FOSSDLE PieFedHow do we get "normies" to adopt the Fediverse?
submitted by dch82
This is a follow-up from my previous thread.
The thread discussed the question of why people tend to choose proprietary microblogging platfroms (i.e. Bluesky or Threads) over the free and open source microblogging platform, Mastodon.
The reasons, summarised by @noodlejetski@lemm.ee are:
- marketing
- not having to pick the instance when registering
- people who have experienced Mastodon's hermetic culture discouraging others from joining
- algorithms helping discover people and content to follow
- marketing
and I'm saying that as a firm Mastodon user and believer.
Now that we know why people move to proprietary microblogging platforms, we can also produce methods to counter this.
How do we get "normies" to adopt the Fediverse?
Stop addressing them as “normies” would be a great start.
Can’t speak for rest of the Fediverse as I’m not super active on microblogging anymore, but at least here on Lemmy, there is such a strong “in” culture and quirky skewed perception of the world, and often times come off as actively hostile against those that do not share the same quirky skewed world view. The anti-AI, anti-corporate, would rather shoot myself in the foot if it’s not FOSS, etc kind of views, with their own strong vocal proponents, comes off as unwelcoming. People are addicted to socials because of the positivity they can get, not the negative sentiments that’s often echo’ed.
Amongst those that doesn’t share the kind of view, you’d already be looking at an extreme small minority that might be willing to give the platform a try, but as long as the skewed perception of the world dominates the discussions, you can expect them to go back to main stream centralized platforms where they can get more main stream view points based discussions.
Lots of content here feels like someone beta testing their manifesto the FBI will find
Thats the neat part, you don't. Social medias value isn't determined by it's tech. Its value is determined by who and what you can interact with. For example, people wont leave Facebook because everyone they know is on facebook because people won't leave Facebook. Twitter is literally run by a nazi at this point and still it's the same story where Mastodon and Bluesky aren't even close. Same thing for reddit and lemmy. Lemmy simply doesn't have the content reddit does, look no further than sports subreddits where any given game has a live game thread with a hundred or more unique commentors.
If you want mode people to come here you're going to need to do two things. One you need to post content people want to see, and two you need to get very very lucky because as it stands if you don't care enough about decentralization to lose out of a lot of content, theres literally no reason to be here. Its a long slow road and you're still going to need reddit to do something stupid before we see another growth spike.
Officially supported clients which are not the Reddit app
This was one of the reasons I left, and I assumed most disliked the official app, but weren't willing to part with the content.
Now, I think I was too close minded. Stuck in my bubble. If it's not *in* a discussion about reddit sucking, chances are people don't care that much.
App sucks? Didn't think about that, it's just an app. App really sucks? Whatever, they already use 5 other apps that are worse.
The medium shapes the experience, but isn't an experience unto itself. Not that important to the average person.
Ahh good call, I hated their official app.
I'm guessing a lot of comments will be of the "why do we want to?" variety.
Quite. Go to the big services that know how to moderate and maintain (and importantly pay for) a public square. But also encourage the interesting ones enable federation for wider coverage.
Since most people are talking about the sign-up barriers, I'll mention culture and reputation.
I love Lemmy and Mastodon, but whenever I've seen the fediverse brought up elsewhere, someone inevitably shuts down any curiosity by suggesting that it's a political echo-chamber. I don't think that's accurate for *all* of it, but if that reputation is out there, we probably need to make an effort to show that there's a broader appeal. If the average person is expecting the fediverse to be the left-wing equivalent of something like "Truth Social", I could understand the reluctance to adopt it.
Nowadays, I point to show that it's more than just politics, news and tech - !newcommunities@lemmy.world - !gardening@lemmy.world - !casualconversation@lemm.ee - !movies@lemm.ee
Every social media has the same problem, reddit is on one side, twitter on the other, facebook is filtering by their own goals.
People here are just a bit different angle. But each instance is a little different, lemmy.world is more reddit like, lemmy.ml is leftist, hexbear is... something too, there are probably some right wing instances. Much more diverse than other networks and I enjoy seeing all those different point of views.
This is current problem in society that we don't tolerate different opinion.
Exactly this. When online platforms become too homogeneous, any deviation from the typical opinions that are shared seems like a *terrible, inexcusable offense* that someone must do something about - thus, reinforcing the bubble.
We need to be able to disagree with each other and still get along.
Twitter was quite diverse actually (it might still be, I can't say). You had the far left, far right, and everything in between on there but it worked somewhat because the algorithm kept people mostly in their bubbles unless they went seeking it out.
I've said it before, and I'll say it again: I think
.mlacting as the official or at least de-facto "flagship" instance is doing more harm than good. I've seen the same arguments you mentioned, and it always seems to go back to either of the two.mlinstances or Hexbear. When political ideology is forced into every interaction, it always seemed it was coming from one of those three.I've shown people Lemmy World as an example that it's not all political circlejerks, but I don't know how many of them stuck with it.
Completely agree. I had no idea how bad this phenomenon was until very recently, when I fell foul of a virtual lynch mob and its political-commissar mod who behaved like a religious inquisitor even in private conversation. It's real.
The reason I personally don't recommend or hardly even mention Lemmy to anyone else is because here's hardly any content they'd be interested in. The vast majority of posts are quite esoteric and directed at the kind of people who already are here.
Did you have a look at !newcommunities@lemmy.world ? There are threads with different topics with active communities.
Discoverability of smaller communities is definitely an issue we are trying to solve with this.
I'm surprised nobody has mentioned porn yet. Like it or not, it *does* drive growth.
That's what I'm trying to do with https://xxxiver.se
I think porn creators would actually benefit enormously from using fediverse services. They own their data/platform, they can't get kicked off, etc.
wow! that's cool. Good job!
Yeah, porn is the only reason I still visit Reddit from time to every day.
Same. The volume of porn on reddit is staggering. On Lemmy most of the porn comes from repost bots with 0 quality filter or God awful AI bullshit.
there is lemmynsfw
I'm very well aware. I frequent that server.
cool
Yeah! I think that's going to sway in this place's favor very soon.
I predict a glorious age of the very best curated pornography being here.
As other preferred platforms enshitify, I expect a lot of innovate erotic sensual and/or dirty artists (new and established) to have a dynamic, accessible, profitable experience here.
It's probably going to be very horny, but also really beautiful in a lot of pro-social ways.
God I hope so, but the Fediverse is weirdly anti-porn and anti-sex.
