@rglullis@cabbage In a way, it's just like splitting utility bills with flatmates.
Many instances do the same. They require members to pay at least a (reasonable) minimum amount in a year. This is also well stated since day 0 in their registration form.
@caos
One point on Lemmy. What software best federates with Lemmy? I'm posting this comment from a Mastodon account through Fedilabs. The Lemmy thread is understandable, more or less. Is this only a matter of client and UI? @deadsuperhero
@rootbeer@fediverse I understand the point, but what if there are different needs and use cases? Like a network of schools in a specific region that want to coordinate, interact and share events among them?
@ziby0405@geoma Mmm so, you envision something that is on website as an "official presence online" and then also a separate account on Mastodon and things for social media purposes?
I mean, it makes sense. At the end of the day, even current mainstream businesses have a website and Instagram accounts for things, so yes.
@CannotSleep420@geoma What is the currently accepted/perceived use case for federation then?
I personally perceive that the Fediverse is currently appealing to geeks, organizations that look for digital sovereignty or autonomy, curious people looking for something new, die-hard alternatives
@h3ndrik@geoma There are other things to consider, like what kind of dependency you want to have to other organizations. You might be a network of small orgs ready to share resources for setting up a collective Mastodon instance. Similar approach with a big entity with enough resources (be those donations, own money, or whatever) to fund all of that. A different case would be just a small project/business that currently uses Instagram for PR purposes, but that wants something alternative
@youronlyone@fediverse This is a great suggestion. So, as you correctly are saying, there must be a focus on the user and their needs. I think a wizard could be useful (but not like https://distrochooser.de , because options are limited, same results).
This hypothetical wizard should allow the user to choose between software and instances, based on a set of characteristics.
I think we lack something like this. Am I wrong?
@fediverse The point is that, given the current characteristics and limitations of the Fediverse at large, how should we recommend software to people interred in joining?
Should we aim to have them use only one software/instance given their interests? i.e. I'm interested in having the most similar experience to Instagram, so I should use ONLY Pixelfed? But what if, like me, I want to have an official presence online and still want to interact with other communities online that are thread-based?
@fediverse Again, maybe I was only very unlucky with the instances I chose to let my friends sign up for the Fediverse, but we really need to think on how to make this as effortless as possible for new users. Changing paradigm is not easy, making everyone grasp the underlying concepts of the Fediverse is not easy, increasing adoption is not easy. We can not rely on another Xpocalypse.
@fediverse So, these problems break the whole idea of having one profile for accessing all the available content on the Fediverse. In general, this can be described as one major problem: even if my chosen instance is federated with some other where the content I am interested in is available, I will still have some issues in accessing.
@fediverse Mastodon is the level of UX other projects should aim to. Unfortunately, others like Pixelfed and Lemmy are still not as adopted, and profiles can not communicate that well. This makes the on-life experience of making a friend create a new account and adding you very painful, because different servers might not be synced and the content of your profile might not appear in their client. This makes people to join large instances so they can have everyone in their local timeline.
@fediverse 2. In most of the cases I have experiences, Mastodon is the only one that has a good level of stability that allows for active consume of content present on other intances. "Content is almost instantly federated", and I guess this is because Mastodon has a lot of users and therefore a lot of instances federated. In my opinion, this gives more value to the local timeline, as it correctly reinforces the idea that instances should be the community of your own choosing.
People are interested in communities and content. The idea of using one single client and being able to access all types of content from any kind of instance sounds great, but it's still a dream. Let's say that I am interested in memes and the communities I know of are most active on lemmy.world. Realistically, with my Mastodon account I am not going to have the same experience that I would have with using Lemmy just for that. I need to register a new account on lemmy.world.
@stu@yogthos Can anybody point to research or literature about the development and survival of FOSS communities? I am only aware of Gabriella Coleman's studies on Debian and Raymond's "The Cathedral and the Bazaar"
@rglullis @cabbage In a way, it's just like splitting utility bills with flatmates.
Many instances do the same. They require members to pay at least a (reasonable) minimum amount in a year. This is also well stated since day 0 in their registration form.