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I feel like we need to stop trying to overexplain the fediverse. The decentralization stuff isn't the selling point y'all think it is. It's confusing and complicated and entirely unnecessary. kbin.social has a landing page with actual content on it, signing up is exactly the way one signs up for anything else, the UI is reminiscent of old reddit, and nobody needs to know how it's connecting to the rest of the fediverse on the back end to comment on a picture of a funny cat.
The sales pitch shouldn't be some neckbeardy ultra-nerd shit where we gush over decentralization and instances and blah blah blah. The sales pitch should be "It's still a little rough around the edges, but it does basically the same thing. It aggregates content from other places on the web. And, for all you're going to need it for, it works basically the same way as reddit. Read the front page, if you see a community you like, subscribe to it. Just, if you want to post a thread on kbin, that's under 'post article' for some reason."
90% of the people who are on reddit bitching about how "complicated" this is are only saying that because it's being explained in literally the most obtuse way possible. I was one of them. And Lemmy's absolutely not helping by filling their landing page with a bunch of technical bullshit normies don't need to understand, instead of, you know, showing them content.
Yes, it's cool. Yes, it's modern and novel and a new way to connect to people on the web. Not a damn bit of that matters. Stop pushing that like anyone other than techbros give a fuck.
Kbin isn't ready either. The simple fact is that most people these days use social media (almost) exclusively through apps their phones. Yes, you can install it as a PWA through your browser, but that's a possibility most non-techy people aren't even aware of, nor is it really explained anywhere. Not having apps in official app stores is a major hurdle to adoption.
Yes, on the Lemmy side of things Jerboa is on the Play Store but it doesn't allow you to actually create accounts on Lemmy instances, and even if it did you'd be back at the "you must chose an instance" hurdle.
This whole project has been popular for like a month? I know Lemmy servers were going longer but kbin is about that old.
Frankly I think the progress is insane, give it 6 months and I think you’ll have multiple native apps to pick from. Probably some of them would be on their own instances.The simple fact is that most people these days use social media (almost) exclusively through apps their phones. Yes, you can install it as a PWA through your browser, but that's a possibility most non-techy people aren't even aware of, nor is it really explained anywhere. Not having apps in official app stores is a major hurdle to adoption.
So we are at the stage where people are unable to operate a simple mobile website, and everything has to be turned into its own special app?
I don't know, for me kbin doesn't have to get as big as reddit to be a cool place to hang out. Not sure if I'm interested in an influx of people who only post selfies and shitty tiktok videos and don't bother reading the community rules because they're on mobile and seeing the sidebar requires tapping on a button but they don't know how to do that or something. Maybe I'm just bitter from reading all the comments on reddit and seeing how people don't even bother understanding what happened with the API etc. and just keep screaming "give content now".
"Kbin is like Reddit, except it's not privately owned. Individuals run their own servers and people can communicate and follow each other across the whole network. You just pick a server and sign up with that one. Here's a couple servers that I like..."
That sounds concise and non techy, I think. But I'm sure someone could come up with an even simpler, more inviting elevator pitch.
I'd probably just choose a server and send it to them. Then, I'd explain it like this:
Kbin is like Reddit, but
(assholes|fuccbois|corporate interests)can't control it like they can control Reddit. It's a bit rough around the edges, but it's getting better every day. You can try it out by going to this link and signing up: <insert link>
If you want to know more about why it can't be controlled and ruined, look up the "fediverse." None of that matters if you just want to have a Reddit alternative though, you'll figure it out as you go along.EDIT: the instance you send them to should be a general purpose one, btw.