I get the “alone” feeling. Even as a non-developer, I do my best to advocate for ethical social networking platforms:
I put a lot of efforts and spent a whole year creating https://quitsocialmedia.club, but the response/interest -even from people closest to me- has been little or absent.
We are just a few, but I feel we are getting closer than ever to a boom of the #Fediverse; I hope and I believe that in a not-so-far future everybody will realize how great #ActivityPub is.
@Davide_Sandini @dansup I already quit, but only mainstream platforms.
@tommi @dansup Was just thinking last night that if #Fediverse users and #FOSS enthusiasts each wrote even one organization or company and asked them to maintain a presence on a Fediverse platform and not just on commercial social media outlets, what would the results be? You'd need enough people writing to make a difference. However, even if just a few organizations started posting to the Fediverse, it would mean more diverse content. Anyone up for contacting groups like archive.org?
@bob @tommi @dansup I was thinking more of organizations and non-profits instead of commercial companies. Why shouldn't they want to reach more people by adding information to other locations online? Organizations like Creative Commons and archive.org could be asked to add a Mastodon feed along with their Twitter feeds. I contacted Action for Happiness to see if they'd consider adding Mastodon as part of their outreach to people.
In my opinion, the only way to actually boost presence and usage on #Fediverse is to write some sort of manifesto which sets a date when all the companies, organizations and individuals that sign it move out of mainstream social media and switch decentralized alternatives, IN MASS.
If this does not become a mass movement (or a revolution), very few entities alone would be willing to give up public and participation in the name of ethics.
@tommi @bob @lmemsm And there's the rub. Why do we want people who don't care about ethics around here? If we are the Free Software movement, then we ought to be aiming for better - not just to copy the pathologies of the BigTech systems.
The fediverse might become bigger over the next few years. Or not. Much depends upon what happens with Facebook and Twitter. In a "business as usual" scenario there will continue to be waves of exodus out of those sites as people either voluntarily leave or the increasing pressure forces them out. But network effect will retain the vast majority.
In the past there have been no statistically large exoduses from BigTech but instead there were particular scandals or Jack would just arbitrarily decide that he didn't approve of a certain demographic and delete their accounts. Some exoduses were a net positive for the fediverse and others were not.
If there were to be a big campaign and 5% of users left Facebook, would the fediverse be able to cope with that? It's not clear to me. There would be chaos for a while, but potentially it might be feasible.
@tommi
Sorry, I missed it, bit it seems to be really interesting, do not quit, please. Let me an evening to read it all.
@dansup