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Meg

I suspect (and please note that this is really difficult to prove so it's just, like, my onionman) that through the explosive commoditization of software over the last 20 years we've all learned a kind of helpless adversarialism in our interactions with computers.

Because we don't control them! We have to fight tooth and nail for every affordance. So we either frame everything as a demand, or we just.. give up and live with spending our whole lives in a panopticon. There's no middle ground because outrage is our only leverage.

One of the reasons I'm here at all, and not in the online equivalent of a cabin in the woods, is that this silly fediverse thing is probably the closest we've ever come to pushing back on that in a way that can be appealing to the mainstream.

And you might scoff at that, because it's really popular to pretend that only nerds live here, but really: nothing like this has ever achieved even half of what this has so far. Nothing like this has ever been a viable alternative to corporate-run media for anyone not well versed in technology, except maybe bittorent.

It's fucking messy, but it's messy like humans instead of messy like corporations. I think we can fix human-scale problems, I don't think we even have a seat at the table to fixing corporate ones.

https://hackers.town/users/calcifer/statuses/110531948483085056
12 Jun 2023 at 21:47 | Open on social.treehouse.systems
15 comments
dana :blobhaj_witch:

@megmac this resonates with me so much too. I have not enjoyed or stayed on any corporate social media. Part of why this feels different is how people behave differently but that is tied in with the lack of algorithms pushing reach and engagement and the corporate incentives making bad human impacts.

13 Jun 2023 at 1:26 | Open on sunny.garden
maegul

@megmac Yesss!!

I've said something similar even about how people relate to the fediverse. There's a lot of acceptance of what social media that's given to you and little motivation to actively push for and question what could be better because, as you say, we've learnt helpless adversarialism.

13 Jun 2023 at 4:17 | Open on hachyderm.io
Torb 🦋

@megmac I’m not going to say only nerds live here, but every non-nerd I know whoose tried it has struggled immensly to understand how things worked and most just gave up.

Not that I think the devs are bad or anything. Making open systems that are also user friendly is incredibly hard, and what Mastodon and fediverse have achieved is incredible given the parameters involved.

13 Jun 2023 at 5:02 | Open on octodon.social
Meg

@torb I think this is really complicated and there aren't just two categories of people in the world. I follow quite a few people I wouldn't classify as more tech savvy than average and I wouldn't actually find this place very interesting if I didn't.

Honestly the most aggressive "it's too hard" people I've ever seen are also way above average techies. And then they go and set up some DNS records to get a name on bsky and talk about how it's the best thing since sliced bread because AOC is there.

Most other people bounce for more mundane reasons IME. Usually simple (but hard to solve) network effect and/or abuse stuff.

Techies can be the most ridiculously cynical people about what "normal people" can do imo. People will jump through a lot of hoops to go where the people are, and that remains the real problem for every nascent social network, including the fediverse.

@torb I think this is really complicated and there aren't just two categories of people in the world. I follow quite a few people I wouldn't classify as more tech savvy than average and I wouldn't actually find this place very interesting if I didn't.

Honestly the most aggressive "it's too hard" people I've ever seen are also way above average techies. And then they go and set up some DNS records to get a name on bsky and talk about how it's the best thing since sliced bread because AOC is there.

13 Jun 2023 at 5:59 | Open on social.treehouse.systems
Torb 🦋

@megmac It’s a combination of things for sure. The network effect stuff just makes it even more important that it’s relatively easy to get into.

As for implying it’s cynical to recognize that it’s difficult, I couldn’t disagree more. Frankly I found it a bit difficult myself at times.

But mostly my impression is based on people telling me it’s difficult. I think it’s reasonable to believe them!

I will say things have certainly improved tho! I feel like I can tell people to sign up to Mastodon and peope have a pretty good chance of signing up.

@megmac It’s a combination of things for sure. The network effect stuff just makes it even more important that it’s relatively easy to get into.

As for implying it’s cynical to recognize that it’s difficult, I couldn’t disagree more. Frankly I found it a bit difficult myself at times.

But mostly my impression is based on people telling me it’s difficult. I think it’s reasonable to believe them!

13 Jun 2023 at 6:13 | Open on octodon.social
Discographette's Rerun Era

@torb @megmac the issue is in part stuff like *this*- simply me trying to reply to this means loading up my *actual* residence instance just to reply.

the dns record thing- i agree with, but that's not why people prefer bsky. they prefer bsky because it feels like a "best hits" of twitter UX, vs Mastodon's incredibly functional suite (if you have the time to learn all the offputting quirks that introduce tremendous friction for no reason and have no obvious solution)
13 Jun 2023 at 23:31 | Open on glitch.lgbt
Discographette's Rerun Era

@torb @megmac I use both! I think mastodon is cool! I also think its full of people I don't really *click with* no matter the instance. whereas on bsky ive found my perfect mix of intelligent shitposters & tired techies *immediately*, like, within HOURS of starting. a feat I haven't pulled off on Mastodon despite putting in *hundreds of hours*

I tried! really did! but I barely touch this place except to read/write a response to a post like this. It's just *so clunky* for me, not sure abt a fix

13 Jun 2023 at 23:32 | Open on glitch.lgbt
Discographette's Rerun Era

@torb @megmac I say this as someone who loves some of the worst, least user friendly software on the planet (old blender, weird text editors like obsidian, etc)

just to be clear tho, I agree with masto's mission + the OP really strongly

13 Jun 2023 at 23:33 | Open on glitch.lgbt
bitzero

@megmac The issue here is the degree of control you want on your digital life. Megacorps offer the easy way: play in a walled garden by their rules.

But if you try to learn how things work, you can change that. You can even use megacorp tools against them. Or simply leave them behind.

Fedi tries to be, and is, an option for those who want a better digital social experience. It's not just for nerds, but a little effort is required.

I do not want to offend anyone, but passivity leads nowhere.

13 Jun 2023 at 7:33 | Open on fosstodon.org
Martin Tilo Schmitz

@megmac thank you for calling this concept put to me. I immediately recognized this in sooo many things.

Annoyingly, social media outrage about some smaller or bigger issue in some commercial software product is sometimes minimized by corporations as a storm in a puddle, instead of recognized as an exasperated last ditch attempt to get a course correction.

Also, this is why App-store reviews are used for bug and UX issue reports. It's one of the places where consumers feel they have leverage.

13 Jun 2023 at 7:37 | Open on mastodon.gamedev.place
Mitch Effendi (ميتش أفندي)
Richard Hendricks

@megmac Saving Onionman as a new word for the autocorrect. 🙂

13 Jun 2023 at 17:05 | Open on astronomy.city
Red

@megmac I haven't been here long but I like what I see so far. This dates me a bit but it reminds me of things like IRC - a bunch of independent groups/servers that just chose to connect and collaborate. There was no one body controlling content or deciding what the community was. Communities decided for themselves and if they didn't get along they just didn't talk to each other.

14 Jun 2023 at 1:06 | Open on mastodon.gamedev.place
Red

@megmac I know a lot of people these days don't have the patience to go searching for forums or learn things like IRC commands, and certainly forums and IRC were far from perfect, but it sure seemed to feel a lot freer when there wasn't a constant fear of some Big Bad screwing everything up.

14 Jun 2023 at 1:06 | Open on mastodon.gamedev.place
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