Can I just rant a little to you all?

I’ve tried numerous times to help people from reddit set up an account and get started on Kbin (and lemmy), but 4 out of 5 times people can’t seem to grasp the concept of registering an account and starting to use this platform. Even breaking it down into 2 steps, with direct links… They get angry, and then ragequit their attempt in a huff saying how it’s too fucking complicated and it will never take off because it’s so hard.

Ok, I get that the fediverse is complicated if you think deeply about all the interconnectivity and federation etc, but there is no reason you even have to think about any of it to create an account and get started. Like, at all.

It reminds me so much of my 70/y old mother-in-law not immediately knowing how to work a tv remote and shoving it at me after 1.5 seconds saying “here, I can’t figure this out”. When in reality all she had to do was press the fucking big red button…

I’m just so frustrated with people’s complete lack of ability to help themselves.

  • PabloDiscobar@kbin.social
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    2 years ago

    Why is this so hard for people?

    One thing I want people to leave behind when they unplug from reddit is the clickbait titles:

    “Look what my sister just did!”

    “Was it really so simple?”

    “I should have seen it coming [wholesome]”

    Surprise titles are the worst. They really make me feel that the author is just using the tool as his toy. There will be thousands of people like you, what do you think will happen when all the titles will look like yours?

    • McBinary@kbin.socialOP
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      2 years ago

      I sort of assumed that inclusion of [rant] in the title, and the magazine that it was located in was a dead giveaway of what the content would include, but I see your point and will try to make titles more topical in the future.

  • Daniel Retana@mastodon.ie
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    2 years ago

    @McBinary What you’re describing is one of the issues with the entire fediverse and it is the on boarding process.

    A centralized social network just makes you go to Facebook (dot) com, then put your mail and password. Done!

    But the fediverse isn’t easier. People not only need to learn their username and password, also need to learn their server’s name. Why? Because isn’t the same to try to log in in lemmy.xyz than log in on lemmy.zyx

    That makes non technical users get lost.

    🧵 1 / 2

  • hardypart@feddit.de
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    2 years ago

    I gotta be honest, I’m a tech person myself and I was also slightly confused when I checked out Lemmy for the first time. There were three major things I had to grasp before I felt like I understood the whole concept:

    1. Browsing “All” shows content from all federated instances
    2. Most big instances are already federated, so chosing the right instance is not really that important
    3. You can participate in other instances with the account of your “home” instance by turning foreigninstance.com/c/Community into homeinstance.com/c/Community@foreigninstance.com, which is a kinda cumbersome process right now, but I’m sure some wily developer will come up with an elegant solution for that in the future (like having the option to automatically turn URLs from foreign instances into home instance URLs).

    It kind of makes me want to learn coding, so I can participate and make Lemmy better and better, lol.

    • bdonvr@thelemmy.club
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      2 years ago

      For #3 the easiest way is probably just to search for the community. The search shows other instance’s communities too.

        • bdonvr@thelemmy.club
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          2 years ago

          Yeah it’s definitely a problem. But I think most casual users would just see posts in their feed, and they can visit the community from the post with no issue.

          • hardypart@feddit.de
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            2 years ago

            That’s true, the problem only starts when someone includes a direct link to a community, post or comment of an instance that’s not your home instance.

  • SJ_Zero@lemmy.fbxl.net
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    2 years ago

    You’re speaking my language.

    When people from other services come around and they complain about how hard it is to be on the fediverse, I’m like “What, like running an instance?” because there’s nothing hard about joining an already existing instance!

    And to be honest, even running instances isn’t that bad. I’ve got like 5, and I’m just some idiot on the Internet!

  • SSTF@lemmy.world
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    2 years ago

    Back in my day we had to walk uphill both ways to sign up for BBS forums. Kids these days.

  • finthechat@kbin.social
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    2 years ago

    A few weeks ago my neighbor (a nice older woman in her 60s) asked me to fix her TV. I walked into her living room and pushed the power button on the remote.

    Sometimes it do be like that.

    • sab@kbin.social
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      2 years ago

      Other times nice old women are just lonely and make you do random things for company.

  • shundi82@feddit.de
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    2 years ago

    For a lot of people, anything new means stress. So their willingness to put up with that new thing and the amount of perceived stress will almost always hinge on the potential (personal) benefits. And the benefits will initially be perceived as not very high. So the willingness to overcome the hurdle/endure stress will be pretty low.

