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Posts
6
Comments
393
Joined
2 yr. ago

  • Leaving/left Facebook for Mastodon back a couple of years ago when the whistle blower revealed their dialing of the "outrage algorithm" and the true width and depth of data capture. This was when (and why) they rebranded to Meta. I've only gotten a few of my FB folks to give Fedi a try, but I'm effing loving it. Lemmy and Mastodon are growing and I am here for it. This is what social media should be and how it should work. I've found so many awesome people through Mastodon I would have never found on FB or Twitter. The cool things I've seen on Lemmy I probably would have never seen on Reddit. I just feel more connected on here than when I was jumping from corporate walled garden to corporate walled garden.

  • Years ago, I drunk purchased a microwavable sandwich press off Amazon... it was a genuine surprise when it showed up and I considered returning it, but didn't. Brought it to work and now I use it three to five times a week; I genuinely recommend this thing to other people. It's so convenient and works really well.

    [Link to the thing: https://a.co/d/41go0hD]

  • Yeah, I've been running around the Fediverse for two years now and the name has yet to grow on me. Makes it slightly difficult to explain to people who are interested. The "iverse" part makes it sound like a metaverse type project which gives some people pause -because of the hype-flop cycle and, of course, all the crypto scams associated with that. Have to begin the pitch with "but it has nothing to do with [that], so don't worry." (Edit because autocorrect)

  • Yeah, us Americans never really moved away from SMS. I think probably BlackBerry messenger, back in the day, was probably the closest we came to having a messenger replace standard mobile texting along with Facebook Messenger and Insta DMs are pretty popular but never as used as plain old texting. Lately, I've seen Meta running ads stateside for WhatsApp. It's weird because I've never seen them advertise anything before.

  • I like Android because I get more of a choice in phones than just the two or three on offer by Apple. I usually go with Samsung but I've had Motorola and LG before... just depends who's got the best device in my price range.

  • I (37M) am a broadcast TV tech director so I guess that puts me in the "techbro" world, however, I wouldn't consider myself an "early adopter." I'd say really I'm just tired of corporate social media and all the algorithms and BS. And I'm not alone.

    Why am I on Mastodon and Lemmy:

    I was looking for something genuinely different, something human focused, something better. Hopefully the Fediverse can be that and hold the line against the likes of Meta. I've gotten four people in my close friends circle to give Fedi a try on three different platforms, all within the last two weeks.

    My solution here:

    We can't expect hobbyist server hosts, pro bono web devs, and volunteer modmins to pay to advertise this place. Memories of the marketing classes I was forced to take in college are screaming at me right now that what we need to do is begin an honest to goodness word-of-mouth campaign for the whole of the Fediverse... and by that I don't mean "posting aggressively" about it on Facebook, Reddit, Threads, TikTok, Tumblr, Twitter, BlueSky, etc, etc.

    Scary as it may be to some of us "techbros," we need to go touch some grass and actually talk to people in the real world. "Word of mouth" means face to face, in person, and it's possibly the most powerful advertising tool ever devised. I'd genuinely advise taking a cue from fundy Christians... evangelize... talk to your friends, your family, your co-workers about what you like about the Fediverse and what they might like. Listen to their problems with Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, Tumblr, TikTok, etc... offer a possible solution that they could give a try. Obviously, don't be pushy or a dick but also, if they do take the leap, help them get settled. Help them find a platform they'd like and how to find the communities and users with whom they'd like to interact.

    Perhaps there are some onerous barriers to entry to places like this, but there are loads of people out there genuinely looking for better online communities and just better social media in general. This place -it's various platforms and numerous instances- can be that for a load of people, but they won't know about it unless we tell them.

  • That was my first thought as well. Facebook is simply too different to Twitter in ways that Instagram is actually similar. On Facebook you're blogging your life for others to follow. On Instagram and Twitter people are blogging a little of their own, but most users are there to follow others (usually big names or important people) and to comment on events those larger names are blogging about.

  • My experience looking to join Mastodon instances (after the FB whistle blower a few years ago) was very similar. I ended up in a large "more general" instance, ignoring the local feed in favor of my home feed. I slowly built up my follows and now I feel right at home, but that was a process... as opposed to, say, when I signed up for Twitter ten-ish years ago where an algorithm held my hand for days or weeks until it figured out what it could sell me. I think OP is really onto something, so they've got my attention and my up vote.

  • Meta is already a multi-billion dollar company that is built like an unstoppable content monetization and tax avoidance machine. If they wanted to, they could probably float an unprofitable Threads dot net until the heat death of the universe. Threads doesn't need to be profitable for it to succeed, it just needs to crush Twitter, BlueSky, TikTok, Reddit, Tumblr, and the Fediverse under foot. That's it... that's the win condition they're going for, not profitability. This is David verses Goliath moment and, in the real world of monopolistic capitalism, Goliath usually wins.

  • Been using Jerboa and Connect interchangeably for a couple of days to compare and contrast. Honestly Jerboa takes it, super stable and it's been rolling with all the punches lemmy.world has been throwing it much better than Connect. I'd honestly recommend both, but Jerboa has been just slightly better in just overall UX. I'll probably keep testing out the various apps for Android, but Jerboa will likely be my daily driver.

  • That plus interest rates are going up. For twenty years VC's has near limitless cheap loans, now they've got to be marginally more careful than before and the companies which grew large but only ever broke even (if that) now need to pivot to profitability to justify all the debt they took on. Would not be surprised if Uber and Lyft start really hiking rates soon.

  • Somewhere at Twitter Headquarters... Intern 1: Oh look, I found two PDF's with the company's financial plan. Intern 2: Really, what do they say? Intern 1: Yeah, this one's called "Show to the IRS" and this one's called "Don't Show to the IRS."