Edit: the whole thing
Yeah. The litigation risk is considered high right now, and no one wants to be first to try it.
Which I totally get. This place is largely run by volunteers, after all.
We saw similar hesitation in the early days of WordPress/Wikipedia/Drupal proliferation. Eventually those solutions greatly enabled sites like BlogSpot and Tumblr to become wild places, and niche sites to pop up for stuff that BlogSpot and Tumblr didn't want to touch.
I can think of a few specific anti-spam and security tools that strongly enabled casual admins of WordPress to start sites.
I think we will see an erotic golden age once Fediverse moderation tools cross some unknown usability threshold.
Edit: I come across here as really excited about porn. Lol.
Art has a long history of being erotic, and beauty appreciation is one of the better things technology can do.
I am *also* really excited for the rest of the content that will thrive after demand for porn has pushed the technology to maturity.
I send people links to posts on Lemmy, and tell people I can't see Instagram/Twitter/etc.
Is it working? No, not really, but it feels like it should.
Thank you for trying
You're doing better than I am. I just bullshit them and say I'll "probably check it out later." By which I really mean whenever it gets reposted on a less shitty technology platform, in a few decades. But I don't say that part.
You can't, because normies don't care about tech other than it benefits them directly in some way. They care about the experience they get and doing the same thing everyone does because normies are like sheeps.
Normies barely even get how emails work and it's been like over 40 years. They know if they sign up for Gmail it's free, they get a ton of space and an @gmail.com address. That's it.
And even then, people looked at me weird back in 2007 when I made my Gmail account because "everyone uses Hotmail, why wouldn't you use Hotmail, everyone uses it so it must be the best". Heck just yesterday, the teller at the mechanic shop looked at me weird because I used $storename@max-p.me to place the online order, they were utterly confused. They thought I made a Gmail or Outlook for all of those aliases. People don't think about using emails, they think about using Gmail or Hotmail/Outlook.
Same with Reddit, it didn't become popular until normies felt like they were missing out by not being on Reddit, and arguably that was Reddit's downfall flooding the site with the same repeated arguments and opinions over and over. And for that too, I've been told my "Reddit looks weird" because I use a third-party app. People want to use Reddit so they download Reddit.
Normies don't use Twitter because they want to microblog, they use Twitter because their idols are on Twitter and they want to mimic them. If Taylor Swift opened a Mastodon account and posted exclusively there, we'd get a massive spike of users. And they all would want to register on the same instance as her and it would be the only viable instance to them.
They just want to fit in and do the same as the others, using the same services and same apps and everything. "Influencers" are everything these days.
The best way to get normies on the Fediverse is IMO, endorsing Threads and BlueSky, which will effectively force them to integrate because those platforms integrate.
I'm a developer, and it was a pain picking an instance. You start reading about them, and it turns out one's censored, the other one's communist, third one doesn't cooperate with the other ones so you can't see anything...
As long as it is like this, I don't believe mass adoption is feasible. I would've given up because it takes a lot of time compared to just registering and off you go, but I was interested to see what's all the ruckus after reddit started with censorship. Maybe interesting to mention that I was never an active reddit member (not one post there).
Indeed, nowadays I just send people to Lemm.ee - neutral name (sorry SJW) - second biggest instance - almost no defederation - no topic or country specific (I mean, technically Estonia, but everything happens in English, compared to feddit.org for instance)
I don't think this is really a good thing. Most people don't want to bother curating their feed and if they get lots of bad stuff from instances that ought to be defederated, then they will leave.
Boo this person! (I kid, don't boo them, they're doing good work and I understand if not everyone wants to be a sh.it.head)
Just send them to Lemmy world... Edge and shit lords will get banned and figure how this bitch works lol
Normies being on Lemmy world is better than. Reddit in my book
I agree that having a "default instance" would greatly help with onboarding new users, but as many others have said before, centralizing on the largest instance is not a good idea.
There are several other "general purpose" Lemmy instances. Why not send everyone to lemm.ee, until its size is close to lemmy world? At that point, start sending everyone to lemmy.sdf.org or lemmy.zip.
Yea, instead of a default instance, I think there should be a default system that assigns you to one of a set of participating “general” instances without you having to decide or think about it.
Doesn't https://join-lemmy.org/ do that?
AFAICT, it helps you pick an instance based on your interests, which only barely helps with the problem. If you’re new to the ecosystem, you typically just want to join in and see what’s going on before making any decisions. And you probably don’t want to bother with selecting criteria for a selection guide at all.
What I’m suggesting is clicking a button “Sign Up”, enter credentials, verify and done. Then allow the whole finding an instance process pan out naturally.
Part of the issue IMO is that how an instance advertises itself isn’t necessarily how it will be seen by someone … they need to see it for themselves.
Great point!
I don't know what other instances are viable bit we should have a place to get current preferred.
I just tell my peeps Lemmy.world it is like reddit with out going into details about fediverse since they ignore me once I start talking "federation"
The problem with this approach is that your peeps won't see any reason to go there if it's the same as the R-site only exponentially less popular.
There *needs* to be an understandable USP.
Perhaps: "But without ads. Ever. Anywhere." Works for me and I know what an ad-blocker is, unlike a ton of normies.
Sincere question: what does "normie" exactly mean in the context of Lemmy? Is it a person that couldn't get past setting up Lemmy account?
The term sounds like it has kinda elitist connotations. I mean I've set up Lemmy, but I don't feel like I'm god given - maybe I should. 😆 (kidding, of course)
And then we will get more communities being created on Lemmy world, and then the whole Fediverse depends on one single instance. This seems like a good idea at first, but won't stand the test of time.
I am trying to convince more instance admins to install Fediverser on their servers, so that we can have a way to point people to one site that can distribute the users and help with onboarding and discovery. But so far none of the admins really seem to be interested in the having to deal with the potential influx of users from Reddit.
What does Fediverser from an admin standpoint? Does it just enable a "Login with Reddit" option for onboarding new users?
That is the main thing, yes, but it would also allow for better coordination among the instances for migration efforts. "Fediversed" Instances can keep of redditors that migrated, can have more attributes to display for people when selecting a instance, can accept or reject a Redditor based on certain criteria (e.g, account is too new, or was flagged as a spammer, or is posting a language different from the main language in the server, etc)
Don't.
I like what this is, I don't want it to become everything for everyone
Agreed. Look what Reddit turned into. Better to have fewer but higher quality comments than a sea of the same tired jokes and ancedotes over an over again.
