Does it feel like the fediverse is exclusively used by older tech nerds?

“Older” “30 years or more”

HEY

Younger folks have been raised on apps and other polished devices with oodles of effort put into UX design.

Older folks grew up learning DOS commands, memorizing the IRQ of their sound card, and other clunky shenanigans.

In their current state Lemmy, Mastodon and other services are too complicated for most young folks to bother with. Not all, but most, especially the filthy casuals.

My take on this is not that this is the default early adopter demographic (bereal, TikTok, etc…cmon old dudes don’t act like we are “leading the charge”). But, there’s a good chunk of older tech oriented folks that see a glimmer of hope in the fediverse bringing back some bits of the “old web” imo.

While most of the people like me don’t love meta or Twitter it was kinda good enough, but Reddit was kind of a last straw. I was there when all these companies were born and at the time we were all teen and 20-something early adopters (believe it or not even Facebook used to be cool!) and we’ve watched them all slowly degrade. Very young folks prob don’t care as they don’t really use any of these services, but us old nerds want to avoid the pitfalls of the Web 2.0 era.

Web3 and the crypto-decentralization efforts were really ham fisted…I think most experienced techies saw through all the BS and recognized how wildly inefficient it all was, not to mention outright scammy in many cases. Fediverse is unproven but I think it has potential, and I think many of us older techies feel that way.

aka: early tech adopters!

these folk are always the ones trying new things, especially anti-corporate things. They aren't keeping people away. this is just how the bleeding edge of new technology. The communities natural grow out over time as more people show up and start to outnumber them. But it's thanks to them that niche new stuff gets supported in the first place while it builds up it's audience (and reduces the friction to joining)

That's what I'm here for lol. I mean this is how reddit was when I first started there. Same with digg

I'm new here, and new to federated applications (and fit OP's description perfectly). This federated stuff is going to remain niche unless somebody figures out a way to make it approachable.

Reddit first time:

> open app
> choose some things I like
> see all the things

Lemmy first time:

> open app
> ?????
> google how to use it
> choose a... server? 
> ?????

If I wasn't a tech nerd I would have given up on signing up for Mastodon and Lemmy. There is a lot of focus on how instances work and it seems a bit overwhelming. I had a lot of internal, 'what if I make the wrong choice', or 'how can I move if I don't like the community' type questions. So being the nerd I am I researched the crap out of it and overwhelmed myself and said fuck it and just chose the popular instances since I know that I can move at a later date.

I personally think this format is favored by a lot of the demographic you mentioned. Most of us, I am generalizing here, grew up being active members in bulletin board systems. Then Reddit came along basically murdered the BB, but there was a good community to interact with. Now Reddit is basically unusable in my opinion because the community doesn't care about the content or the people behind the screen. That brings us here. We learned so much of our trade, laughed a lot, and made real friendships on these types of system and it is a place a lot of us feel comfortable.

I'm Gen Z, don't use Linux, don't know the first thing about programming (I know how to use file explorer though), and never intend to learn, and I'm here because I don't wanna use the official Reddit app and because I'm convinced that the Fediverse is likely to become big in the future and I wanna be able to say I was here when it all began.

I'm 36. I'm tired of everybody taking my money. I'm tired of corporations. I'm here to get away from that.

That profile is very much the early adopters of any new platform or technology. If you described the early users of the internet as a whole, it would be very similar.

I don't think anything particular is keeping other users away, it's early. We need evangelist, I suspect that most normies don't even know the fediverse exists, let alone are considering using it.

We just need to continue to grow the reach of the fediverse, don't give up if it seems a bit bare and give everyone else a reason to join us

I don't know what you're talking about, I'm just your average Hollywood celebrity here to promote my new movie "Barbie", only in theaters July 21st.

I don't want to stereotype anyone, but in my own social experience, younger groups don't give a shit about corporate monopolies or privacy, they just want things to work fast and automatically (ex: TikTok). And those I know in older brackets are still on Facebook and complaining that they don't want to deal with change because their family/business/workflow would be affected.

I happen to be 38, a linux user, and a gamer. And I concur that my age-group has just always seemed to be more open to new technologies for some reason.

Oh yea. One additional demographic too--super excited young people. It's large.

It's just early-adopter types so far. We're not exactly what I would call a "major service" yet.

30s software engineer / linux user here.

We are exactly who you want as the "primer" user group. We will collectively make sure the whole thing works before the load really rams up.

I think anyone that fits in those 3 categories just tend to be the early adopters. The normies come later. 😁

Is picking a server/federation too complicated?

Yes.

Absolutely.

