It’s crazy how many people will just click accept on security warning them that an app will access literally everything on their phone.
It’s also crazy how many people don’t even know that Threads is Meta… where the f have these people been for the past 10 years?
I’ve never cared for influencers, but they also never effected me personally. Until last summer… I was blueberry picking one morning with my mom. We picked 3 very full buckets and called it a day and headed for the checkout hut. We’re hot sweaty and tired and just wanted to checkout and go home, but we were suddenly blocked in the middle of a row of blueberries with no way to get out! Why? Because someone was photographing a lady in a sundress and hat caressing the blueberry bushes. We ended up walking through the photo and I’ve never felt such “get off my lawn” sentiment before.
where the f have these people been for the past 10 years?
They’ve been giving away their data for all that time and it hasn’t visible affected them negatively.
Of course it will eventually and they’ll Pikachu face then but that’s hardly comforting.
Will it? Why? It won’t affect most people personally ever, hence why most people don’t really care.
I fear you are right. While I do believe that further policital abuse of that data is inevitable (Trump or the Malaysian civil war were at least partial results of campaigns of Cambridge Analytica, for example), people probably won’t see the impact data analysis had and how they’ve been manipulated.
I think security warnings are kind of like cancer warnings in the state of California. If virtually everything causes cancer then warnings become just a normalized part of life.
What it comes down to is that you never get a choice. Over and over again, it’s always sign this 10,000 word EULA written by our lawyers to give us all the rights, now, and any rights we want to have in the future, or you can throw that $800 device in the trash if you don’t click yes. Likewise, if you want to participate in modern socialization, sign or fuck off.
There’s no point in reading the EULA, because it’s not like you can negotiate for better terms. If you do read it, you just get to find out how it screws you in detail. It’s always take it or leave it, and somehow they paid the devil to make sure that this is popular with everyone else, so you walk through our gate on our terms, or you get shut out of everything, everywhere.
It doesn’t even matter if you’re smart enough to wade through the agreement, it’s still take it or leave it, and the dummies don’t even try. They know the deal, they click the button. The smart people click it, too, they just feel worse about it. Take it or leave it. Fatigue isn’t the right word. Coercion. That’s the one.
Having any leverage in consumer transactions is becoming a rapidly fading memory. Everyone has just given up. Remember when you could buy a TV without signing an onerous legal document that a rational person would never sign, in order to use it? Pepperidge Farm remembers.
I have felt this for years before smart devices were a big thing, my variation is just “text fatigue”. I hate how, for instance in a grocery store (at least here in the US) there is literally almost no square inch of the building that doesn’t have some text for you to read, be it advertising, warnings, information, whatever. My brain gets tired, I can’t just look at these words and not read them and not process the information. The older I get the more overwhelming it all seems and home and nature are the only escape.
I’ve said this a bunch of times, but Mastodon’s use of a chronological feed is what kills it. What it really needs is for the default tab to be a “trending” tab, cause that’s what users want to see.
Mastodon’s use of a chronological feed is what kills it.
Funny, that’s exactly the reason I like Mastodon’s feed over traditional social media. No bullshit being pushed, just the people I’m following and the posts they make.
You’re saying this… On Lemmy. You do know we have three different “trending” settings here, right?
I honestly much prefer the idea of a chronological feed too, but disagree that’s what kills a platform. Tumblr has both the chronological and the trending for you/for all, and it was also ignored.
The sign up process is just too confusing for most people too. I tried evangelizing it when musk took over and that was everyones response. Need like a temporary instance for new accounts that you can transfer out of once you’ve got your sea legs
That’s how I feel right now. I don’t need the Fediverse to replace reddit and Twitter, I want it to be a refuge from the commercialized crap! The people who can’t be bothered to figure out Lemmy or Mastodon can stay right where they are!
The only thing complicated about signing up for Mastodon (and Lemmy) is choice of instance.
Some people need that choice made for them, even though it does not practically matter. Most instances federate with content on other instances and it is possible to migrate your content to an new instance if you change your mind in the future.
