      It’s the network through which all these different but similar apps can talk to each other.

      Social media formats like reddit, twitter and Instagram have been replicated for fediverse and available for people to join or create their own version.

      Lemmy is a fediverse alternative for reddit, there are 100s of lemmy apps that can talk to each other (or choose not to if they don’t want to).
Mastadon is alternative for twitter.
And there are more.

      To get them to join

      Join the biggest instance or join any instance! You can figure out what you want specifically later, easy migration allows that!

      But if you want You can read about them before joining: Each is focused on different things like privacy, literature, tech, and even gaming.

      Fun Extra

      Unlike with instagram and twitter and reddit, fediverse apps like mastadon and lemmy can theoretically talk to each other. So you will be able to see your “tweets” with your “reddit feed”.

      Notes

      Emphasize pain points and incentives like:

      being banned for no reason
free speech
safe spaces
like minded people
Tighter knit communities
Decentralisation, if they’re into some form of socialism or left leaning ideologies.

      awesome man, thanks a lot!