I don't like that there's so few people questioning the core concept of "one platform for everyone".
Why does it have to appeal to everyone? Why can't its audience be a subset of humanity who like nerdy shit? It's what I liked about Reddit in the early years - it wasn't completely inaccessible but it was niche enough that there was a bit of a filter, allowing me to find content and people that appealed to me.
Aiming for lowest common denominator doesn't seem like a good idea to me.
Fedi client app developers need to design fedi client apps in a holistic way to include a custom server (as with Mammoth's moth.social) or create an account for the user on one of a curated selection of other servers, without forcing the user to choose one.
It's a severe problem with trying to grow fedi that general users are expected to understand how servers work and make an informed decision about which one to join. General users don't care about this topic and will quickly turn away when it is forced upon them. That's why the client app needs to handle this for the user without making a fuss about it.
These apps also need good discovery features and feeds with posts that are trending generally and for specific topics. Then devs need to make money with those apps somehow, then they need to market those apps (at this point, it goes beyond just "devs" and expands into an organization with a marketing department, etc.).
Then, hopefully fedi's inherent advantages of interoperability and resilience will naturally cause people to choose these user-friendly, effectively marketed fedi client apps over things like Instagram, Tiktok, etc. After all, if it can't compete on its own merits with all other factors being equal, there's no point to it for most people.
Porn?
We don't. Normies take one look at anything that isn't mainstream and pinch their noses. A significant portion of them can barely make a search on the internet, they get lost at the idea of "websites" and are likely heavily biased against people who aren't using what "everyone is using"
Anedoctal experience: back when I was using dating apps, I've had a fair share of girls that stopped talking to me once I said I didn't have instagram, because it meant I was "hiding something".
That's awful.
Also, I guess they would think I'm hiding *so much*, considering the number of bloated awful services I've rejected.
That may be true for some people, but isn't a valid generalization. See the Brazil blocking Twitter situation.
Millions decided to give Bluesky a chance and a graph showed daily user activity quadrupling. Now, a not-insignificant portion are saying they refuse to return to Twitter because:
Sound familiar?
And I'm pretty sure Misskey has more features. Hell, Mastodon as well probably. Bluesky doesn't even support video yet.
The first sin of the Fediverse isn't being small, that's the second. First is being a pain in the ass.
The migration that happened from xitter being blocked in Brazil is a good example of a bandwagon effect, or "people go where people are". If xitter wasn't taken down, neither bluesky nor threads would've received such a big and immediate influx.
Also worth noting is that the vast majority went for those 2, bluesky more so than threads, instead of any mastodon instance because those 2 are the mainstream alternatives
Yes, people chase content, which means chasing where many people are, but why did Bluesky become a mainstream alternative and Mastodon didn't?
I'm saying marketing doesn't cut it, and it's not just about where most users are either, otherwise everyone but Threads would be irrelevant.
People bounce off both Threads and Mastodon, and there are platform-related reasons for that.
The number 1 pain in Mastodon is the dev team. I mean come on, there are plenty PRs to make mastodon better usable and they just get rejected.
Also we could have some sort of algorithm like we have here in lemmy (hot/scaled/new) but if you talk about it there you are instantly the devil. They WANT mastodon to be different, even if this hurt the userbase.
Discoverability is a huge barrier to entry in the Fediverse, and they're not helping.
It's hard for me to judge them too harshly, though. Fediverse devs do things I disagree with all the time, and users too. Maybe, in a different world, something else could've taken Mastodon's place... but its forks stick close, Pleroma has the charm of a brick, Misskey is too 日本, and Misskey *forks* got Messy, and—
...Oh. That's it, isn't it? Mastodon is the best that ActivityPub has to offer most microblogging fans.
You don't. If they don't wanna be here, don't take on this huge crusade to get them here. You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make them drink. They must take the final step themselves.
Focus on making lemme a desirable place to be, less on getting people to use the communication tool you happen to prefer.
Defeatist opinion.
The commercial alternatives hope to make money with every additional user. They use AB testing and statistics to streamline the on-boarding and to increase engagement. The result may not be in the user's interest (doom-scrolling, ragebait, ...) but it works.
For a fediverse instance, any additional user is a cost, not the promise of money. Financially, you wouldn't want that. Those who fund instances are giving a gift to the world for their own reasons. You can accept the gift or not. Those who keep instances running with donations will usually want to sustain the community of which they are part. They probably don't want it to change very much.
So, I don't think matters will change. Partly because the psychological engineering is antithetical to the fediverse ethos (as I see it, in my humble opinion). But mostly because the outcome we see is an inherent result of the incentive structure.
I think picking an instance is just something people will have to learn and get used to as that's very essential to the fediverse experience.
I personally hate algorithms picking shit for me and that's why I use lemmy and why I used reddit back when it first came out. I search out and pick what content I see on my feed.
I definitely agree with more marketing. It's insane to think there's a lot of people that still use reddit and never even heard of lemmy
The Fediverse needs a hell of a lot of work before we can even consider mass adoption.
Create a nice atmosphere.
Make it simple and remove any technical barriers. They should be able to google "Fediverse" click on the first link. Choose a username and be on their way. Find the app with the same name and install it in 2 minutes.
The network effect is a thing. They need to already find lots of their friends, interesting people and their favorite stars there.
And it has to be easy to discover them, if we don't have an "algorithm" that suggests content.
Lemmy (or at least lemmy.world) was bonkers levels of buggy last summer during the reddit blackout. Like, literally unusable levels of buggy. Getting the word out that it's (mostly) bug-free now would probably be good, because I'm sure there were many redditors who tried it and quickly swore it off as a pile of shit.
Otherwise I'm in agreement that the instance-selection part of sign-up is a huge barrier, because what instance you choose is actually really important but it's overwhelming when you're just getting started. Plus not being able to migrate your account/communities/posts to another instance if yours goes to shit/shuts down/turns out to not fit your needs makes the fediverse feel really unstable.
It was hit with a DDOS for an extended period of time. I suspect the attackers were successful in substantially hampering adoption of Lemmy as a whole.