Fortunately there are regional instances for both for me so it was pretty much a no-brainer for me to use aus.social and aussie.zone
I really dont get this “Lemmy/Mastodon is sooooo haaaaard to sign up for”. I’m a barely technoliterate 30 something who’s closest thing to coding knowledge is the Missingno cheat in Pokemon Blue, and I figured it out. Its not that hard.
Like, the instances/server thing is the only real extra step you have in signing up, but besides that, its like signing up for any other website.
The focus on chronological feeds is what I like about Mastodon, and Fediverse platforms in general. I don’t want to be slapped in the face with what some algorithm with ulterior motives has decided I should see - I want to see the things I follow in the order they were posted.
I think that’s why the threadiverse clicks for me. Its sorted by zeitgeist. Not influence by halo users, just, “here’s some stuff the community was into recently”
No, it’s mastodon but centralized. It takes all the difficulty out of signing up for the fediverse, like finding a server. I said it from day 1 on mastodon. We will never see mass adoption until there’s a simple sign up process. People like centralized because it’s easier.
I’ve been trying to hammer this point home.
I wish devs would wake up and create a default easy mode sign-up for the fediverse with an option to click “advanced sign-up” if you choose to do so.
The easy mode would just automatically assign an instance based upon some algorithm.
Well, like asking users what their preferences are and select the servers based on the criteria users have chosen?
I wish the devs would wake up and create a default easy mode sign-up for creating a web site. The web will never catch on with all this complicated stuff.
How is it difficult to find a server? Just pick whatever server you come across first and create an account.
You tell the average dude about how servers exist and the first instinct is that it matters, so they stop, fret about the importance, look for a second, then just drop it because they dont give enough hoots yet to invest more effort versus using a centralized service.
Want ppl to join, don’t even tell them about servers. No choice paralysis, no fear of being wrong, nada
I haven’t used Mastodon, but on Lemmy the instance you are on totally matters.
For example, beehaw.org is pretty happy to defederate. It tries to give you a more moderated and curated environment. Feddit.de is slow, laggy and often outdated, and they just deactivated federation in general (at least they said so, to me federation seems to be still working) to avoid that session stealing vulnerability.
In general, federation is pretty buggy right now, with federated posts/comments having a decent chance of not being replicated.
So the choice of instance really does make a difference. But there is no help at all up front to choose the correct instance.
And just hopping over to another instance is also not a great solution, since people are used to build their social media account. It’s not some anonymous throw-away thing.
It looks like most people don’t have enough braincells to do such a simple task. Isn’t it just nice to live in a world like this?
Most people weren’t ever taught about this shit and had no reason to spend time learning about it on their own. Most of us are either professional or amateur nerds, figuring this out wasn’t really that hard because of our circumstances rather than our ~superior brains~
They have just as many braincells as you, throw that attitude away.
Centralization is the core problem of social media though. It allows a single entity control over the data and as soon as you have that, you have Zuck.
Centralization isn’t the problem, privatization is. If the single entity that controlled the data was democraticly controlled and not run for profitability it’d be the best of all worlds.
In 2023, there is very little democratically controlled anything left that has not been tainted by the ‘capitalist gains mindset’ - most democratic social programs that are far more fundamental than a social network have either been corrupted and impaired by corporate greed or have had enough legislative protections or funding sources cut out that they can no longer operate properly, allowing the argument for ‘privatisation’ - a one way ticket back to corporate greed. They operate at the whims of corporations and no longer serve the people.
While I believe what you say is true, it’s not something we’re capable of in the current state of civilisation.
Finding a server could not be any easier: https://joinmastodon.org/servers
If they can’t manage that then maybe they should not be on the internet. If my 60yo dad can do it then so can they. Learned helplessness in anything involving IT is my pet peeve.
Tbh, this is not a good solution.
It dumps you in front of a wall of 22 pages of servers on my laptop (equivalent to 4.35 meters).
