Don’t get me wrong I’m a big fan but it seems like the fediverse could theoretically exist with like 5 users whereas a commercial company needs users for revenue. It feels like we are using the masters tools to try to destroy the masters house
A lot of community types just simply don’t work without a minimum critical mass of members.
Imagine asking a programming question on a software development community of just 5 people. You end up with 3 people who aren’t active enough to see the question, 1 person sees but doesn’t have an answer and doesn’t respond (classic lurker), and one person sees it and responds that they don’t know the answer. Now imagine a community of 5 thousand people…it’s suddenly much more feasible to even bother asking the question.
Sure, fediverse could exist with just 5 people, but it would be worthless and pointless.
Because, like it or not, what normies do on social media matters. I, for one, don’t want fuckwads like Zuckerberg, Musk and Spez to continue to be able to skew the conversation in the proverbial town square e.g. during the 2024 election.
Centralized, corporate-controlled social media is literally a threat to democracy.
With Lemmy and an open source app on an open source platform you’re owning the means of production. We don’t need mass adoption, just enough users with a higher level of engagement. We’re now there, or close.
@vera Honestly I was on reddit for the nerds (people) not the company and that’s why I’m here now. Fortunately(?) I remember the internet before big social media and very comfortable with forums and boards. Can’t say I’m able to speak for anyone else though.
I would definitely be down with a return to things like webrings. Everyone creates their own website and uploads content, and good creators invite eachother to their rings. I don’t know why we ever stopped doing that.
But is that not what the fediverse is at heart? Anyone can make their own instance?
