It all comes down to the network effect that I mentioned. It’s not a matter of making the users’ lives easier, it’s a matter of making the content better, especially the comments.
A single merged community may kick off discussions and debates that would never happen if the users were spread across 10 different communities in different instances.
I mean, maybe the conversations would still happen if everybody subscribed all 10 of the instances’ communities. If everybody interested in, say, photography subbed to every photography community out there, you’d basically have the same effect as merging. But people won’t do that. Some will, but I bet most won’t.
That’s fine on an individual level, but unless everybody does it, you probably still have the downside of the users — and therefore the content & comments — being spread too thin. If the mods of the communities had a tool to federate/merge at the community level, that gives the benefit of the network effect. And if the “merge” functionality just mirrors all content to all connected communities across instances, it would make popular ones more reliable.
But that should only be an option for communities, never forced. There’s strength in diversity too.
I thought the same thing when some (talented and well meaning) individuals recently put out tools/procedures to access Reddit in a more clean way.
Nah. I don’t need to be an absolutist — I’ll load up a page if some search shows me that’s the only place to get what I’m looking for — but spending time to make undesirable websites more accessible for myself isn’t something I plan to do.
I have been using Linux a lot more than usual at work this year. Something like Fedora w/ gnome might be a little much for some users. However, I am still impressed with how seamless everything is with Linux Mint.
I’m not into Lemmy because it’s got all the niche communities I need in my life. I’m into it because the fediverse in general is a FOSS, decentralized, “by the people for the people” alternative to enshittified ads&engagement social media.
We’re in the early stages of this thing. We’re all still playing with the building blocks of what this will hopefully become one day.
This is what I did when this story came out. In used different browsers in different places, but I switched to Firefox anywhere that’s windows or Linux.
There won’t be ANY car made that basic from this point on, though. Electric or not isn’t a factor.
In the US at least, backup cameras are required, so immediately you have a screen and a computer driving it. Adding in things like Bluetooth, gps, and phone interfaces are almost free at that point. It’s kind of like how power windows are just standard on everything too.
For what it’s worth, this comment just inspired me to switch my work PC from edge to Firefox. Was already using it in Linux, and will switch my home PC tonight.
You aren’t kidding. I got four tiny spearmint plants this spring. They are growing kind of hydroponically because I have a pond.
In less than three months, those plants have exploded into huge nice-smelling bushes that are more than two feet in each dimension. They are planted in a line so there’s this walk of mint that’s almost 12 feet long.
But that’s not enough. The plants send out branches along the ground like freaking tentacles. They will spill out of a planter box, for instance.
The fast growth is why I chose this plant, but damn!
That sounds great! I will be following the app’s progress for sure.
By the way, the other thing that stood out was not being able to tap on an image and view just that image full screen. Being able to do that leads to things like zooming in on the image, or long pressing to copy/share it.
You also included features I didn’t even know I wanted, like the privacy option to hide your username. You’re doing good work, my friend. o7
Trying Mlem for the first time, the only thing that bothers me is that it shows total post scores and not individual numbers for up/down votes. I like seeing when something is controversial vs ignored.
Install Linux Mint in a virtualbox VM. It gets up and running so quickly, and works extremely well.
I have been focusing more on learning Linux at work, between some Fedora VMs we use for various things, and the Mint VM I spun up myself. It’s great because jumping between windows and Linux is a simple matter of moving the mouse cursor to a different monitor. I usually just leave Linux Mint running full screen on one of my monitors.
I’m not experienced with lots of distros, but Mint is damned impressive.
It all comes down to the network effect that I mentioned. It’s not a matter of making the users’ lives easier, it’s a matter of making the content better, especially the comments.
A single merged community may kick off discussions and debates that would never happen if the users were spread across 10 different communities in different instances.
I mean, maybe the conversations would still happen if everybody subscribed all 10 of the instances’ communities. If everybody interested in, say, photography subbed to every photography community out there, you’d basically have the same effect as merging. But people won’t do that. Some will, but I bet most won’t.