It’s the network effect. It’s always the network effect.
Your current platform enshittified. Where do you go? Well, the majority of people are going to Bluesky, and it’s familiar in terms of UI, so you go there. Sure, you could convince someone like that to try something like Mastodon, but Mastodon is comparably much smaller than Bluesky, so its intrinsic value to people is substantially lower, not to mention the fact that without an algorithm, most of these users have no clue how to curate a feed, since every platform has an algorithm now. A lot of these people will have never used an algorithm-less platform in their entire life.
The same goes for Reddit vs. Lemmy. Reddit has much more users than Lemmy, more niche communities, higher engagement, etc. Why move somewhere that’s identical in function if it’s smaller? Your current platform works well enough.
I think it’s easy to underestimate how much censorship and enshittification people are willing to put up with. People will put up with a lot before they switch platforms. Reddit not letting people publish a person’s manifesto isn’t gonna convince many people to abandon their entire accounts and communities and to switch to Lemmy.
It literally took Twitter being rebranded into oblivion, and turned into an explicit safe haven for fascists and far-right freaks, with an algorithm deboosting non paid-for content multiple times over before people really started flocking out in large numbers.
One issue with alternative smaller platforms can also be them becoming cesspools of users banned from the big platform. The first couple of Reddit alternatives quickly collected the racists and jailbait porn.
A viable alternative platform needs more than extremist niches.
Too true. The first lemmy instance I signed up for shut itself down without warning within a week of me signing up because they’d accidentally federated with a CP instance and their country’s government could have ended up putting the instance’s owner in jail for it.
Coming to Lemmy means losing some of the really well supported niche communities from Reddit of old and that was the biggest hit of leaving, but the site being such cancer now I wonder how well they are doing anyway.
Lemmy, once you’ve blocked 90% of the weird tankies, really does feel like Reddit from 10+ years ago in the comments. It’s just a shame due to its current small size how single minded the general feed often feels. Hopefully that improves
I think it’s easy to underestimate how much censorship and enshittification people are willing to put up with. People will put up with a lot before they switch platforms.
Compare also: the people who bitch about McDonald’s, Walmart, Amazon, or similar, yet still spend money there. In many cases (not all), there’s an option to spend elsewhere, yet folks still vote with their wallet to pay into the system that f***s them.
Capitalists don’t care about our gripes. The only language they know is profit and money
To be fair, a lot of that is due to significant, meaningful pressures that prevent them from actually shopping anywhere else. Corporations that provide things with much more inelastic demand (food, home goods, etc) are harder to escape from than social media sites that nobody actually needs to, for instance, stay alive.
For instance, Amazon’s “most favored nation” policy means that you’re literally not allowed to sell your product anywhere else for cheaper. Amazon becomes the only place where products have the lowest possible price you could afford.
If you need to buy a given product, whether it be groceries from Amazon Fresh, or diapers for your baby, Amazon will give you the lowest price (by effectively just causing all other prices to go up), and if, like many Americans, you live paycheck to paycheck, you can’t exactly afford to switch stores.
That isn’t true across the board of course, but it’s definitely a bit different from social media.
It’s the network effect. It’s always the network effect.
Your current platform enshittified. Where do you go? Well, the majority of people are going to Bluesky, and it’s familiar in terms of UI, so you go there. Sure, you could convince someone like that to try something like Mastodon, but Mastodon is comparably much smaller than Bluesky, so its intrinsic value to people is substantially lower, not to mention the fact that without an algorithm, most of these users have no clue how to curate a feed, since every platform has an algorithm now. A lot of these people will have never used an algorithm-less platform in their entire life.
The same goes for Reddit vs. Lemmy. Reddit has much more users than Lemmy, more niche communities, higher engagement, etc. Why move somewhere that’s identical in function if it’s smaller? Your current platform works well enough.
I think it’s easy to underestimate how much censorship and enshittification people are willing to put up with. People will put up with a lot before they switch platforms. Reddit not letting people publish a person’s manifesto isn’t gonna convince many people to abandon their entire accounts and communities and to switch to Lemmy.
It literally took Twitter being rebranded into oblivion, and turned into an explicit safe haven for fascists and far-right freaks, with an algorithm deboosting non paid-for content multiple times over before people really started flocking out in large numbers.
One issue with alternative smaller platforms can also be them becoming cesspools of users banned from the big platform. The first couple of Reddit alternatives quickly collected the racists and jailbait porn.
A viable alternative platform needs more than extremist niches.
Too true. The first lemmy instance I signed up for shut itself down without warning within a week of me signing up because they’d accidentally federated with a CP instance and their country’s government could have ended up putting the instance’s owner in jail for it.
Coming to Lemmy means losing some of the really well supported niche communities from Reddit of old and that was the biggest hit of leaving, but the site being such cancer now I wonder how well they are doing anyway.
Lemmy, once you’ve blocked 90% of the weird tankies, really does feel like Reddit from 10+ years ago in the comments. It’s just a shame due to its current small size how single minded the general feed often feels. Hopefully that improves
I’m curious, what do you mean when you say “tankie”? It’s a word that’s used to mean so many different things these days
!meanwhileongrad@sh.itjust.works
It doesn’t have anywhere near enough of the weird transformation porn I like to be Reddit from 10 years ago
I’ve been around the internet basically since the internet and still learning new things every day…
Wtf is that lol
Drawn images of things like chicks having their booba get bigger because of magic or dudes turning into anthropomorphic horses… Stuff like that
And that’s just the tamer stuff.
Yeah where is it so I can avoid it
Be the change you want to see in the world! 😉
People use the Internet without an adblocker
Compare also: the people who bitch about McDonald’s, Walmart, Amazon, or similar, yet still spend money there. In many cases (not all), there’s an option to spend elsewhere, yet folks still vote with their wallet to pay into the system that f***s them.
Capitalists don’t care about our gripes. The only language they know is profit and money
To be fair, a lot of that is due to significant, meaningful pressures that prevent them from actually shopping anywhere else. Corporations that provide things with much more inelastic demand (food, home goods, etc) are harder to escape from than social media sites that nobody actually needs to, for instance, stay alive.
For instance, Amazon’s “most favored nation” policy means that you’re literally not allowed to sell your product anywhere else for cheaper. Amazon becomes the only place where products have the lowest possible price you could afford.
If you need to buy a given product, whether it be groceries from Amazon Fresh, or diapers for your baby, Amazon will give you the lowest price (by effectively just causing all other prices to go up), and if, like many Americans, you live paycheck to paycheck, you can’t exactly afford to switch stores.
That isn’t true across the board of course, but it’s definitely a bit different from social media.
Drag can confirm, drag has never used a social media without algorithms. Unless talking through two cans and a string counts.