I mean.....you say this with an air of sarcasm, because you DO care about decentralization. But I've been saying since I got here, with no sarcasm, that Lemmy is not a competitor to reddit. Mastodon is not a competitor to twitter. The fediverse is not appealing to the masses on it's own current merrit. And why?

Because it's main selling point is that it's decentralized. And any average woman named Britney, or any average guy named Todd, does not give a shit about that. At all. At all. At all.

They don't know what it is. They don't care what it is. They just want to see what Taylor Swift is saying online. They just want to follow Nascar. They just want to follow all the accounts that you view as corporate branding. That's what they WANT.

I've said in other threads various ways to get the concepts of the fediverse to be looked at. But it takes us, the fediverse, to appear to be appealing to the masses instead of scary.

It needs to feel like a walled garden. It can act as a decentralized service on a technical end. You can wizard of oz the shit out of it. Stay behind a curtain and keep all the scary technical stuff hidden. The technical stuff can still work, but you guys are pushing it front and center like it's a selling point. It's not. It's scary to them, and bluesky looks and feels just like twitter, without the fascism. That's all they want.

Nobody is over on bluesky asking if bluesky is truely decentralized. Nobody there knows what that is. Nobody cares. It would be like me inventing my own currency that only works in an office I work in. Then wondering why the other offices in that building aren't adopting my currency. They don't care about my currency. It means nothing to them.

The fediverse had years of a headstart, and learned nothing. I don't have the technical skills to build. What I do have is the ability to blend in with any crowd and understand what they're feeling. So I understand them. I understand you. And I understand the difference in mentality between them and you. I also understand that you guys DON'T understand their mentality. And they don't even know your mentality exists.

The best way to describe it is, they are like a bunch of flies. They just want to fly to the nearest lightbulb. And you guys are putting on one of those blacklights to expose all the filthy stains around you. And the flies literally land in and eat shit happily, so they don't care about the stains. Yet you're so tunnel visioned that all you see are the stains, and are certain the flys will care. Then a neighbor turns on a porchlight, and they all fly over there.

Also the previous big light was a bug zapper.

[–] LainTrain@lemmy.dbzer0.com 21 points 3 weeks ago

This is so correct it's actually unreal. Really well put, solid comment.

[–] punkaccountant@lemm.ee 8 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

While sometimes I think…do we really want it to get super popular? But also even if the popularity comes with the assholes…blocking and curating can help and in the end, it IS still decentralized. So let’s say that convinces the average Lemmy user that yes, let’s grow this shit.

How do we get some of the big names here to promote it? I tell anyone who has a complaint with standard social media about the fediverse but I have minimal influence. I HAVE included it on surveys and contact with podcasts I follow, to promote it more, again limited influence.

I feel like we need like…whatever…a Taylor Swift type to take it up as something they push and then other big names will follow.

As you said, I don’t care about that really but many others do. Lemmy and occasional checkins with Reddit are my only social media. But if it gets more people here, it could be worth it. I personally would just love more communities to be more active because I like Lemmy…but right now I only see the biggest “Reddit copycats” getting the major activity.

[–] Lost_My_Mind@lemmy.world 14 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

I said before, the biggest thing is handles. If Taylor Swift came to the fediverse, I assume her twitter handle is @TaylorSwift

If she came to Lemmy, or Mastodon, her handle would be "@TaylorSwift@Mastodon.social" or "@TaylorSwift@Lemmy.World"

But then I could myself register "@TaylorSwift@Lemm.ee" or "@TaylorSwift@Mastodon.world"

And I could just be Taylor Swift.

What she has to do, and this goes for any public figure, is protect her brand. Her brand is Taylor Swift. Anything at all which creates confusion or infringing on use regarding that name is a problem for her. She needs to keep Taylor Swift exclusively to herself.

Just as Kellogs would want all use of the word Kellogs to belong to them.

So to attract them, they won't come unless they can be the sole and exclusive @TaylorSwift

That's the important part. She wants to be @TaylorSwift.

Not @TaylorSwift@Mastodon.social.

So to do this, I shouldn't be able to create an identical handle, on a different instance.

The fediverse needs to all communicate with each other. I don't have a peertube account. But since I'm Lost_My_Mind, that exact handle should no longer be in the pool of available peertube account names. And if I were to sign up, with the email from this Lemmy account, I wouldn't even chose a handle. It would automatically choose Lost_My_Mind. The accounts would be the same.