Point them to lemm.ee, they can move later if they want. The name is neutral and it's the second biggest
Can people move their posts from Twitter/Reddit now that they are enshitiffied? This requirement isn't usually expected from centralized systems, so this should be the same here
The difference is if the primary (sometimes only) admin of your instance loses interest, goes to jail, or gets hit by a truck, your entire instance could be dead in the water, whereas there are way more safeguards to "established" social media like Reddit and Twitter. Plus the issue of "well shit my instance got defederated from most of the fediverse because it turns out the admin is an asshat" is completely nonsensical on platforms without instances. Example: before I knew that Lemmy had a tankie problem, I almost signed up on lemmygrad because I thought it was just a witty pun...
Plus when you say "point them to lem.ee" what scenario are you imagining? Because "you should join reddit" or "our business is on Facebook" or "Twitter is a great resource for artists" are all straightforward and easy pieces of information to convey and pick up. "Join Lemmy, a subset of the fediverse, I signed up via lemmy.world although I hear lem.ee is also good, but don't let that stop you from picking another instance" is like... Dude, people just want to go to [site].com, click on "sign up", enter a username and password (and maybe email) and that's it. Just having to explain to people that "lemmy.com" isn't a thing is already too complicated for most folks.
That's why you should use an instance with at least two admins who communicate regularly on how they are doing
Twitter has been purchased by Musk who is pushing misinformation over the whole platform. Being an established social media does not offer any guarantee.
Literally that "looking for a Reddit alternative with better clients, no ads, no bots? Have a look at Lemm.ee "
Agreed on you with skipping the whole federation explanation, it's unnecessary and complicated
This is why I self-host. Worst case is that one of the servers I federate is down for a while, and I still see content from everywhere else.
https://lemmy.com is actually a thing... ;)
It’s way harder to find posts on mastodon compared to bluesky as you have to follow people to start getting a feed, whilst in bluesky they have a discovery feed. This makes it a way more streamlined experience for users, making bluesky and threads far more attractive to users than mastodon
Currently all the big fediverse platforms kinda suck at this, in part because it likely requires a bunch of features, but also because they’re all made in imitation of big social platforms that were always less “homely” and more engagement farms.
To bring normies, something new and unique needs to be offered. IMO there could be a rich ecosystem of content and structures and communities that draws people in.
My fear is that the protocol and federation are the limiting factors on this, and so I suspect some restructuring or redesign is necessary.
I guess this ties into marketing, but I think rebranding the “fediverse” as the “social web” would be a good start. It has a broad neutral tone that I think is easier for regular people to latch on to.
More people would be great, especially for niche communities.
I don't see #2 as that big of a problem. Do we want people who won't expend *any effort* to join? I guess everyone sees the line between accessible and "dumbed down" a little bit differently. I'm not saying #2 is *great*. I recognize it is an obstacle. But it's also kind of the point of Lemmy...in the sense that this is not a monolithic corporate one-size-fits-all kind of endeavor. In a way, the obstacle also serves as a teaching moment, if you will, of how this thing even works.
Item 4 seems a bit chicken-and-egg to me. But my guess is, not being able to find those communities isn't nearly as big of a problem as those communities not having any content / participants. I can see the argument that one causes the other, but I haven't found it very challenging to find those empty places. It's just not much fun to hang out there by yourself.
I'm part of the admin team for a group on Facebook dedicated to a niche wargame. Anyone can apply to join but there is an entry question. The question itself tells the user where to find the answer (it's both on Wikipedia and in the rules of the group!). We still get people that either don't answer or put something like "I can't be bothered looking it up".
Those people do not get to join.
I'm firmly of the belief that if people are working to maintain a space for you then it's on you to put a bare minimum of effort in to be allowed to use that space. We curate the group to keep content on topic and try to keep it a nice place to be.
The nuance is of course in what level of gatekeeping is healthy.
Make it look like a centralised system initially. Provide a portal to a pre vetted/chosen instance that is accepting new members in their locale/country, that is the same for everyone.
Update: This (above) is badly written. I'm trying to say every potential new member gets presented with the same (pretend centralised) portal that is in fact an (valid long-lived) instance local to the individual potential for them to sign up with. So two local users in Oz get given a proxy to the instance local to them, and a user in Blighty an instance local to that person. The decentralised Lemmy looks centralised, but isn't. The proxy front end should explain that they're joining their local instance and it's like a network of little affiliated clubs that can see each others posts globally. they log in for the first time it will become clear.
It's late, I'm tired, sorry everyone. Is that any better?
I think it's confusing (the reverse of what they're used to) for a newbie who have been bought up in a centralised internet with single front ends of all the big players to be presented with little instances to join to access the whole.
Isn't it like https://kbin.world was back then? (when /kbin was still a thing?)
When you entered that page, it determined your location from IP address and redirected you to a magazine for your country, as shown on kbin.social.
Well, this could be repeated now, but for lemmy instances. We already have umpteen of regional/local ones, and they are on every continent of the world.
I don't know, I'm not familiar with kbin at all. Good to know I'm not alone in that thinking, though.
It would have helped me. My instance isn't in the same hemisphere as me!
You can move to a closer one by exporting and importing your settings from the parameters
Thank you for thinking forward. That's much appreciated.
I'm surprised to find there isn't much of a delay to loading the data from Oz. I'm sure I remember it being horrific not so long ago.
How hard would it be to create a little quiz that directs or chooses an instance based on your interests?
I think the hard part would be keeping it up to date as instances change
True. I forgot how easily an instance could disappear overnight. Happened to me in another instance
By permitting advertising.
"Normies" are not "microbloggers". Most people just want to follow what their friends and family and news organizations and "influencers" are posting.
My biggest gripe with the fediverse (indirectly) is that all the information I would get on Twitter about my city is not available to me - concert announcements, restaurant specials, road closures, major news, hobby meetups, etc. They're posting on Facebook and Instagram (which is IMO the worst of all social platforms) and slowly adopting Threads. My issue with these platforms is mostly regarding the algorithm deciding what it thinks you want. This is driven by advertising.
Twitter didn't really pick up steam until celebrities and news outlets were posting and engaging on the platform. Then they pushed hard for ads to increase revenue and expand features and stability (for better or worse). Then they just got greedy. Then they were sold for the dumbest amount of money in the history of sales.
Getting normies here means getting influencers here. Influencers want to make money for being assholes. If you don't want influencers and ads here, don't ask for the normies to come. Accept the beauty of this micro micro blogging platform. If you want to share outside the open fediverse, embrace cross posting to the closed platforms. That's kind of the whole point of it. You can post in your tiny little corner while still engaging with the more popular platforms.
TL;DR: be careful what you wish for.
