So I am a big fan of the Fediverse, I love the idea of decentralisation and I believe this is how the future of social media should be. But here starts the problem.
All my friends are using Instagram or TikTok or else. I didnt think of that while I also used Instagram, but I think they are highly addicted. Its not possible for them to not use Instagram for at least 1h when we meet up. When I still used Instagram, I was part of the problem. But now that I left it a couple of months ago, I just realised the problem I used to live in.
Addiction is all about realising you are addicted, but I find it very hard to address the problem. I dont want to harm our friendship over social media and I am afraid that when I tell them about their addiction, they will not agree and find it impolite.
So I believe that social media can only survive if the people use it. Its all about user generated content and while the Fediverse is doing better than ever, it still needs more users ASAP.
How can we achieve getting those people on the Fediverse and, more importantly, hold them here, while they slowly get less addicted to social media and see the potential of the Fediverse.
Thank you for reading and for thinking about possible answers. I wrote the whole text by myself, this is not AI generated.
People have strange and strong brand loyalty for proprietary things. It’s like a culture for them. I have seen it especially on iPhone and Whatsapp. Not only they refuse to use alternatives (Android; RCS/Signal/XMPP etc.). They will think you are a loser if you don’t use them. Or, even worse, will try to convince you to use them and that those are the best and anything else is a shit. I believe it’s the same for social media. So good luck!
We’ve already got this in the Fediverse.
Most Mastodon users are fully convinced that Mastodon is the best, and nothing in existence can beat it in any way possible. They defend their “Mastodon Fediverse” against “inferior, barbaric, culture-less intruders” like Akkoma or Sharkey or Friendica tooth and nail. They absolutely refuse to accept that something, anything in the Fediverse can be better than Mastodon at anything. Of course, when they get people into the Fediverse, they railroad them straight into Mastodon, and they intentionally say nothing about the rest of the Fediverse.
Only those who actually start daily-driving something else than Mastodon realise that there are things in the Fediverse that outclass Msatodon.
People act similarly for stuff like Linux though. Gotta build a cool brand for the Fediverse!
Of course. Mac OS users will tell that you are so poor/stingy to buy an Apple computer, and Windows users to buy a Windows license. I left Windows, Reddit, X and Whatsapp 3 years ago. Switched to GNU/Linux, Lemmy, Mastodon and Signal/XMPP/SimpleX/DeltaChat. Best tech decisions I made. I hope more people will join Free/Federated technology. :-)