Warning: This is a rant.
I don’t really know how to describe it but the content isn’t quite where reddit had been for me. Also the comments are kind of weird at times, like they type of person here doesn’t quite seem as ‘normal’ as what I’m used to from reddit.
There’s a lot more open source and privacy focused people and conversations. A lot of people seem to hate on big tech and big companies in a sort of toxic-ish feeling way to me (not to say the other relationship isn’t toxic… just saying). Random conversations go into: “omg your privacy is lost cause you used a Google service.” Then we have the ‘if we don’t defederate with Meta the world ends’ conversations. I personally would like to see what Meta does in the fediverse… maybe it will make it more normalized…idk. Then the: “if your app isn’t open source its awful and terrible for the world” people.
Like that stuff is all fine, but it just isn’t quite my cup of tea.
These things remind me of that one person in my comp sci classes in college who I just couldn’t stand talking to. He would try to make you feel like an idiot by trying to sound all self righteous and smart. (Honestly he would fail and would generally look like a dingus).
The bulk of the content that gets comments seem to be mostly meme atm. At least on all (7/10 of the current top for me are memes). I like my memes, but would like some more breadth/depth.
Like I hope Lemmy continues to grow and hope it gets better, but it leaves me missing reddit at the moment.
In a perfect world I wish reddit corp wasn’t such assholes and this whole thing didn’t happen the way it did.
I’m completely skipping the UI and stuff not being as familiar and the various outages/bugs/etc since that’s to be expected with something at this stage.
Please don’t hate me :) Just sharing my unpopular opinion. Though I genuinely wonder if others feel the same way.
/Rant
I love that your response is informative to a degree relating to your experience, and you kept a leveled positive response and even tried to understand where the OP. Is coming from. As someone who used Reddit for 7 years going on 8 I saw a lot of changes on that platform and I can say I love the idea of the Fediverse and I wish I would have spent more time on Lemmy.
However, I saw a post where someone described Lemmy users as anarchist and it made me cringe and laugh a little. Since I have been on here I have seen a lot of, “the mainstream world and mainstream supporters of platforms are lost and the world is lost and we must put an end to it.”
Coming from a digital forensics/security/IT background. My way of thinking has changed some over the years about my data and privacy. However, what I have found is that every platform has its issues like normal. For me it isn’t so much an issue but people using the Fediverse have some form of mentality that they have a portion of the internet figured out and the anarchy and push against the mainstream is some bigger plan. The truth is, at least to me, the Fediverse actually seems like a security nightmare. Being a part of a community that understands other aspects of the internet doesn’t make you invincible to the problems exemplified by other portions of the internet. The Fediverse is popular in its own way because it is small.
As you said it is disposable. You aren’t an anarchist because you can put down mainstream ideas. You are also in another world of hurt if you think anarchy works at all. History it doesn’t. Neither does libertarianism and libertarians are just anarchists that don’t want to admit they are anarchist.
I am fairly new to the Fediverse but based on what little I have seen and know I do also understand where OP is coming from. The users of some of these. Platforms are very strong and forward thinking and in people’s defense they aren’t entirely wrong. But some of the people on the platforms seem to think they have a portion of the internet truly figured out and that kind of thinking makes you vulnerable.
Alot of the greater FOSS community as a whole is a little defensive.
There was a time when Microsoft tried to kill linux and the open source movement when it was in its infancy. Back then it was literally MS saw a competition and wanted to crush it. While times have certainly change for example Facebook basically made BtrFS good. People still haven’t forgotten that a corporate giant once tried to destroy a passion project out of pure spite. So any move in that direction is considered an affront to the core ideals that make up FOSS. The way telemetry is looked at in the linux community is a good example. Even though there are valid uses of telemetry most linux users hate it and would rather a project die than include it. Its a bit of slippery slope fallacy mixed with tribalism.
I dont run across anarchist sentiment that often I would say its more communal. The endless dream of the ‘year of the linux desktop’ is a good example of this. I have been using linux as my desktop operating system for 18 to 20 years now. In that time it went for installing linux was tech wizardry and right of passage to a child can do it. What made it change is that the community desperately wanted to have that ‘year of the linux desktop’ when your average jo could take part in what we were passionate about. So devs removed as many barriers to entry as possible to make it so anyone could join in. While we still haven’t had that year yet my quality of life as a linux user has improved dramatically. Installing, maintaining, fixing and updating a linux environment has gotten so good that I find that Windows seems cumbersome. But those improvements where not done for me they were meant to bring new members to the community because the community desperately wanted to grow. It took a long time for the community to come around to the idea that linux isnt just for the nerds. I think the fediverse is in a similar boat now where the users want this cool thing to grow. But with growth comes change and people are almost always afraid of change. So there are a vocal few trying to convert others to there way of thinking so things dont change. Which is a pipe dream.
Also people really do confuse privacy and security. I use linux because I like my privacy and don’t feel like I get enough benefits when I give it up with Windows or MacOS. That said I also use gmail because I need the buisness I handle on a daily secure not private. I dont care if google knows what I shop for as long as they dont let anyone get access to my bank login.
I agree with all your points. In an ideal world, FOSS and megacorp projects can coexist without stepping on each other’s toes. The constant growth doctrine of capitalism causes the competition of FOSS products to appear as a threat to the large companies, thus we have seen that through legal action, buyouts, takeovers or other unscrupulous methods companies like Microsoft, Sony, Google, Nintendo have tried to extinguish FOSS before they catch on.
That’s why many FOSS users (like me) growl and bear their teeth at big corporations (and to an extent their sympathizers) trying to make sweeping moves into the FOSS space, as we aware the motives are likely less friendly than they appear on the surface.
Your point on distinguishing Privacy and Security is an important one, though they both rely on trust/confidence. I’m not the biggest security advocate. I believe that companies should only collect and transmit a reasonable amount of information necessary to perform their service. Technologies that rely on hoovering up massive amounts of data regardless of context, secondary uses for personal data outside of the reason it was collected, hiding behind generic “helping improve the service” clauses make me very suspicious and I try to discourage those practices.
Lastly, with Proton and the Steamdeck we may be in the year of the Linux gaming console if anything!
The steamdeck has really ushered in the year of the indies. So many games are getting attention because they run well on the deck. Battlebit is a great example.
It really is amazing how well proton works.
I think your security point came up yesterday lol
I’m suddenly really interested in what warped view of history you’ve developed. What social institutions and broad philosophical norms would you say have worked historically?
im not coming from the exact perspective of who you replied to, but unironically i would say none have “worked”. and most likely none ever will, at least for a very long time. no system can ever work perfectly as intended, there will always be problems an ways to improve it. there may be some that are significantly better than others (personally, i like some form of democratic socialism) but it will always be a game of tradeoffs and slowly improving