Notices by Luigi de Guzman (ouij@tambayan.us)

@o76923 @feditips @youronlyone a good idea and a good experience are not the same thing.

Again: nobody ever got started posting on a network because they were intrigued by its structure.

@youronlyone @o76923 @feditips the upsides are diffuse and not relevant to what I want to do. The downside is discrete.

White cat, black cat—what’s the difference, so long as it catches mice

@feditips @o76923 @youronlyone so once again: the system is Good because the user experience is Not Good.

I am utterly indifferent to centralization or decentralization. If there is a better way to find things/people I can read, I’ll do that.

@o76923 @youronlyone @feditips so, see here.

https://qoto.org/@volkris/110816915773094018

This is a helpful explanation about why my feed seems so dead, and I appreciate it. But to me it boils down to: your instance is too small, and your frustrations are by design!

That’s a benign message, but to a normie the takeaway is: you are being frustrated so the system is working as designed

@youronlyone @o76923 @feditips so if the problem is “I have a hard time finding anything worth reading,” in a lot of cases the replies I get start sounding like “yeah and that’s a FEATURE.” I mean sure, maybe that keeps bad guys from taking over the network. But a poison pill isn’t much use if what you’re looking for is an apple to snack on.

@youronlyone @o76923 @feditips I wasn’t asking for centralization.

I observed that I have certain frustrations with the platform, and the advice I keep getting from other users boils down to “your instance is too small, join a bigger one.”

If that’s what solves my frustrations, then the biggest instance always wins.

@youronlyone @o76923 @feditips non-technical users do not care about the structure of a network. They care about the messages they can send and receive on it. And if those users have a hard time finding the things they want, they will not wait around to learn the intricacies of the network. They will just go idle or leave.

@youronlyone @o76923 @feditips the vibe I get from a lot of advocates then shifts to “well good riddance we don’t need them.”

The small size and insularity of this user base relative to the larger non-technical population makes that kind of hostility more likely.

@feditips @youronlyone also there’s an enormous tension between the user base’s self-image (an infinitely inclusive decentralized space) and the reaction a lot of honestly perplexed new users face (if you don’t like it/don’t get it GTFO).

@feditips @youronlyone again, I’m here incidentally. The network exists and I figured I’d give it a shot. That is usually how these sorts of networks grow.

I am currently struggling to find things to follow. I appreciate the hard work you’ve been putting in to make that easier. But it’s not work most casual users will probably want to put in. And that’s going to affect who gets on and stays on the network.

@youronlyone @feditips counterpoint: what I can see is pretty limited, and seeing anything else is difficult by design. Normies do not care about how hard it is for the system to be taken over. The barrier to entry is presently too high to attract the non-enthusiasts that actually say interesting/funny stuff.

Community seems to be mostly people already invested in #fediverse rather than people who are only incidentally using the fediverse to create. Big difference

@youronlyone @feditips I’ve groused about this recently and the response I’ve gotten back is “change to a larger instance then.” So if that’s the solution, the largest instance will always win. Yay?