Tantacrul mentions onboarding problems with average people learning to switch to the fediverse as an alternative to Facebook
Tantacrul mentions onboarding problems with average people learning to switch to the fediverse as an alternative to Facebook
This reminds me of Tom Scott's excellent video on electronic voting machines, where he mentioned that the system for counting votes needs to be easily understandable to the average person so that they can adequately trust it.
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Okay I watched the few seconds of video at the end of a three-hour long video apparently about Facebook where he mentions "federated social media using open decentralized technologies such as activitypub" as it is known. The ratio of time and effort he's inclined to devote to each topic speaks for itself. My understanding of what he says: "Sounds complicated. I'm not touching it until all my friends are already there."
He's more than capable of joining the fediverse, but he's also a UI/UX designer. I would say his main issue with the fediverse is the amount of friction between a normie being exposed to the concept and actually signing up and engaging with it.
You have to admit that it isn't the simplest thing to do. People have to understand the concept of the fediverse, find an instance that will accept them, sign up (with confirmation required from the instance mods) and then find out how to find communities that they are interested in.
It's not about whether a tech-savvy person can figure it out with some effort, it's about whether normal people can transition away from a monolithic, streamlined, social media to it.
It makes sense. I trust a UI/UX designer with experience that knows what they’re talking about. As much as we like and care for the space there are flaws
People have to understand the concept of the fediverse
That's the argument. Do they, though? I sure didn't when I first signed up.
Most of the people didn't, and that's okay
People have to understand email addresses, domains, the DNS system just to decide which email provider to choose. After that they still need to find people to email.
This email thing will never catch on /s
Hahaha, touché. To be fair though, a lot of people struggle with email.
And if an easier version of email existed, email mightn't have caught on.
If Fediverse users don't even agree on whether instances are important or just an implementation detail, how could a new user know?