The main reason for the Linux operating system not seeing widespread adoption is because of its multitude of distros. Ubuntu, Debian, Arch, Mint… there are just so many choices, just like how when someone asks how to join the Fediverse people will response with “which instance?”
Who the fuck cares about instances and whatnot when an average grandma just wants to make a post on knitting in a supportive community? It really turns people off and without niche communities, there is no way Lemmy will grow any further than its current state.
Without niche communities, what are we going to talk about? Memes? Just programming-related stuff? (I can just surf stackoverflow for that) It can be fun for a while but without diversity, the site will just devolve into boredom and circlejerks. I love this place to death and really want to see it grow, but man, seeing how confusing it can be for an average user makes me anxious for changes.
edit: paragraphs & grammar
edit 2: I’m not saying the Fediverse should be something else. Just like someone here said it better than me, Fediverse can be as complicated under the hood as it wants, but the end user does not need to know that. It must be presented in a way as simple as possible, with plenty of signs and helpful directions.
As a linux user if 25+ years, you’re off on a bad foot with me from the beginning.
The base idea of ActivityPub is that we can’t let things get too big, because that draws attempts to takeover the userbase. There are already organized efforts beginning on Mastodon to mass defederate from any server (maston.social) that get’s to 51% of the total userbase because it would be an existential threat to all of ActivityPub if that happened. You’re basically asking starfleet to please ignore the prime directive.
I never thought about that. That’s a great idea.