    So don’t be too harsh on those people. They’ll join once they perceive it as beneficial enough. ;-)

  • SamC@lemmy.nz
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    2 years ago

    Most people don’t really want to move off Reddit. They might see how shitty spez is being, but moving off Reddit will be a big shake up to their online life. So any excuse they can find to stay on Reddit is something they will latch on to. “It’s too complicated” is a good one, because there’s some truth to it, and it’s pretty subjective anyway, so it’s hard to argue with.

    Fortunately, there is a small percent of people who embrace new things like the Fediverse, especially if there is good reason to overcome some of the obstacles and make it work. Without those people, we would end up stuck.

    Trying to help people move over is a good thing, but it’s not worth getting frustrated with them if they find reasons not to do it. In my view, we’re seeing the end of the current era of the internet (where corporate social media dominates), and moving into a new one (where decentralisation wins out). The people stuck on Reddit will realise this one day, just maybe not today.

  • Otome-chan@kbin.social
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    2 years ago

    >sign up for reddit just fine
    >claims signing up for kbin.social is too hard
    ??? it’s the same process???

    • Thalyssa@kbin.social
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      2 years ago

      Precisely. Registering for a kbin account is exactly the same as any other site or forum I had to sign up for lmao.

  • Sheerfire96@startrek.website
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    2 years ago

    Yeah I won’t lie I’m… very confused but I’m kinda just rolling with it and hoping I figure it out along the way. I can’t speak for others but I find myself generally comfortable with computers and willing to try things out and see what I can do. Some people are afraid to do that and idk how to change it

  • Deralax@kbin.social
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    2 years ago

    I don’t blame anyone for getting frustrated. The whole concept of the fediverse is quite confusing to someone that knew nothinf about it prior, and I myself am only just starting to get a grasp on things. The whole experience reminds me of the first time i heard about bitcoin and trying to wrap head around the blockchain.

    I (and i assume many others) have been unhappy with reddit’s direction for some time now, and forcedully ending the life of my third party app of choice (RIF) just happened to be the straw that broke the camels back.

    To many of us this is the last straw, but to many others who may be newer users, or may have already been using the official Reddit app this probably does not seem like a huge deal.

    Only time will tell if the folks leaving were generating the lions share of the worthwhile content, or if we are just the vocal minority and life will go on. Some folks aren’t looking for a new home, and even if these events are what lead to Reddit’s eventual demise it will take years for said demise to play out.

  • Flax@feddit.uk
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    2 years ago

    I keep clicking links on one fediverse and somehow I become on a different instance and thus logged out, kbin seems promising but no mobile app, Jerboa is glitchy and very WIP. It is hard to grasp. The first time I tried using it I just ended up on different instances and couldn’t log in again, not realising that I was somehow brought to a different instance instead of viewing the post in my instance

  • RandomWombat@kbin.social
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    2 years ago

    I think I can understand how confusing this is for people. It took me a while to get used to Reddit originally, and now it is another different environment.

    I am kind of running to here because I tried going to Discord and found myself getting rather confused with the many channels/servers (?). I am a tech-idiot. I just like to be in a place where I could see interesting threads to join and chat. I used to go to forums, but those forums slowly died after social media platforms came into prominence. I miss those friendly forum environment, and I struggle to keep afloat in a world that seemed to be moving a lot faster than my brain can follow. :(

    • socialhope@lemm.ee
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      2 years ago

      Listen here youngster. You are doing just fine. You are here, you are finding threads. You will get the hang of it. It’s the internet it grows and changes. Hopefully for the better.

      I would say you are doing a lot better than struggling! I hope you find more interesting threads!

    • McBinary@kbin.socialOP
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      2 years ago

      I get that, and I’m sort of understanding - just frustrated and wanted to vent earlier…

      There is a lot of tech jargon people are throwing around that is wholly unnecessary in the grand scheme of ‘just sign up and participate’. People don’t need to understand all the backend workings to just participate and I don’t know why everyone is focusing so much on it.

      The equivalent would be every user trying to understand the inner workings of reddit’s website; the servers, the dns records, the load balancing, the network between each server. None of it is necessary to actually use the site.