Literally the single biggest problem with fediverse adoption, brought up in every discussion about migrating to it. It will never replace centralized sites as long as it remains confusing and complicated.

https://www.reddit.com/r/RedditAlternatives/comments/14t9t66/im_so_lost_is_there_an_easy_mode_to_the_fediverse/

https://www.reddit.com/r/LemmyMigration/comments/145epgc/looking_for_a_lemmy_website_try_lemmyworld/

These are the people who make everything work. After they get it all setup and working, the kids will come flooding in, don’t you worry

Old tech nerd here. Is this the meeting spot?

im 15 and other websites just suck lmao

Yes. Reddit was probably the same for years.

I'm called out, although I'm not quite in my 30s yet.

Also... Reddit started out in the same way, mostly as a forum for programmers and nerds

I perfectly fit the described persona.

I think whoever is here now cares about the federation/open source. If you don't care about this why would you be here instead of reddit with more active communities? You need active communities to make people that only care about the content to switch.

Yeah.

It's fuckin' great! 😄

I would say lemmings age are 25 to 45. People in this range are, in my experience, the most technologically educated.
Gen Z is somehow terrible with anything outside basic android/ios.

I wonder what it is that is keeping more diverse users away?

One aspect is that federation is definitely a bit harder to wrap your head around technically.

But I think another large contributor is the fact that culturally, the zoomers never really grew up with things like independent forums. I'm 33 and back in t the day it was very common for me to be signed up to many different forums for my different interests. Over time, I've seen the centralization of those communities, forums shut down and centralized services like Reddit, and lately Discord took their place.
I remember a time when the internet wasn't solely controlled by a handful of organisations, I can see the value in federated systems. But someone who only knows centralized services and walled gardens is likely to fear the wild, or at least won't value it as much.

//edit: Another thing to keep in mind, is that it's just very common for this demographic to be early adopters for tech products and platforms. I remember when Twitter started, and a large part of its early user base was people in their 30s or older who were very into tech, or journalists. The reason I started using Twitter towards the end of the 2000s was because most of the podcast hosts and regular contributors on the TWiT network were using it.
Seems to me that if you want to launch a social media platform, your early adopters are either guys who are into tech and in their 30s and 40s or teenage girls.

Good. I don't want to see some teenagers doing some dumb dance or whatever is on normie platforms.

That always happens when a new platform is born.

Tech/nerds are always the ones moving first because they don't mind the quirks, they're not scared of bugs or instabilities.

They start building up communities until the platform is ready for the rest of the people, it was the same for reddit, tho it happened so many years ago the new people wouldn't even know about it.

Are you asking if new technology is used by nerds? Lmao.

Who were you expecting to be here?

I think so. I think younger users trust official branded apps a lot more so actually see the Reddit app as safer. Despite how easy tech people think lemmy and mastodon are, picking a server just isn't a feature to non-tech people - it's an obstacle to getting started.

The lack of content is a problem, but the lack of community feeling is the actual offputting part. Having bots repost things from Reddit kills the organic feeling of interacting with another user.

I'll probably be flamed but I do think having such a homogeneous userbase is negative. It means you don't get a wide array of experiences and viewpoints. People bang on about echo chambers online, but if you are in a club full of old white guys then you're in one!

I'd like think we can make these platforms as welcoming for everyone of all backgrounds, genders, etc, but there's just some things we can't understand without having those viewpoints being represented.

No wonder I feel at home.

I also fit that description. I find it to be more true of Lemmy than Mastodon, but the same thing was true of Reddit's early userbase. If anything, it was more extreme; the first people to find Reddit were lisp programmers, which is a couple orders of magnitude more nerdy than Linux users.

Lemmy is used by tech nerds right now because that's who the early adopters are for any new tech that doesn't aggressively target mainstream users with a big marketing budget. Much like Reddit did, the way to attract mainstream users here is to grow communities relevant to their interests. If you're reading this and you have interests that aren't tech, you can help. Join or create a community about it, post original content there either exclusively or before anywhere else.

Of course there's some UX work to do on Lemmy itself. That's to be expected with a software version starting with 0. I don't think federation is inherently too hard for mainstream users to understand assuming they've seen email. An onboarding experience that picks a server for them from a list of defaults would probably help - some apps do that, but join-lemmy.org doesn't.

Oh goodie I'm all three. I am the venn diagram. I am the monoculture.

I'm actually a 15 year old, but I still use the fediverse

Federation is complicated enough that under 30s and over 50s haven't caught on much yet.

Be the change...

