The mastodon and lemmy content I’m seeing feels like 90% of it comes from people who are:
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~30 years old or older
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tech enthusiasts/workers
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linux users
There’s nothing wrong with that particular demographic or anything, but it doesn’t feel like a win to me if the entire fediverse is just one big monoculture.
I wonder what it is that is keeping more diverse users away? Is picking a server/federation too complicated? Or is it that they don’t see any content that they like?
Thoughts?
On Mastodon it’s pretty easy. Download the official app and go through the prompts. They should probably have a little note saying “just go with the defaults if you’re not sure” but this shouldn’t be a road block for any normal person. The fact that Mastodon has a standard migration method makes this a low-impact decision.
Lemmy is definitely harder. “Jerboa” doesn’t sound like an official app, and I don’t think you can even create an account in Jerboa. So the first step is finding an instance on the web with no guidance. That’s bad.
I still haven’t joined Matrix because it’s too hard. People say I shouldn’t use matrix.org for various reasons (like bans without warning) but I can’t find an alternative that seems sensible. All the guides I found are basically “you should really host your own, but if you’re too much of a noob, here are some Polish lolicon-themed servers you can join”. If it were possible to sign up without feeling like I’m doing something wrong, I would have many years ago.