*Reaches for pitchfork.*
*Puts pitchfork down, embarrassed cough.*
I don't work in tech and I'm not a video game player. Am i a normie? I stay on Facebook because of the things you mentioned - i want to know how my old aunt is doing, get the link to my cousin's music performances, see what play or concert is showing this weekend, and post to my neighborhood when my dogs escape. I only used Twitter to follow local bars, restaurants, and music venues for happy hours and event info. That kinda died with covid so i closed my Twitter account. I don't really understand influencers. I'd love to see more local content here but I'm not sure we have the people to support it. I guess the way to start is to share the local info i get from Facebook to the Texas and dfw communities here, but that doesn't draw more people. Among my friends, r/ is sort of made fun of as something their husbands follow for jokes, memes, and boobs.
I should edit my comment and add "post rage bait".
You're absolutely right. I'd describe myself similarly to you. I even created a local community here for my city. But it feels like I'm speaking quietly on top of a mountain while the nearest person is a time zone away. Perhaps a handful of people would stop by and subscribe to the content but this isn't about subscribing - it's about engaging. Communities are about exchanging ideas. Posting something that compels people to engage is one way to increase activity. As more people notice the community, they'll be more likely to engage when there's enough noise around that doesn't single them out too much.
The major social platforms know this. This is why they promote trash over quality information. This is why I get frustrated on Instagram because it continues to show me posts from two or three days ago notifying me that I missed an exciting event.
You can post all the great informative content you want on your little corner of the fediverse but without engagement, is it really there?
Which city is it?
Exactly why fediverse will never go mainstream with the normies.
People have suggested making a portal/quiz for instance signups, but that adds to the barrier. There are also problems like how in-depth and inclusive it should be. It reminds me of Linux distro pickers that often suggest weird niche distros.
There are already big/default instances in the Fediverse though but there are people who actively discourage this. Maybe Mastodon just had a bad start and Bluesky learned from that. I wonder if Bluesky's PDS will be like Fediverse instances though. Many Fediverse instances are built around shared interests but the PDS just looks like a glorified handle.
Personally, I think the Fediverse discourse should shift to designing social media with decentralization in mind rather than mimicking mainstream social media with a "decentralized twist". I don't think the Fediverse will ever be as big as Twitter, but it doesn't have to be. It just needs to be sustainable enough to keep new conversations going.
Doesn't answer the question but maybe it's worth sharing anyway.
They look the same to me. I had a look at Bluesky yesterday, every PDS I could find was just using their domain as username, I could never find a user@someoneelse.com
The users with PDS use something like @user.domain.com. Users with just @domain.com are under Bluesky IIRC.
Wait - example of users with a PDS: https://bsky.app/profile/felipeneto.com.br - example of user using Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/sannewman.bsky.social
I have yet to see someone with @user.domain.com, do you have an example?
Oops, I misunderstood how it works. You can add subdomains as your handle.
I thought subdomains were people using PDS. So I don't know anyone running a PDS. I might try running one just to see what it's like and actually learn the network.
But here's an example of @user.domain.com: https://bsky.app/profile/tomoshika.voms.net
I don't think they're using a PDS though. In fact, it's really hard to tell who's using a PDS or not. I'm not sure what the effect of this is in community-building and I wonder if control over the network is really decentralized. This is really... confusing.
Anyway, the PDS is a lot more complicated than I thought: https://docs.bsky.app/docs/category/advanced-guides
Thank you for your comment!
Yes it is confusing, and looks falsely decentralized, but actually centralized
I think I'd be considered a "normie" maybe. I'm not super tech savvy (maybe a bit more than the average person though as I'm a bit of a photoshop wizard and am interested in tech subjects).
What brought me to lemmy was my moral compass. I've used reddit since the late 00's so it was hard to let go but reddit just isn't what it used to be. I could no longer use Joey, my reddit app of choice so I abandoned it because what they did to Joey and other apps was bullshit.
I still find myself on reddit every now and then when I need information on something specific though. I haven't found communities on the fediverse that I connect with that are super active (things like houseplants, knitting, chronic pain, my specific city I live in, etc).
I use lemmy now for mindlessly scrolling before bed and news as I only use Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok for work so it's not leisurely for me to get on normie social media. I do find some interesting articles and funny memes and that's enough for now.
So maybe the key to get a more robust community is through pulling heart strings? Idk my husband still used reddit daily and I guess doesn't give a shit about the lax morals of the company 🤷🏼♀️
At the moment federation between platforms is not useful. The only advantage is federation between Instances. I've used my sister at a test for what the average woman would think about it.
Aspects she thinks is cool are that it's owned by people and designed for people, that its left leaning and inclusive.
Aspects she doesn't care about are privacy, lack of ads, federation between instances, federation between platforms.
Aspects she doesn't like are her friends aren't there, none of the accounts she like are there, no recommendation algorithm. She also hates the name fediverse.
I think that we need to stop being boomers clutching our chronological feed and word of mouth discovery and embrace algorithms. That's not to say we can have chronological feeds it's just that we should include and option and serve some form of content recommendations.
I also think threads will be a major player in drawing people in. Its easier to convince people who use Instagram to switch from Twitter to threads than Twitter to Mastodon. Once they're on threads they can start being a part of the fediverse and then eventually they might decide to try out one of the instances.
I'll be open and honest knowing whenever bringing the subject up generates anger. "Normies" aren't gonna join somewhere where 99% of the conversations revolve around using Linux. Jump into any thread and someone's talking about it. Doesn't even need to be a tech thread. As soon as someone goes against the grain immediate backlash. It's not welcoming at all.
Weird.
I said since I got here that the actual sign up process IS the hardest part. For exactly the reasons you said.
Each instance has it's own personality. As much as EVERY user here will hate to hear this, you need to centralize the decentralized. Have a single point of entry. Signup at Lemmy.com
Now you're User@Lemmy.com. and you're told that you have 6 months to pick an instance. And here's a guide to all known instances, with a wiki style explaination of what each instance's personality is. With an expandable list of each federated and defederated instance.
Now once they switch to their new "home" all their comments stay in their comment history. Everything in their profile comes with them. EVERY instance in the fediverse needs to adhere to a set of protocols. So that when they move instances, the only thing that changes is if you look at a post they made last week, it no longer shows user@lemmy.com it now shows user@lemmy.world. and if in 2 years you move again now it says user@lemm.ee even for posts you made 2 years prior. It always lists your current account. Even if you move to Mbin. Now it says user@fedia.io
It's a learn, and grow as you go situation.