I don't think that the fediverse is exclusively used by "older tech nerds", but as someone who matches all three points you mentioned... I must say, you're still a good observer. XD

But it's logical. The more experienced tech crowd is the starting point of it. They are the ones not only able to see the flaws of corporate platforms and complain about it, but also with the technical skillset to just say "Fuck this, we make our own.". If you're not into computer stuff, you simply won't be able to create and maintain an alternative. And it also takes at least a little bit of both life- and coding / web / tech experience to get to that point, so the age is also a given, at least for the initiators. Younger folks may like what's happening and be joining in. And Linux runs the web. It dominates the server space, so the people who are working with it might also use it in their private life. Some others simply enjoy their OS and software not being bloated corporate spyware for the advertisement industry. So they are attracted early as well.

Don't worry though. "Older tech nerds" are regular people, too - with other hobbies and preferences, things, pets and people in their life. So the nature of the fediverse is... community. People stuff. And that is fully compatible with other demographics. If they have enough of the likes of Reddit and Meta, they will find a compatible alternative here for their needs. But that doesn't mean the fediverse has to replace those big tech platforms. People have choice, you know. And things can coexist. I'm perfectly fine with the size of Lemmy's community. Reddit refugees are highly welcome, but I don't worry about the user count, as long as there is a reasonable amount of interaction.

Will then, I found my people.

This is literally our lawn

Yes, that's how I know it has legs.

From usenet to reddit, the internet spaces that began by attracting a critical mass of internet/tech experts and enthusiasts are always the ones that end up going the distance.

You don't want to rush this place going mainstream, I promise. Enjoy it while it lasts.

This is just confirmation that I've found my people

It was the same for reddit in the early days

If the people posting on 196 are over 30 years old, then you guys have really stepped up your game.

Yep, that’s definitely me…

I think it’s really more about being an “early adopter” to something rather than following the mainstream. Tech enthusiasts tend to have more patience with minor inconveniences that come along with new technologies.

The average users will show up when their friends start using it and talk about it more. I still have people in my everyday life that don’t understand and don’t use Reddit, no chance they’ve even heard of the fediverse.

I am 46 and started my career in tech but now work in another industry. I think it’s people with inquisitive minds rather than an age demographic. If there is something new and cool to check out in tech and it’s easy enough for busy people to understand I am all over it.

510 comments. I think you hit a nerve 😆

IMO, most likely boils down to a few things:

-Lack of awareness, because the reddit protest was more of a vocal minority than a lot of people realized. For the mainstream crowd, even if people were upset, they didn't care enough to actively search for an alternative. Even if they did, there were instantly a bunch of small team projects trying to bank on striking gold the way Reddit did when digg failed. This meant that support was splintered across multiple platforms and there was no post that even hit the majority of front pages or r/all that said "okay everyone, we're all going to lemmy.world" or any other alternative.

-General confusion around the tech\platform and how it works. While it may seem to tech people that it isn't any worse than any other site, just the concept of "picking a server" is a barrier to entry that makes a mainstream person think "oh I have to do research, maybe I'll do this later." I don't know if this has been fixed yet, but as of a couple weeks ago there was some techy syntax to be able to properly link to content from outside servers properly if you'd viewed it and copied the link via your server.

-Older tech focused people tend to have self selected for caring about technical issues and searching for solutions to the issues they encounter. They tend to want control over their technology, and have it be open source or decentralized. The confusing nature of the fediverse is a lower barrier to entry for them.

-Performance. Performance was fairly poor at the critical moment when the apps got shut off, even if it's improved now.

-User friendly dedicated apps that didn't have a barrier to entry, like a warning that it was "early access" and granted devs special access to user data to help develop the app, were not available.

-Content. Because of all the aforementioned, there's just not the user base and content yet to populate all the communities people want with enough fresh dopamine drip to grab all the mainstream lurkers. If Lemmy continues to grow and attract quality content though, there will eventually be a critical mass, because people usually go to what's the new hip place after the early adopters have paved the way. Once you start getting a sizeable chunk of teenagers here and they start telling their friends "have you heard of Lemmy? It has less of that lame boomer crap" then you'll see mass adoption. Alternatively, if the older tech folks end up just posting things that aren't seen as hip\cool, that moment may not come.

That was once true of reddit. If this is going to be a successful model it will diversify over time

When did 30 become "older"?

Is picking a server/federation too complicated?

Apparently anything beyond filling out a registration form is too complicated for a lot of people. Heck, even that seems to be too much for some people, hence the popularity of login with Facebook or Google features. Personally I'm happy to be away from people who can't figure out simple concepts. But, I'm the exact person you described in your post, so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

There's a poll about the age of Mastodon users currently open... More than **34 000 ** voters until now! The results are interesting: more than 80% of users are 28 years old or more... More than 40% are more than 40 years old.

