It’s rough right now politically in the US. A lot of people around me seem like they’re ready to give up hope. It makes me incredibly angry seeing Zuck up there with all the other billionaires, and Elon is a parasite that has infected the government.
I often find myself wondering how I can make a difference. How can we regain control of our world?
Idk if I’m being dramatic, but the Fediverse really seems like it could be our response to these fuckers controlling the narrative on social media. It could be more than just an interesting decentralized social media platform. I really think this could be a key step in reclaiming our democracy.
Am I being dramatic lol? Do you all feel the same way? I was kinda getting emotional even. Like we could bring real change. That gives me hope, which is something we are desperately lacking right now.
It’s not just Lemmy. It makes me happy to see all the Fediverse platforms (specifically activity pub based) blowing up.
Friendly reminder if you have the financial means, donate to your instance, donate to the Lemmy devs, donate to Pixelfed or any other social media app fighting big social media. And better than a one-time donation, set up a monthly contribution even if it’s just $2/month. It really helps open-source developers when they have a steady income.
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I like the concept of the fediverse, just like I liked Fidonet back in the 80’s (that allowed BBSs to “exchange” both forum contents, called “echomail”, and private messages).
I have some issues on sustainability (hosting costs money, moderation and system maintenance can be a pain) and the “donation” model. My solution is that while I host for myself, and don’t really mind having some guest on my platform, I don’t take / accept donations - ever. My instance dies the moment I don’t have the resources to maintain it (money, time or patience). The main reason I don’t take donations is really simple: I don’t want to owe anyone anything, this is not a job or a burden I have to carry.
I have been hosting systems for 35+ years, and it’s all good with no money involved. It’s a blast dealing with the tech, really love it. Most of my systems and either one or two users (me and the wife). :-)
no because they’re always broken as fuck for me here in Vietnam since you all put the fucking api behind a xenophobic cloudflare proxy
Yeah, it does give me hope. I’ve always been a lurker on Reddit, and it made me uneasy.
Here on feddit, i still find it difficult to express my thoughts in a direct and straightforward way, but at least i can try, and i feel like we’re actually making progress, because people are listening and sometimes give well-thought-out responses. that makes me happy. We can both learn a lot.
Apart from that:
Friendly reminder if you have the financial means, donate to your instance, donate to the Lemmy devs, donate to Pixelfed or any other social media app fighting big social media. And better than a one-time donation, set up a monthly contribution even if it’s just $2/month. It really helps open-source developers when they have a steady income.
Yeah, please do. I’ve calculated that hosting lemmy costs approximately $2/year/user, but the numbers vary a bit depending on how many files you upload. So, that’s not a lot, but for a few thousand users, it would still amount to something. So, please, donate if you can, even if it’s only $5/year.
The fedi could destroy the whole Gafam ecosystem overnight if people would just move to it. But most people are selfish idiots.
That’s unproductive imo. Nobody ever convinced someone to change their mind by calling them a selfish idiot. Unless your goal is to not convince them.
Oh dont worry, that’s not what I tell people.
i like it here and have no desire to switch over to big tech or any algorithm.
Hope in what sense? Hope that it’s generally possible to connect online without corporate social media? Sure …
Hope that it’ll become a replacement social media at a large scale? Probably not … I think the way push-federation is implemented makes it inconvenient and hard to grasp, and generally people seem to prefer centralized platforms for the sheer convenience of use, which is hard to beat.
So I guess it’ll remain stable in it’s own little niche … which isn’t bad I suppose …
I’m not in the US (thinking of you guys everyday), but when I found myself feeling depressed by the direction of big tech, I realized that open-source and the Fediverse was the healthy and exciting way forwards. It was the one thing that felt like I remember the internet feeling like in the late 90s. I think you are spot on. It is the only way that democracy can survive in tech.
I think that’s what I’m feeling actually. Technology stopped being fun, and although I’m too young for tech in the 90s, Fediverse and open source do make me enjoy tech again!
No.
Yeah, there’s nothing to be hopeful for. The little blips of okayness won’t change that.
Yes. But I’m worried about Big Tech hijacking ActuvityPub and that they enforce the end of net neutrality. EU regulations and investments is our only hope right now.
IMHO there’s still hope in p2p mesh networking. It can’t support high-bandwidth applications, but all the absolutely critical correspondence would work.
Frankly, it’s stressing me out. The non-stop barrage of Trump, Musk and other bullshit is just a bit too much on here. I get how the platform generally is very left leaning, but it really does feel like the sky is falling every five minutes, you know?
@FinishingDutch@lemmy.world
@moseschrute@lemmy.world sometimes it takes letting it play out for people to remember the leason that history could have thaught them. Do your best now to prepare for some tough times. If you own your home outright, get that basement ready for a renter. If you’ve already leveraged 80% of your home, get out from under that NOW and look for a basement to rent.
Read some Steinbeck. Watch Idocracy. Strike up a conversation with the oldest people you cross paths with about what they remember their parents telling them about the great depression. It’s going to suck, but when someone can convince this many Americans to vote against their own interests their is a more fundamental problem.
I personally take a little joy from the interveiws with people laid off who didn’t realize the company they worked for was producing products for federally subsidized clean energy initiatives.
Lemmy, the Fediverse, and open source in general too. Every time bullshit happens I find myself more and more replacing closed systems with community-developed and community-run systems. It’s not only the giving back/contributing/being part, and the openness, it’s also that this cannot be taken away so easily. Taken by buying the company, a software update, agreement change or the fact that someday you may not be able to pay your monthly fee and loose access to all your stuff.
Honestly, it’s just a matter of time before they make more Luigis snap. Hopefully they’ll be an organized way to oust them all before the guillotines and the dining sets start coming out.
It’s nice, but it doesn’t really give me hope. Lemmy is good because it’s not mainstream. Once it got relevant, it would turn into today’s reddit. And if it, by chance, evolved into relevant opposition, I believe it would be easy for billionaires to destroy, despite the decenzralized character. It could also be used for curbing the opposition by gathering information about it. There’s no way to hide from people with enough money.
What’s wrong with being the next Reddit
In my opinion reddit was bad because of the closing of the source, and centralization and administration by a single corporation interested in profits, which results in the cesspool we know reddit as today. it wasn’t bad because of the format that lemmy replicates as a link aggregator, so I agree with you on this point.
Hope ? Maybe, maybe not
No, it’s continued relative unpopularity in the face of universal hated-but-contined-use of the mainstream networks continues to be depressing.
Although the onboarding process for most of the major fediverse platforms is a bit scary for normies.
Lemmy is very harsh to most people. People that think liberal means the Democrats.
It’s not just Lemmy. I was thinking more like Mastodon. Tbh I haven’t tried frendica, but I haven’t heard of anyone actually using it.
At least pixelfed defaults you to the main instance so you don’t have to think about it if you don’t want to. Although the official android app hasn’t worked for me in ages.
