My experience with Lemmy feels like my experience with Linux. I’m a nerd at heart and have played with a thousand variants of Linux over the decades. But as much as Linux is sold as the next Windows/MacOS, it never gets to that level. Trying to get people to understand the quirks of Linux (and why they are “better”) has been an act in futility. Linux just isn’t user-friendly, no matter the variant.
I see so many posts of people trying to understand what Lemmy is, what an instance is, why usernames are not unique (unless you include the server name - like email), etc. I just see it all as a huge hurdle to overcoming Reddit.
I’d be thrilled to be wrong.
What you mean by user friendly? I am noob in Linux and Fedora , Ubuntu, Zorin OS , Linux Mint all of them were really easy to use and very user friendly.
my sister didn’t even know what a file browser was until highschool. “normal” people are extremely computer-illiterate. they need everything spoonfed or it won’t happen at all. there’s a reason windows updates happen automatically, most people won’t close their chrome tabs if left to their own devices, let alone turn off the PC, or god forbid doing updates manually. then factor in troubleshooting if the niche software you need for class or gaming doesn’t work right away and Linux becomes impossible for most people. it’s easy for those of us who are passionate about this tech to forget how difficult and unintuitive even the simplest things can be, but for people who get no joy from looking at a computer screen, every second they have to be sitting there is abrasive and draining.
ps
I hope that didn’t come across as talking down on normal people, I’d totally be the same way if tech wasn’t my main hobby/passion, and there’s plenty that normies can do that I miss out on cause it’s not my focusI love Linux, been using it daily for well over a decade but simple stuff people take for granted like gaming, drivers, wi-fi, touchpads, secureboot, Adobe, Office, printing and device syncing alongside the ever ongoing dependency hell can be an issue for some.
I don’t think I’ve met anyone else in meatspace who uses Linux as a desktop or laptop. Installing a novel OS isn’t something people tend to do and comes with risks.
The worry is that Lemmy is then not so much a replacemt for Reddit and more of replacement for r/Linux and related subs.
Whilst it’s nice to go online and tell people how amazing and easy I’m finding it is running Gentoo on old hardware with public binhosts I would also like access to a majority of communities who won’t know what that means.
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Yeah, as it is now, I wont be too quick to recommend it to all my friends. Even reddit wasn’t intuitive to most of my irl friends.
But it will improve, I’m sure, community discovery and subbing will become easier. And as long as the number of users, and activity, continues to steadily go up, lemmy will stick around.
As each type of community reaches critical mass, it will gain a home on lemmy.
You seem to imply that Linux is doing bad, too. It is not. Linux is thriving with a huge community of people who have mutual appreciation for what Linux does better and how it does this. I feel like Lemmy will be the same thing. It won’t be for everyone, but that is not necessarily a bad thing. Linux will not be the next Windows or MacOS but it doesn’t have to be and it’s not a bad thing that it won’t.
Imo, a large community of people who share a passion for a platform like Lemmy sounds awesome! I love using Linux and even though I won’t recommend it to my mom, friends with whom I have nice and technical conversations have joined me on the Linux journey and it’s awesome to discuss various opinions and share the passion for it. It doesn’t take a huge community. It just takes a community of people that care and are passionate and enthusiastic about it.
Also, millions of people are using Mastodon. I would call that far from bad.
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It doesn’t has to be “the new reddit”, IMO if it’s like linux I’ll be pleased. I don’t need 4K users daily posting niche memes of wich I can see like the top 20 as most. Also I don’t personally want a place full of stupid comments and agressions, or I’ll be in 4chan, not lemmy.
Lemmy has the potential to be a new platform by iteslf, an alternative for people that want things different, that want more engagement and thoughtful communities that last long and does not need to strangle the last cent out of the users pockets. And for people that does not want a social media platform, but a forum like exprecience.
Also, look at the current wave on big tech platforms, twitter has gone to garbage, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Reddit… I preffer not to depend on this kind of services, I just want to engage with real people in a more mature way, and Lemmy allows me to have the best of all parts without the bad.
That’s me I guess.
yeah I don’t think I could get even my techiest friends to use Lemmy. but I like it, so that’s a start at least