Is Mastodon the social network for grown up people?

https://mastodon.art/@jsstaedtler/110668308409683502

Tech enthusiasts have always been the early adopters. They're the ones who see the potential for a new platform and migrate to it first. Recall that the internet itself was just a thing for nerds for the longest time.

Somebody has to be first. It isn't going to be people who are only going to follow, it isn't going to be people who are going to leave when they realize that none of their favorite people are on there. Going to be people who have some kind of vested interest in trying this new and interesting thing.

As for the relatively older age, I hate to say it but a lot of kids think that technology is consumption. It's a big problem. In a recent shocking employer survey, employers talking about the lack of tech skills among gen z. This isn't an isolated data point, either. There's a lot of data suggesting that kids are growing up as experts on TikTok and Facebook rather than fundamental skills that would let you go out and do something like run a website.

Op too young to realize who made Reddit popular to begin with.

I have found my people

TL;DR: it's just that the current state of the Fediverse is more attractive for that demographic than for most other people.

NTL;R: It's a damn complex subject but I'll try to simplify it.

Let's pretend for a moment that each user is a perfectly rational agent (they aren't, but it's a useful model). A perfectly rational agent will stay in the platform that offers him the most subjective value. And subjective value is tied to a bazillion of factors, among them:

1. lots of content that the user wants to see, and it's easy to sort it out from things that he doesn't care about.
2. lots of people whom he'd like to interact with, and it's easy to avoid people whom he'd rather would not.
3. liking the interface and experience of the platform itself.
4. the feeling that the platform is reliable, and won't suddenly stop working.
5. agreement with the premises, goals, and values of the platform; etc.

Note that the weight of each of those factors changes from user to user, even among perfectly rational agents. For example, Alice might think "I'm fine with a shitty interface" (low weight for #3), while Bob might think "I can't stand an ugly platform" (high weight for #3).

Now, let's think about the differences between the Fediverse and "corporate media" in those points. For the first four factors, corporate media is clearly at an advantage, due to: network effect, network effect (again), age of the platform, and more money to throw at their user experience. For the fifth one, the Fediverse is at a big advantage, but only for users who care about open source and transparency.

And who cares about those things? Older, tech-savvier users, who are likely to also use Linux. For those, factor #5 weights so much that it compensates the cons of factors #1 to #4. But for the others, factor #5 is non-existent (they do benefit from the open nature of the Fediverse, but they don't weight it because they don't care about it).

That applies to the current state however. The Fediverse is growing, while Twitter and Reddit are enshittifying themselves; so over time there'll be less of a gap on the first four factors, promoting further migration to the Fediverse, even among people outside the demographic that OP narrowed down.

By the way, someone in Mastodon created a poll that confirms your "gut feeling" of most users being 30yo+.

24 y/o artist here :0

Hey I'm a younger tech nerd

I'm a jeweler 🤷🏻‍♀️

Honestly, from all the Gen Z and younger kids I know in my life the big thing that's probably killing the fediverse is it's not a media-first platform.

Not a one of them really participates in text-primary social media, which is what Lemmy definitely is.

Mastodon supports it better, but there's so much gatekeeping around the "right way" to share media content that the few people I know that tried to use it just bounced off it because they couldn't figure out the technical and social aspects of how to interact, because it's just piles of conflicting opinions.

They will, however, spend an insane amount of time on TikTok or Youtube or Twitch or Instagram or Snapchat endlessly watching whatever comes up and scrolling along to the next thing or sending pictures/videos of whatever they're doing at that moment to their friends.

Picking a server/federation is too complicated. Don't need to look elsewhere. For most people, a federation is a kind of country.

More importantly, there's not an easy way to get into this. You first need to learn what lemmy is, how it works (because nerds can't simply tell how you can do it, they need you to understand how it works first), and then where and how to register.

What's lemmy is done ok: it's reddit, but better.

How it works? People don't care. Most of you don't know quantum mechanics, yet that's what allows the cpu and gpu to work. You know how to plug it in a computer (maybe), and you know that hitting the power button starts the computer. That's what people need to know for lemmy. I'm not sure there's really an entry point for normal people with an adapted tutorial.

Which lead to this point: honestly, lemmy is not ready for most people. Accessibility just isn't there yet. It's not so much that it's hard to do any of the actions required. It's more that it is a jungle. You first need to choose a federation. And for that you need to understand what it is, because people who run lemmy servers won't tell to go on a default server. This is the first problem. People need a way to know where to go to get an account. They also need an app for most, which is not completely obvious.

I don't mean that things are badly made, just that the resources to enter lemmy are targeting a specific audience still.