Oh, and if an instance ever shuts down, those profiles aren't lost. They revert back to Lemmy.com, and the 6 month rule is back in effect.
But you have to anticipate the user. Not control the user. And right now the user understands centralized. So centralize the decentralized, and THEN teach them slowly how it works. I understand today leaps and bounds more than I did 4 months ago. I'm still not sure Lemmy.World is my final home. I'm trying out piefed. I'm probably going to try out Mbin. And I'm sure I'll discover new things. But on day 1, I was like ".....do what now? What's an instance? What's decentralized?"
And NOW I can see that the Nintendo account I follow on Mastodon for the past year isn't really Nintendo. It's Nintendo@Lemmy.World and EVERY post gets auto "boosted". A year ago I thought that was literally Nintendo. I was surprised they were not only OBSESSIVELY active, but that they had a Mastodon account at all.
You gotta remember, this is how most people will walk into the fediverse on day 1. Not knowing how shit works, and if it doesn't work for them, they're out. You can teach them later. But also right now the fediverse as a whole is fragmented as shit. There's decentralized, and then theres disjointed.
You'll notice that I post regularly to THIS community. With constant questions. I'M taking the active approach to learning. The average user won't know that they're stupid. They'll think the fediverse is stupid because it doesn't work the way they're used to. Most people don't have the self reflection I have, nor the constant curiousity. If I don't know a thing, it bothers me. If most people don't know how a smoke alarm works, they fon't give a shit. Whereas I watch a youtube video for almost an hour. Did you know there's actually several different types of smoke detection? And that one type is very much more prone to false positives, and worse, lack of positive positives due to light? See, most people will find that boring, not give a shit, and move on. So YOU gotta teach them with annoying popups. "Hey, the fediverse is actually self hosted, and right now you're on the instance of Lemmy.com! Whats that mean? Well...." blah blah blah, you guys already know this part, but that's the message they should get on day 1. Teach them they need to understand what an instance is, and how to pick an instance that works for them. Then they can migrate there. If that instance is ever no longer good enough, they can migrate elsewhere. Even to Mbin, even to piefed, wherever! One account, all the fediverse.
And here's the best part. They can go to fediverse.com and log in regardless of which instance they're on. Just type user is user@lemmy.world password is ***** and login.
And now all the decentralized is centralized. Without losing the benefits of being decentralized. Because it IS still decentralized. But most drivers aren't mechanics. They use the service, but they don't need to know the ins and outs. They just need to be able to use it, without it being confusing for THEM.
The hardest thing I've noticed is that linux user types don't grasp is that just because THEY understand something as easy, doesn't mean EVERYONE finds it easy. And there are a LOT of linux mindset people here. You may "get it", but that doesn't make it naturally intuitive. The fediverse is confusing as shit. Each part works differently. Has a different layout. Has a different interface. Operates differently. Which is a stark contrast to facebook users who just say "DO THE THING!" and suddenly 70 boomers are giving them thumbs up and emojis for a quilt they sewed and sharing the patchwork on.
Everyone here is saying to defederate from Threads, because it's facebook, and I get why. But are you seriously going to cut off the biggest by far userbase to federate with you, simply because you don't want corporate integration? Facebook still wouldn't own the fediverse, but now something like 80 million users will start asking questions about the fediverse. Yes, it's all old people, and people we would rather not interact with, but guess what. They don't want to interact with you in retrogames@lemmy.world either. They don't want to be in linux@lemmy.ml either. They're going to create their own communities, which have no interest to you, but boost the fediverse's numbers. By the millions. And now maybe facebook as a whole integrates. Maybe reddit sees the momentum and they integrate. Maybe hoogle sees the momentum.
And pretty soon the fediverse becomes the default layout of how the internet works. And the decentralized nature means that no corporate entity CAN own it. They can put ads on individual instances that they own.......but they can't control all the instances. And people who don't care about those ads will stay there. People who don't will go to other duplicate instances.
But to defederate from threads before ANY of this takes place is the dumbest idea I've ever heard, while daily seeing those same people ask "How do we grow the fediverse?"
THATS HOW!!! Ok, I've ranted enough....
Very difficult technically. Mastodon doesn't allow this either, I don't know any Fediverse platform which allows this. If someone knows one, please share
https://docs.joinmastodon.org/user/moving/#export
About Threads, have you been to Facebook lately? The level of conspiracy, bigotry etc is over the roof.
And on top of that, millions of users federate here from Threads - they start upvoting, commenting in the established communities, drowning every existing user with their numbers - previous Fediverse users start to recreate their own communities without the Threads users, just because of the population differences
It may not exist NOW, but my point is the fediverse itself needs to adopt a stance of "Ok, these are the foundation for which EVERY service will connect to the fediverse. Develop these services into your platform now, or risk being auto-defederated from all complying fediverse platforms in future updates."
Give it like 3 years to actually let these platforms figure out how to work it in, but eventually ALL platforms will have to have it if the fediverse as a whole wants to succeed. Basically your account wouldn't be a Mastodon account, or a Lemmy account, or a Pixelfed account, or any other platform specific account. It would be a fediverse account. And you'd log in via one central place, which then exchanges information with the instance, and back to the centralized log-in point. So if you wanted to browse Pixelfed for example, you'd log in user@lemmy.world, with your password on Fediverse.com, and Fediverse.com would exchange info with your instance, verify the login, and then exchange info with pixelfed which would already know you're a verified logged in user. Then, using Pixelfed's layout and platform, you're browsing a pixelfed instance, via Lemmy.World, with all traffic being handled by fediverse.com as a neutral middle party to handle login verifications.
That's all fine. I literally covered that in my innitial post when I said
So, even though I didn't know it was happening, I literally predicted that would happen. Even down to the duplicate communities to get away from those that you don't want to interact with. Fine, let them have their own racist communties that you never have to interact with. Let THEIR moderators handle that. The bigger thing to take away is that the fediverse, racist communities and all, is growing and becoming actually relevant. You can't just treat internet places as "safe places" where only your kind exist. You have to either solve racism in real life, or accept that it will also exist online. You can use moderation tools to make sure that attitude isn't welcome in your instance, but if you say they aren't welcome on the fediverse, then you cut off about 90% of the older generation, and about half of society as a whole......or 48% if we're being accurate.
