Tl:dr: Remember the human, even if the project doesn’t work, it wasn’t as useless as it may seem, resources consumption may be concerning
Also disclaimer: I have no involvement in the Fediverser project other than following it from afar and discussing with the creator in a few comments.
Hello everyone,
As the other thread is already quite active and I guess my comment would probably be drown there, I open this new to bring an alternative perspective on the project.
Remember the human
First of all, could we please try to limit the hostility against the project creator? It’s fine to disagree, to block, to defederate, but wording such as “hate”, “screw the person” don’t seem to align with “remember you will be interacting with actual, real people” and “Be respectful of others.”
Now that this is out of the way, a few considerations to take into account:
The Network Effect - the issue that Fediverser is trying to solve
As most of you probably know, the network effect prevents most of the users of an existing platform to switch to another one. “Why would I go there where there will be no one, when all the people I want to interact with are here?”
It was the case for Mastodon until Twitter started to really become mediocre, and Signal still hasn’t convinced most of the Whatsapp userbase to make the switch. Matrix is struggling to be a full Discord replacement, but has the benefits of having bridges with most of communication platforms (https://matrix.org/ecosystem/bridges/)
Those bridges can ease potential reluctant users to at least try out Matrix, as they can still access their previous network.
That was the whole idea behind Fediverser. I remember the initial plan being a two-ways bridge between Lemmy and Reddit, allowing people to see content from Reddit from Lemmy, interact with it, and having people on Reddit seeing responses too.
Added with all the Lemmy pros that we know (third-party clients, alternative front-ends, etc.), it could be a huge helper into bringing more people into Lemmy. Which brings us to the next question.
Do we need more users?
I know this is highly debatable, but I will try to bring some perspective on this.
I have been an active user on Lemmy for a few months now. I like it here, great apps, nice people, interesting discussions.
But still, I still to go Reddit too.
Why? Network effect. As much as Reddit sucks today, there is still content that is only posted there, and sometimes I just want to read that content. And I’m not talking about niche topics like obscure fandoms. Parenting, personal finance, relationship advice, fashion advice are topics that aren’t very popular on Lemmy. And probably won’t become anytime soon due to the network effect. Which is fine for me.
But the issue I see is that overtime, the migration might never really happen. We might be in a “next year is the year of the Linux Desktop” or a “Chrome vs Firefox” situation rather than a “Digg to Reddit migration”. And I’m taking examples where the alternative is still widely used. Lemmy could actually become Diaspora, as over time, more and more people just think that the convenience of a Revanced third-party client is better than having to browse two platforms.
But to be fair, the future doesn’t even matter that much. What I wanted to say here was that I understand why the Fediverser creator wanted to avoid that scenario, and tried to accelerate the process.
Resources consumption
The list of instances part of the Fediverse project can be found here: https://communick.news/c/communick_news_network. I had a look at two, https://level-up.zone/ which replicated a gaming sub, and https://selfhosted.forum/. While they are quite active, they don’t seem to be that active (most of the threads have less than 5 comments, there are a few that high the hundreds, but they are quite rare).
I have seen several admins complaining about the system resources consumed by alien.top instances, “as much as the largest instances”. Does that mean that if tomorrow reddit.old dies, we double or triple the number of users on Lemmy, instances would have to be shutdown? Can we afford a growth this large? The scalability issues have been mentioned since June, and it seemed that things had improved on that side, but should we be worried that Lemmy will hit a scalability ceiling at some point?
However, to be fair, I guess this point is mainly assessed as a “low return on investment” for the resource consumption. Which brings us to the previous point “What what Fediverser trying to solve”.
As a conclusion, I hope this perspective might help people see why this project was made, and that maybe it does not deserve all the hostile reactions from the other thread.
That’s it, thank you if you made it to the end. Looking forward having a discussion in the comments.
Have a good day.
Edit: I noticed I didn’t mention the copyright issues in the comments, but to be fair I’m far from being knowledgeable on the question. It might however have a Streisand effect of having Reddit sue a single person over comments that are made for free by Reddit users. Is that worth being sued by them, I don’t know (also, what about alternative front-ends like LibReddit, or archive websites?)
I see where you come from. From a lurker point of view, it doesn’t change that much, though.
If in the near future the communication would be both ways, what would you think of the tool?
I think it only serves to continue to keep reddit afloat. If our stuff does get crossposted, then we’re effectively just still using reddit. The point was to leave the platform because of the leadership, not kinda continue to half use it by proxy.
It’s a bandage that needs to be ripped off, not re-applied.
I don’t think there are any high quality discussions left to be had with the current suite of redditors.
E: I see you’re getting downvoted and that sucks - I for one appreciate our discussion.
First of all, thanks for your comment, I appreciate the discussion.
To answer your point, I’m not so sure, there are more spectrums and gradations than clear-cut groups.
I’m probably against the grain here, but I still see some quality content on Reddit among the thrash.
And when I tell those people who post interesting content why they don’t come to Lemmy, they explain that they don’t have the time to post everything twice, and even if Reddit is bad, it’s still where most of the people are.
Then why not lurk at reddit for reddit content if it’s not about interacting with the community?
It would be a nightmare, there’s a clear difference between the people that have joined Lemmy because they wanted, those who joined Lemmy because Reddit became shit and those still on Reddit. I don’t want to interact with those still on reddit, if I did I’d simply stay on reddit.
Because people might want to have a look at a platform before considering moving to it, and they would consider it because they wouldn’t be afraid of missing out on their usual content.
I’m not so sure, there are more spectrums and gradations than clear-cut groups.
I’m probably against the salt here, but I still see some quality content on Reddit among the thrash. When I tell those people who post interesting content why they don’t come to Lemmy, they explain that they don’t have the time to post everything twice, and even if Reddit is bad, it’s still where most of the people are.
It’s probably this people that Fediverser is targeting.
I’m confused about the difference between a lurker and someone requiring an account, yet don’t want to interact with the community. Why can’t people who leave a platform and create a new identity “lurk”/browse the old place for content, no matter if leaving reddit or lemmy?
You’re right in the way that it’s subjective - your perspective is as valid as mine. My own preferences still stand, I don’t want to interact with current reddit regulars.
Because people to use one thing. It seems pretty similar to why people only wanted to keep Whatsapp, and not install Signal next to it. You could definitely say that they could use both side-by-side, but it seems against most of the users natural behaviour. They want one thing.
And it’s valid. I see a lot of crap between the few gems I stumble upon, so I completely get it.