That all it would take: an easily accessible place where it tells you to go on any lemmy webpage on the list, register, and how to get started with the feeds. What is there is close, but not yet good enough.

To answer your question, for the non-tech-savvy having to pick a server is, yes, too much of a leap. We are conditioned in the industrialized capitalist world against making decisions we don't understand.

If we want to market it, we could make a wizard that randomly designates a server from a set of cooperating servers. Include also reminders that a user can join multiple servers and each one has separate rules (say, regarding posting NSFW material even to appropriate communities.)

I just talked to a Redditor who was entirely unfamiliar with the recent changes at Reddit.

I've seen and even tried to run a few polls on age (mostly on mastodon and microblogs).

The age demographic of the fediverse definitely leans as you think ... on average ... Xennial tech/academia/nerd oriented. Not too sure linux users are too dominant though.

As for more diverse users? This isn't mainstream (yet?). There's a lot of inertia around the big-social era. It lasted for a long time relative to the history of the internet, ~2008-2022, ~14 years, which is nearly as long as the internet had been around for before then. So many are stuck in their ways and stuck on the idea that there's only one or two places to be online and they're on one of them, the "right place". I saw someone on twitter just yesterday say that they'll stay on twitter until it goes down and then never go anywhere else because they don't want to bother with another social media platform.

It seems that the idea of a monopolised internet is breaking apart and fracturing now, which is a good thing, but not completely good across the board. Where for instance should emergency information be broadcast? Previously I would have checked twitter before mastodon without blinking. Now, Lemmy might actually be pretty good for this (only realising this now as I write). So there's also a dimension of kinda believing in the big/monopolised social media. This is likely more prevalent amongst younger people, from whom, for example, I've heard ideas like that decentralisation is some weird tech-libertarian ideology and that the "town square" is actually a good thing and something that should be committed to. As far as anyone that has any commercial interest in their social media profile like businesses (both small and big!) or journalists, not being the town square, and the lack of apparent "engagement" and "virality" on the fediverse is definitely a turn off. And of course having those types on a platform naturally attracts others. All of which is not to mention that the decentralisation thing is something your average person just doesn't have the time or patience for and the insistence of some of the people on the fediverse that you should learn about it and that it isn't hard are off-putting to some.

In the end, we've reached a bit of an impasse it seems, where we've culturally outgrown the idea of an important service like our online existence being at the mercy of private corporate whims, but don't have a clear way out. Accepting that the internet is diverse and not monopolised may just take some time.

Where the fediverse comes in is that it gives you both a fractured and diverse social media space but also the ability to connect anything to anything with a standardised protocol. It's a powerful idea, just like that of the internet itself, and whether it's activity pub or some other standardised protocol, I hope it makes it.

I'm in my early 20s :(

I do want to try switching to linux though

OK, 3/3, but I should get points for only running Linux on WSL and Steam Deck. I'm not a nerd.

Edit: and my two android phones and my router.

That’s just how the internet works. Early adopters are those willing to try something unfamiliar.

Gen Z is really bad at technology, and I don't know how long it will take them to get good.

I feel the two big reasons are:

1. The average user of a site like Reddit probably hasn't noticed any significant changes; or if they have, they just don't see them as a problem. So they don't have any significant incentive to emigrate to another site. On the other hand, people who are tech-savvy notice the changes; and decide they need to move.

2. To a lot of people, the Fediverse is just not as convenient as centralized sites. People who are more tech-savvy and/or use Linux, are willing to put up with a bit of inconvenience in exchange for using a site they see as better.

It's also worth keeping in mind that right now, the Fediverse is still in its early days. Every site in its early days generally has a broadly similar userbase- people who are familiar with technology and willing to put up with some inconvenience because they see the potential.

You forgot: uses dark mode.

As long as it has enough shitpost it will attract young people. We need to shitpost more.

The simple existence of different instances will be enough to scare away casual users.

I'm not entirely sad about this.

I also fit the description. I wonder if I see the internet differently having grown up pre Web 2.0. With tech corporations cracking down on user freedoms, I can't imagine jumping ship, say from Twitter to Meta, and expecting to be treated any differently.

As a nerd, I'll use a platform that works the way I want, even before the content is there. Hopefully as the amount of content grows it gets more diverse and normies will take interest.

Reddit was where we were when we were younger tech nerds, so...yeah man.

I mean, if you started a social media club and there was a dearth of over-30s tech people, that would be a pretty telling thing wouldn't it?

The whole if you see a bomb technician running, you better run thing.

Hit the mark on all 3. 🤷‍♂️ But in fairness the early days of Reddit was pretty similar.

Phase 1: Collect enthusiasts

Phase 2: ?