I was at a family get together, when my mom just casually threw out the N-Word. The table had 7 people sitting at it. 4 of them were my moms age, in her 70s. My sister is 50, and I'm 40. My niece is 12. When she said it, My sister, my niece, and me all looked at each other with eyes that basically said "WHAT THE FUCK???" and the 4 other elderly people just didn't even phase them. My mom has never once in my presence, nor my sisters presence, EVER used language or an attitude like that. She's not part of the 48% party. But to see her generation just casually accept that was mind blowing for not only me, but also my sister, and my niece. We immediately huddled off to the side room and everybody immediately asked "WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT???" in whispered tones. Nobody had EVER heard anything like that from her. She doesn't watch fox news. We have no idea what got into her, other then thinking maybe that's just what her generation says when nobody younger is around, and this time it slipped out. But my brother in laws parents, and the other elderly neighbor didn't even react. Whereas it was clear to us three that something weird just happened.
And as far as the world goes, the boomers, even on deaths door, are STILL the largest demographic of people in society. So if you exclude them, you are saying millions of people aren't welcome on your platform, and in doing so, will hinder it's growth. Permanently. Until they die off, their numbers are needed for anything to be considered a sucsess.
So the best you can do, is welcome them to your platform, stick them off into their own instance, you go onto your own instance, you don't interact with them, but let them interact with each other. Then other platforms can see the numbers, not understand the situation, and THEY join in. And THAT's where you get the users of actual value. The people on reddit, and instagram, and youtube. ESPECIALLY youtube.
Peertube is what's poised to gain the most here. NOBODY likes youtube. The creators don't like youtubes god complex, and holding them to strict rules that change on a dime, and retroactively give them strikes that were perfectly inline with their rules at the time of posting. Users don't like youtube, again because of their god complex. Changing features, removing thumbs down button, doing everything they can to force ads onto your screen.
BOTH SIDES want a change, but there's no valid alternative until people start USING an alternative. That's because if you go outside, and ask 100 people in a common public place "What is the fediverse?" I would be SHOCKED if 1 person knew. Ask those same 100 people what youtube is, and I'd be SHOCKED if only 99 people knew. The awareness just isn't there yet.
So yeah, for the time being, you HAVE TO allow the racists onto your platform purely for the growth. They'll be dead in 10 years anyways. But until people know what the fediverse is, you need EVERY platform willing to federate. Then, once the fediverse is a common term, and everybody underdstands it, THEN you can start saying "Ok, boomer, fuck off with that racist shit."
Who manages fediverse.com? Who prevents it from being bought out by a billionaire? Who ensures that it stays neutral in case of cat food vegan debates? Who prevents people unsatisfied with the issue of that debate to create their own fediverse.com?
TikTok doesn't have boomers, is it not considered a success? Trying to bring in the boomer population doesn't seem to bring a lot of values if they don't interact and stay in their own bubbles.
Bringing Reddit users, which are usually closer to the Lemmy demographics, would be more interesting, as those users would interact and mingle better with the rest of the existing userbase.
As a general comment, I'm always surprised when people want to bring everyone to a platform. Every city or town has several bars and cafes. You don't expect the old ladies sipping tea to go to the rock cafe, and you don't expect young parents to spend time in university bars.
It's okay to have different places for different people on the Internet.
So I have been on Mastodon and Threads for quite awhile. I'm on BlueSky now too. Threads is the most enjoyable of the three by far. I don't see how marketing has to do with it in any way, but after spending some time on each, I prefer Threads. It's the only one that I've found content I wanted to engage with.
With Mastodon, I feel like I still can't get started. I'm not sure what to do.
You are a very brave person.
On Mastodon, I used the search function to shotgun random topics that interest me, and then followed all the hashtags on the posts that came up.
Over time, I started replacing following hashtags with following my favorite users who I discovered through those hashtags.
Then I started discovering and following their favorite users through their boosts.
Now that my feed is pretty much where I want it I tend to click "hide boosts" on anyone new that I follow, to prevent their every random amusement from cluttering my feed.
The end result is fantastic, but it took awhile to get there.
Follow hashtags is the way to go. Mastodon should prompt new users to follow hashtags by recommending some topics for the user to choose from. EVERY social media has one of these now.
Tell the people calling for nuking half the planet to stop it, enforce it.
Boom. You just eliminated 80% of the hostility on the platform.
A sweet interface like Sync for Lemmy and respectful content and engagement are the key to me.
Why do we want to? They'll just lower the overall quality and bring on the enshitification.
the pursuit for money brings enshittification, not more users.
You're so close to getting it... who do you suppose will be pursued for the money? If you have more of the 'who', that will encourage faster/greater enshitification as a natural part of the pursuit.
It's already happening.
People say Lemmy when they mean the link aggregator part of the Fediverse.
People say Mastodon when they mean the microblogging part.
And really okay, at least people get it: one name, one concept
Every time I hear Fediverse I imagine a universe full of nothing but different versions of Kevin Federline.
It sounds like a furry cinematic universe
Tell friends and family to get accounts on federated services you use. Word of mouth is how lots of websites get popular.
Recommend it when reddit comes up or gets mentioned.
I don't even tell people I use Lemmy, let alone recommend it, because of how much authoritarian propaganda there is on here.
I love the idea and won't give up on it easily, and I hope other users can join me in making it a better place by calling out propaganda.
lol you never saw authoritarian propaganda in the commercial social media because you already are brainwashed.
I've had more than one person tell me they don't think microblogging is worth any learning curve whatsoever. They'd rather not use anything than have a single conversation about federation or feed building.
Here’s your answer: “Lemmy wouldn't really takeoff to replace Reddit until it's content is search indexable”
Is it an option to not? Cuz if so that's what I'd choose.
We don't. Normies made Reddit suck and they'll make Lemmy suck too. Always have at least a small barrier to tech entry. When anyone can use it then everyone will use it. So do you want Facebook? Because that's how you end up with fucking Facebook.
There are some loud voices in the fediverse who don't want it to be very welcoming. Here are a couple examples:
Threads defederation - what could onboard people to the fediverse faster than a *giant platform run by Facebook* joining? Yes, I hate Facebook as much as everyone else here, but they're making an offramp for their users and half the fediverse wants to close that off?
Overbearing enforcement of norms - yes, it's good if people put alt text on their images and content warnings on stuff lots of people find upsetting. It's harmful to hassle people about it until they leave.
I think people who a small network with strong social norms are better off on servers that are selective about what they federate with to ensure stricter adherence to the preferences of their users. One of the great things about federated systems is that users can pick a place that's run in a way that works for them.
