Observation: Two types of Fediverse users
I just wanted to share my thoughts with you. I will appreciate hearing what you think.
I've been reading about P92 and fedipact. I have an observation which I think helps understand why our opinions on the matter are so different and hear out the other side. This article had the biggest impacts on these thoughts.
I think there are mainly two types of Fediverse users. To make writing about them easier, I'm gonna use made up terms: Intensivists and Extensivists.
Intensivists are people who came here because they grew tired with the mainstream corporate-controlled media. They embrace Fediverse for it's freedom, openness and privacy. They will see the platform as successful if it stays decentralized.
Extensivists are people, who pay most attention to functionality. They want the platform to grow, spread and will consider it successful if it serves many people well.
These two groups aren't opposite of each other. On the contrary, they mostly share values. I believe neither would stay here very long if the other's expectations weren't met at all. Moreover, I believe most users of both groups dislike Facebook and Meta. The difference between them is their priorities.
For intensivists driven by their strive for privacy, federating with Meta defeates their whole purpose for using Fediverse. For extensivists however it's a more complex issue. They weight the upsides (new users, more content, interoperability) against the risks (privacy, bad moderation, EEE). Those people's opinions will vary.
I dunno, I'm kinda here because Reddit decided to discriminate against people with disabilities, and that pisses me off.
Huh? Privacy doesn‘t seem to be one of the best selling features, is it? Well, yes, you don‘t have to use your real name, but someone posted an article today, that not even private messages here are private.
Yup, same opinion here. If I can add, most intensivist are native denizen of fediverse, they use fedi long ago before elon even think to buy twitter. They takes root here to escape persecution and harrasment when using mainstream socmed. Whereas extensivist is mostly twitter refugees or those who only knows fediverse after elon bought twitter and using twitter to escape bad owners and worsening community. They then attracted to fediverse autonomy and potentials, and want to use fediverse to replace mainstream social media. They want to use fediverse to ensure there are no el*n-buy-twitter-then-kill-the-platform again.
Both are valid motives to use fediverse, but it is contradictary.