Phase 3: Profit

Reddit has tried lots of things in Phase 2, including borrowing many techniques from Facebook, but they're still fundamentally there.

As for the ages here, the people most likely to migrate are the long term Reddit users that have had an account using third party apps since 2010 or so (because younger people have only ever known the official app). That self selects for anyone that was old enough to use Reddit in 2010 back when the user base was mostly high school / college / recent college grads. Someone in their late teens / early 20s back then will be in their 30s now.

"Exclusively?" No. But obviously its initial appeal was to the more tech-savvy and FOSS-centric sort, and it's byzantine enough to jump in that it dissuades many newcomers who try.

But ActivityPub does seem to look like it will pull in larger services (like Threads) so in the end "protocols over platforms" may win out by default, sorts like WebKit/Blink/Chromium has. Not everyone gonna use Brave or Opera, but the mass of Chrome users will still feed back in some fashion.

I just joined and I suspect that you're correct: there's an overall learning curve. No snarky tone intended, but explaining decentralization to those who would likely struggle with grasping the basic client/server model is going to be challenge.

Shoot, I've got 10 years pentesting and R&D under my belt and it took me a while to weigh the pros and cons of creating an account on a public instance or self-hosting. (Will self-host eventually...enjoying a test drive.)

21 yo software dev here, so not quite older, but I'd say I fit the tech nerd bill lmao

While a lot of people are conscious about the software they use, I think being involved in tech, either as a hobby or career, ups the chance that a person will care about things like user privacy, how an app is run, algorithms that might manipulate the user, or even how technologically literate the rest of the community is

And that isn't to be condescending towards people who are more apathetic about it. It's like how a doctor might be more behooved to eat healthy; when you've seen and studied what can go wrong, you're more compelled to avoid it

We're the generation that used forums all over the internet, Digg, and then reddit before it was cool. Now that reddit is going nuclear, we're all looking for our new home because we yearn for the internet we all grew up with as it slowly erodes away thanks to millionaires/billionaires ruining all that is good to make a buck.

I'm 3 for 3.

4 for 4 of you separate item 2.

FB was only for college kids, now it's for your grandparents.

Absolutely tick those boxes. And it makes perfect sense.

Before seeing this post, I didn't see a reason to make an account instead of just lurking, but now I made an account because I feel more special.

If this was your plan all along, you have my utmost respect.

Uhm I’m a Mac user sweaty. But yeah the rest applies lol

Age 16 here. I'm getting old, eh?

Well... damn. I'm mid-30's; Tech is (definitely) kind of a hobby of mine; and I use Linux for learning, experimenting, and... uhh, tech hobby stuff lol. I can solder a little, and sometimes it actually works!

Maybe it's because that cohort is the fastest to adopt. We grew up with a rapidly changing internet, we're kinda used to navigating the glitches/unfamiliarity, and it's just more familiar (to us) in a "back-to-basics" way. I feel like I've entered a nostalgic "place" that has become better since I last visited.

With Memmy for ios going full-live, the multitude of 3rd party apps at full throttle, and Facebook ready with "Threads" - this just seems like the first wave of what could be a hell of a storm. The content will increase and diversify, that's inevitable now.

The question is: do people want to be responsible for maintaining a user-controlled platform? Or would they prefer an operator help to connect us? We'll see, but I guarantee there will be some fresh af memes coming through here in the mean time, so no worries

Hell, while you're here... throw some of those old ass memes (or almost any pic you've got saved on your phone) onto !196@lemmy.blahaj.zone

Be the change you want to see and shit

Or don't, it's not like anyone can really judge you when you're anonymous... but you'll know. Months from now, when you're lying in bed, unable to sleep because you were complicit in the apathy; you'll wonder if it could have been different. You'll try to bury the intrusive thoughts and "what ifs", but you'll always wonder...

"Could it have actually worked? Might we have taken claim to a piece of independence in the future of world communications?!"

... and the thought slips away, as you mainline another 40 min of memes directly into you're neurotransmitter reservoir, for sustenance and maintenence

As a 49 year old IT worker I think you guessed well lol.

I don't think there's much keeping users outside that demographic away, more so that the fediverse is a tech solution to the reddit problem, so naturally the people that flock to lemmy are the type of person that looks for tech solutions to the problems they experience in daily life.

My mother just had her illegal IPTV streaming box stop working recently, was her solution to find an alternative? No, she simply stopped watching her shows and did other things instead, and complained about it. And that's with full denial of service, not just limited/compromised service like reddit users currently experience.