Most of which have completely nonsensical descriptions.
If I look at e.g. the first page (top 6 servers) I get these:
- mastodon.social: The original server operated by the Mastodon gGmbH non-profit
- mstdn.jp: Mastodon日本鯖です． よろしくお願いいたします。 (Maintained by Sujitech, LLC)
- mstdn.social: A general-purpose Mastodon server with a 500 character limit. All languages are welcome.
- mastodon.world: Generic Mastodon server for anyone to use.
- mas.to: Hello! mas.to is a fast, up-to-date and fun Mastodon server.
- mastodon.online: A newer server operated by the Mastodon gGmbH non-profit
Ok, so of these I can only rule out mstdn.jp, because I don’t speak Japanese.
mastodon.social and mastodon.official are, I guess, the “official” instances, with one of them being newer, for some reason. What does that mean? No idea. Is mastodon.social running out dated software? If not, why fork the instances at all?
mstdn.social and mastodon.world mention that they are general purpose. Without (and even with) Fediverse experience, I would expect any social media platform to be general purpose unless otherwise stated. So they basically have no description.
mas.to mentions only that it’s “fast, up-to-date and fun”. That basically has no meaning, except all other instances are slow, outdated and boring. So now I am worried.
mstdn.social says it has a 500 character limit. Without googleing a new user would have no idea what the regular character limits are. And I have no idea whether that will cause issues when interacting with other instances.
This page is like getting to a used car dealership without a clue about cars and you ask the car dealer to help you choose a car, and the dealer is like “Yeah, so I’m gonna help you. The right car for you is any car on the property of the dealership.”
Huh? The default Mastodon app signs you up on mastodon.social by default. Nothing complicated about that:
https://blog.joinmastodon.org/2023/05/a-new-onboarding-experience-on-mastodon/
And the devs faced major opposition for that, because plenty of people accused them of wanting to centralize the decentralized network with that move.
I’ve seen people lose their shit over having to “sign up for another app” and honestly I don’t want people who have no respect for their data, privacy and have the personality of a wet cardboard right-wing conservative on the fediverse. That’s why Fb exists. We are here as users because we chose to, as other people chose what best suits them.
Exactly, I downloaded Mastodon and deleted it in one day. It was too complicated (in an annoying way) to use. I’m very IT literate, but I don’t want to learn to use a platform, or do research. I want it to work out of the box, and I want it to be easy and the content to be accessible. Now think about all the non-IT literate people out there, of course Threads will do well because it’s just create an account and you’re good to go… If Mastodon was like that I would use it.
There are 1 billion active users on Instagram and those users were invited to Threads using an existing account. Celebrities, businesses, streamers, etc. all popped up on Threads within the first few hours of public release.
I’m a big nerd and just learned about the fediverse within recent months. Everyone else I know who uses Twitter and Threads have no clue what Mastodon is.
Yeah, it’s unfathomable how huge Instagram is. That’s a massive number of people who could be easily informed “hey, wanna try our new product?” As an aside, when I googled it, it said there was 2 billion active Instagram users.
I find it silly when people act skeptical of Threads’ numbers, since Meta only needed a tiny number of their existing user base to try it out.
There was a time - when facebook/ig didn’t exist, the difference was - back then nothing exists, and so the intriguing new thing (that didn’t make money yet), was buggy as hell, and so the spread was FAST.
Thankfully, those big projects, whenever they make a mistake, the fediverse gets a boost.
I’ve been following the fediverse since disapora announced their plans circa 2010. I created an account on one of the instances in 2012 and probably visited it twice since.
It’s one thing to be early adopters when something is completely new compared to something that comes to replace something that everybody is already using.
We’ll get there. With every mistake these big corps will do, we’ll get more and more people in, until THIS will become the ‘cool’ thing around.
Until then, it will be much much better.
Nice meme but pls.
Having an alleged pedo as a template always bothered me. We can do better here surely.
That otter is no pedo!
No, seriously though, who is the guy in the OP’s template?