If threads is incorporated into the larger fediverse, sure you'll get a bump in dau, but threads will eventually dominate the user base. Then if they devide to cut ties with Lemmy sites, the fediverse basically loses 90% of engagement overnight.
Threads users are much more likely to interact with other microblog software like Mastodon than with Lemmy. It might be possible to post from Threads to Lemmy now by tagging a community much like Mastodon, but I have never seen it done. Lemmy.world does not block threads.net.
Sure. Substitute "Lemmy" for whatever fediverse service it is mingling with.
You make good points, but I still think nothing good can come of playing ball with Facebook. I dont trust them
You should not trust them.
I don't think a Mastodon server attempting to attract a mainstream audience should *block* them though, at least not at this point. We have a chance to welcome millions of people who wouldn't have even heard of the fediverse otherwise.
With all due respect, fuck the normies. The fediverse is better off without them.
We all love bashing out less techie friends but dunking on them is counter productive!
Like it or not they make the main/lame stream. We need fedi to go mainstream to deny corpo trash profits.
Like it or not, normies must be onboarded!
but once there is a big pond with a lot of fish, there will be sharks.
bots, feds and shills will always fall a school of fish for hunting :/
Why? Who cares if we don't have to interact with them? Becoming mainstream was the downfall of Reddit.
If you don't forge your own destiny, then somebody will do it for you aka reddit.
Reddit failed due to governance and centralization issue. Not BC it was mainstream IMHO
You don't think the massive amount of repetitive jokes and reposts and overall shitty attention whoring content was a problem on Reddit?
I would posit that the main/lame stream is not the actor doing that shit but rather that their presence attracts bad faith actors.
Maybe I don't want the "normies" around, whoever they are, but personally I would like to see a lot more people joining in such as Go players, Skyrim modders, situationists, auto mechanics, British panel show enthusiasts, death metal guitarists, discordians, card sharks, magicians, acid heads, skydivers, xylophonists, and amateur zookeepers. This part of fedi has more than enough politics and computers and too little *everything else*.
Feel free to have a look at !newcommunities@lemmy.world for active niche communities
Just be patient.
What made reddit so popular in my opinion was that every sub wasn't filled with agenda driven narratives you could find interests or memes random people with deep insights to whatever the topic was.
In Lemmy it seems every sub is skewed with left wing or DTS filled insane ppl and to find just normal shit is the rarity
Much like when there is an exodus on other platforms to host only right leaning viewpoints a "normal" person viewing it will see the same thing Lemmy has become and just go back to what they were using before
The problem is not the platform its the people. Chill tf out with all that propaganda horseshit and u might get regular ppl to use your product.
Maybe the "age of the free internet" has passed and people just expect bad faith and react completely radicalized today.
I have to say, as something if a social media virgin, I am puzzled by #4. I have never been a Facebook, Instagram or Twitter user. Previous to getting into the Fediverse, the only platform I engaged with that could be considered social media was Reddit, and I left that behind because of the whole brewhaha over third-party clients.
Since finding my way here, I have become an enthusiastic user of Mastodon, Pixelfed and Lemmy. I could not have imagined that it would be easier to acclimate myself and i have not encountered any barriers to entry, or at least I have not recognized any.
Is my experience atypical?
I'd like less focus on the network and more on individual servers, with their own names, policies, and reputations. Then users aren't thinking about whether to join one huge network - they're thinking about whether that server is the kind of place they want to be. (https://wandering.shop is a good example of an instance that is explicitly going for certain vibes.)
It would allow individual pre-existing communities to create their own spaces, ones which would prioritize those communities' experiences and needs over their connection to the rest of the fediverse. I'm imagining something like Dreamwidth or Fur Affinity or the many old-fashioned forums out there, just with the ability to follow users or navigate to topics on other instances if you know their names or URLs. I'm really not worried about discoverability outside the instance - to me, the instance is the platform, and anything outside of it is just an additional thing I can get to if I want it.
That being said, I think this approach is probably incompatible with trying to create a general-purpose social media site that also attracts a large number of users, at least not without a hefty marketing budget.
@dch82@lemmy.zip @fediverse@lemmy.world
In order to get more people on Fedi, we have to get more people on Fedi. People will go whereever everybody else already is. That's the only thing keeping Twitter alive, even though almost everyone there will openly admit they hate it, no one will actually leave Twitter because everyone else is still on Twitter.
It's a chicken-and-egg problem that I don't think Fedi can actively do anything to solve. Or rather, I think it's too late to solve. If there's any competitor that has a chance, BlueSky has established a much bigger userbase in far less time, and that's enough momentum to potentially get there. Anyone who's leaving Twitter will go to BlueSky before they ever look at Fedi.
To do that in the short term, the Fediverse probably just needs more money. The competitors have a fuckload of it and can introduce features way faster because of it. I think Mastodon's been "exploring/planning" quote posts for like 18 months and haven't even begun working on it. I'd love to have user-controllable, optional algorithmic feeds in Mastodon (not replacing the main reverse-chron feed) but I can't imagine it existing in less than 5 years.
Mods cracking down on the plague of 'polite' harassment (ex. passive-aggressive FYIs about CWs) wouldn't hurt. It's not as bad as it used to be but it's chased a ton of people away.
I think in the long term the Fediverse has an advantage. The only real goal Fediverse services have is to get better for users. At some point, Bluesky and Threads will have to make money or die. I don't think they have a way to do that without damaging the user experience.
Bluesky is FOSS tho...
what are you talking about? bluesky isn't open source, the protocol is, and it reeks of embrace, extend, extinguish by branding itself as an open network
How can it be EEE if it's their own protocol?
Also there is much more open source from Bluesky: https://github.com/bluesky-social
I don't actually mean it's EEE but that whatever they are doing feels similar; besides, with one big server controlled by a corporation in the centre of their ecosystem, they could "defederate" any rising AT-compatible competitor servers out of existence.
They might not now, but don't ever trust a company to not do this.
What would be the point of putting in the effort to make Bluesky or other ATProtocol apps selfhostable if they didn't want people to do that? Doesn't make any sense
The danger (as they can see) are not selfhosters, but larger competitive instances. They don't allow AT servers of over 10 users and 1500 events a hour. This is clearly targeted to prevent large-scale instances (fediverse style) from being created.
How many bluesky users actually selfhost?
With better design and better branding. These poorly illustrated mouse lookin icons are not helping us in any way.