It wasn't until her tech-savvy nerd son set up another IPTV box for her that she was able to resume consuming the content she wanted to, and similarly lemmy won't really take off until it reaches a critical mass where enough tech-savvy nerds have shown regular people Lemmy as the tech solution to the problem they're facing. What's holding up progress with that at the moment is that the reddit problem for most people isn't significant enough for a regular person to be in a position to do anything about it, even if they are directly inconvenienced.

Fucking zoomers with their tiktoks and snapchats, what was so wrong with old school forums?

It feels very much the same type of people who were mostly hanging around the early Internet; BBS and IRC, etc. before "the general population" caught on and flooded the space.

I mostly fit that description. While I understand what you're saying, we all have other interests on top of this. That's what makes it diverse.

Personally, I feel like a more mature audience is needed. I have never liked the feel of places like Facebook, tiktok, etc. Let me have one place where I can pretend the world isn't overrun with stupidity. There is actual conversation on topics to be had, and people aren't jerks to others for no reason.

The fediverse is somewhat complicated to understand. Maybe like usenet or other such places.

30 is just a baby. My son is 30. Im late 50’s.

I think older techies are just sick of all the bullshit regarding corporate aocial/web etc. A lot of us went to linux to escape windows hell for same reasons. Tech is abused to unfathomable levels so we do what we can to limit it.

I dont think 30 is that old

Probably because tech enthusiasts are the only ones that care about their privacy so they use open source alternative before anyone else

As a 30+ Linux using IT guy I feel offended lol

I think more average users have just never heard about lemmy. At least it's like that for most people in my social circle.

• I'm under 30
• I use my PC for 3D render art as a hobby but otherwise I'm not a tech enthusiast
• I don't use Linux.

With that said, early adopters are often tech enthusiasts. As the user base grows, so will the content and diversify itself.

Hey, I'm not old!

Shit, wait, yes I am.

I'm 20, am I old yet?

So exactly what Digg and Reddit where to begin with. The tech people are first and then everyone else comes over. Only this time I think the everyone else are staying on Reddit.

I think the federation system is quite a barricade for some people. I recently changed over to Lemmy from Reddit, and it was quite challenging to first understand how it worked. Also I am not sure that I even now understand how this works fully.

Also the smaller community on Lemmy might be a turn-off for some people.

I am younger than 25, but I’m a Sys-Admin.

However my mother also uses the Fediverse and has nearly to none technical knowledge.

Also my cousin who’s 15 uses it. And some friends of mine who are between 18 to 26 use it without being what you typically would call a nerd.

So I think for the majority it applies but there are also people here not fitting in this sector.

Yup. That's me.

That's why it's less toxic? No teens?

I'm a younger tech nerd, but I do use linux.

I just passed into the 30 and older crowd yesterday, and created an account a few days before. Thanks... :(

I was like “NO!” And then I remembered that I’m 25 now so…. Kinda :/

Just so we are clear.. Reddit was the same, likely before your time. But sites like Digg and Reddit were for nerds but over time it brought in other 'communities' in a forum type style. Build it and they will come. (also you're likely too old for that reference too, but its all good) I like the less 'normy' experience.

Generalization of course, but the younger generation isn't always as tech savvy as one might assume, and I'd imagine they prefer the easy "sign in and scroll" apps

Millennial checking in. Not a Linux user, not a programmer, occasionally plays Minecraft

This is a constant cycle.

Tech nerds invent new technology/platform>nerds flock to new thing>the masses hear about it and start flooding it>money notices a large user base that isn't being complete wrung out for money>money destroys the new thing by making it unusable for profit>repeat

I would say picking a server. Regular users shouldn't be bothered with that. I wouldn't say multiple server choice is a bad thing, it's actually great thing, but regular users shouldn't be bothered with that. Maybe hide server selection behind advanced section or something like that, so regular users aren't bothered with that, but more tech savy users can still find that option if they would like to. And default option for server can be lemmy.world for example (or any other server). If using lemmy is too dificult for regular users and learning curve is too big, they will not bother with that and they will just leave. I am using Connect for Lemmy now and I think lemmy.world is selected by default. I am just using it and I was never bothered with concept of multiple servers, and I really like that I don't have to worry about that.

Hey, I'm still in my 20s... for another 3 weeks. Also, Software Engineer for over 10 years...

For me, I really miss the old school internet forms where it was all just people nerding out about the same stuff and providing useful information because they cared about the interest and the community.

Reddit used to be like that but now it's like any other social media platform.

Everything is becoming algorithm driven endless scrolling packed with ads and promoted content with very little focus on the community and actual information. It is just an app you use when you want to turn off your brain.