Because at the end of the day, what celbrities want is one easy place for all people to reach them. Right now with X and Bluesky being two systems that aren't interconnected, this splits the audience. We already know America is divided. Almost down the middle.

So the LAST thing celebrities, and brands want is bluesky to take off. Because then you'd have X with its right wing views, and bluesky with it's left wing views. And then brands will have to make two accounts. One on X, one on bluesky. They'd much rather say they have one account with 40 million followers than 2 accounts. One with 22 million followers, and another account with 18 million followers.

And the thing nobody is taking into consideration is the scaling of the fediverse. You can have all of X and all of bluesky on the fediverse. All decentralized. But because 98% won't notice the decentralized aspect, they won't care. They'll just stick to their little corner of the fediverse. And you'll stick to your corner, and in the middle will be brands.

And both sides can connect to brands from their corner of the fediverse. The only reason brands care to pick a side, is because analytics tells them one side is more likely to financially support them. But they'll happily take subscribers and money from the other side. Red states? Blue states? Doesn't matter. All they care about is green states!

And the potential is there. People who want a small fediverse can scale their individual view smaller. People who want it bigger can scale it bigger. It literally has the ability to please both sides wishes. It just has to be implemented properly.

But it may actually be already too late. The bluesky ball has started rolling. Sometimes it's not about logic. You can have a factually better option, but still lose by having inferior numbers.

Right now, bluesky has an artificial solution to the handles issue. You're @handle@bsky.app, but EVERYONE is @bsky.app unless you use a custom domain. So realistically you're just @handle unless specified otherwise.

Same way a website is just website.com, even though it's really https://www.website.com/

The https://www/. is implied, just like the @bsky.app is going to be implied as time goes on.

[–] constantturtleaction@lemmy.world 3 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

Eh, anyone with their own domain can use it even without hosting anything. It just takes a DNS record. So Taylor Swift can have @taylorswift.com or w/e her official website is and that's pretty much the exact same situation as claiming domain ownership. Someone else could likely register taylorswift.boats but I think most people would realize something is off there.

[–] Lost_My_Mind@lemmy.world 3 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

My point is, she doesn't want to be @taylorswift@taylorswift.com

That's so much extra offputting text. She just wants to be @taylorswift

That's short, it's concise, it's easy to remember. It's branding.

Just try to imagine a newscastor telling some story, and saying at the end:

"For all the latest from taylor swift, you can follow on the fediverse @taylorswift"

Now imagine that, compared to this:

"For all the latest from taylor swift, you can follow on the fediverse @taylorswift@taylorswift.com"

You can make it so the official handle in operation behind the scenes is @taylorswift@taylorswift.com

That's not the issue. The issue is, she would want to control her own name. Meaning I couldn't make @taylorswift@otherdomain.ext

Yes, it's easy to spot that being fake TO YOU. You have to remember that 60% of America is literally illiterate. Domains are NOT hard to register, but they are hard to register every single variation of a false domain.

Now I can be @taylorswift@faylorswift.com

And how many people might fall for that? And sure, you don't eliminate the problem by making handles exclusive, but it makes it harder to fake, and easier to go after those attempting identity theft.

[–] constantturtleaction@lemmy.world 1 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

My point is that she can be @taylorswift.com not @taylorswift@taylorswift.com. Also, exaggerating the number of illiterate people in the USA doesn't help your argument. You can already be @FaylorSwift on twitter so I'm still not seeing how this is any more secure than using her actual domain that her fans may be familiar with.

[–] bilb@lem.monster 1 points 3 weeks ago

You can use your domain as your handle Bluesky, I've never seen it done on ActivityPub. Is it possible?

[–] hierophant_nihilant@reddthat.com 1 points 3 weeks ago

If you want more people to donate, you've got to become more popular, and lemmy needs donations afaik

[–] hierophant_nihilant@reddthat.com 6 points 3 weeks ago

Extraordinary well put.I wish more people would understand that building communities by attracting users from outside is much-much-much more important than to brag about fediverse in your small nerd circle and defederating another server.

[–] Quik@infosec.pub 1 points 3 weeks ago

Related blog post that puts it similarly well

[–] FrostyTrichs@walledgarden.xyz 1 points 3 weeks ago

It needs to feel like a walled garden.

Imagine that.