memes

Even China banned TikTok

Not quite, TT is available in China, BUT the CCP mandates they use a special algorithm for the Chinese audience that promotes positivity, education and other quality content rather than just whatever is popular

Loops would be the fedi alternative for tiktok, no? I think. And I agree..but fediverse has only a little word of mouth (reading your comment I feel guilty not pushing it to my friends a little), no money for these viral campaigns/swarms of new users.

At least we don't have to worry too much about bots or "karma addicted".

I mostly agree. I do miss some niche communities, though.

I dunno this kinda cracks me up a little because like...if you dig deep enough, were people flame-warring on usenet or BBS (wait lemme finish! Lol) over:

"Email needs way better UX and an insta-one-click-sign-up zero-thinking on-ramp so even a single-celled organism can figure it out!"?

That's the easiest descriptor nowadays that explains the Fediverse. Email. "What if Twitter but as a generalized service that anybody could run, like email. Yahoo? Gmail? RobertLovesSurfing.net? They can all email each other but your account lives on one."

A better way of seeking out an instance could be handy perhaps. I found Mastodon pretty smooth with "Hey you might like these if...!" Sort of suggestions. The openness of the platform should make this a much easier task than it might be otherwise, I think.

I also think better explaining the portability of your account data would help people see the benefit there.

I'd like more kinds of nerds to have an easier time getting on the Fediverse with us, so let's improve that, but I also think we're less popular BECAUSE the Fediverse is more about human communication much like "The Old Internet", and less about desperate vapid fame-seeking and self-marketing and identity-as-brand, like Web2/3.0.

A lot of me thinks we're here because corpo-net "disrupted" our forums and blogs away.

IMHO, the commercial-verse can keep its skibidis and hauk-tuas and *"Oh suddenly I'm famous! thanks for the gold kind stranger!"*s

I don't think it's cruel elitist "gatekeeping" to say the Fediverse is for anybody! But maybe not for Everybody. (Imagine if major brands discovered everybody moved to the Fediverse, for instance. Yikes.)

BTW it's 2025 and plenty of people I've observed, here in the U.S, still complain that email is "too complicated." (And no, they weren't formerly from an uncontacted tribe or rescued from a sealed 1950's fallout shelter.)

We could make things a bit easier to understand and smoother to experience, but trying to UX-away the requirement for a modicum of intelligence required is not a great end goal, I think.

Fediverse and decentralism confused me initially but then I learned I can just sign up at lemmy.world and use it normally without having to know the backend.

Lemmy's Rookgaard. After 30 comments, you're forced to register somewhere else.

"I don't want AOLers on the web. The open internet should just be for us enlightened few"

JFC, * don't want you pricks on the fedi. Can't you go back to BBSes or something and wank each other there?

The TikTok algorithm shows you what you want to see. My TikTok algorithm was history, math, and language learning content.

you can defederate with groups but gatekeeping the entire fediverse feels wrong

We've been here the whole time

I do! Their opinions affect us; the fediverse reduces a social problem.