I'm brand new to lemmy and stuff like it but I'm hoping to find something closer to the classic internet. Not sure if that's what I'll find here but reddit sure isn't that any more, and hasn't been for a while

I thought Lemmy didn't collect info about me 🧐

Yes, but that's pretty much the early adopter demographic across all tech. I would love for people to realize this and start talking about their other hobbies, not just how they run Lemmy on a toaster and are so radical.

I'm 24 and while I do use Linux, I'm nowhere close to an expert user, so idk what to tell you man, other than fuck spez and fuck Reddit I guess.

After chatting to a few gen z, if I was to assume a characteristic of this generation, it's that most seem to have completely given up, or not even started, the fight against the deterioration of online privacy, exposure to ads, and companies "rights" and/or ability to harvest personal data from them no matter what they want. It's just part of life to them.

It's just accepted, and whenever I've raised the issue with them, they'll generally just reply with defeatist/pessimist/'pragmatic': "well, the alternative X, y and z apps/websites you've suggested likely all have hardware backdoors forcibly installed anyway"

So I think the willingness to fight, and picture a different way of having things, really is focused on those within millennial and gen-x age bands.

Edit: the point being, gen z therefore appear less likely to move away from existing structures, like Snapchat and Reddit, over increased ad promulgation, personal data harvesting, or bad company behaviour.

I'm 19 if that works for you, just following wherever people go.

I left Reddit because I like browsing on my phone while pooping. They took that away from me.

If YouTube forces me to remove AdBlock, I'll leave that too. And if Windows 11 forces me to create a Microsoft account then I'm moving to Linux.

But yes I'm 39, I run a tech repair shop, but I'm not on Linux... Yet.

That's how reddit used to be before Digg shit the bed.

I am none of those things and I didn't think it was too complicated, I just had no idea it existed until I joined r/redditalternatives.

I love the old internet feel. Once I saw the fesiverse 'map' it made perfect sense.

The thing I'm struggling with the most is being able to subscribe to communities on some instances with this account but not all instances. And being able to add some instances to an app (liftoff, tusk) but not all. That's the most frustrating for me right now.

Cool. I'm all three. 😏

To be fair, the most diversity I'm seeing in an userbase right now is the one on tiktok. That's definitely a plus, but at what cost? There are trade-offs in every platform.

am teenager

I use arch btw

Yes, that's why it is so good.

I guess we are the ones remembering how it was 15+ years ago

I wonder what it is that is keeping more diverse users away?

The more diverse users are the ones that aren't realistically worried about their online privacy and are too used and comfortable with what the big names offer. They're more likely to be the ones that would only move once "everyone they know" moves.

Also, consider that the "advertising", the message and reason for joining the fediverse, It's like [Twitter/Reddit/Instagram] when they were good, minus the corporate meddling and greed and algorithmic shit shoveling!, only really catches the attention of a few types of people.

Average Joe and Jane won't move out, "there's nobody there (that they care about)". Internet famous Joes and Janes won't move either, because they will lose a significant portion of followers.

People are willing to put up with A LOT of shit to avoid moving out of places like Instagram, Twitter, Reddit or Tiktok, since the time spent there makes them feel like it's a place where they belong to.

Lemmy is still in a niche stage. Perhaps needs more exposure to attain more groups of people. Not sure how you came across those stats but I'm glad that I'm surrounded by matured community of human beings.

from my own experience, that's definitely the case for Mastodon, except people are 40 and up.

1. Yes, in my late 30s.
2. I was a computer scientist, but now I have done a complete 180. But I'm still a nerd at heart.
3. Yup, I'm a Linux user.

But we have to understand that Lemmy/Kbin are still babies, they've just started. And I really believe that it will continue to grow and get better at accommodating users who are not tech nerds. But it will be an organic process.

The more Reddit gets worse (no more moderation bots, no good moderation tools from Reddit, etc.), the more people will migrate to Lemmy/Kbin. This migration will force the community to adapt and make it easier and easier for users to integrate.

Just turned 18. Work in tech, but not a Linux user (yet). Non of my friends used Reddit in the first place, so for sure non are on lemmy

Picking a server is complicated... And I still don't get how to get content from other servers into my main feed.

But the other thing is monitization. If you build up a decent filling on TikTock for example, they pay you. My kids friends are all chasing that.

I mean, I'm 32, my husband is a software dev, and I've been curious about Linux, but not enough to make the move. 😅 So, one of of three.

But I agree with the others. It's probably partly due to the signup. I also think that the techy prime are the ones who understand what happened with Reddit better and are more likely to care.

What you calling me out like this for?

Reddit began in a similar fashion, so its a positive trait for sure

we are the kind to early adopt new stuff

Hah, I fit the description perfectly. Not too sure how to take that. ☹️

You just described the demographics of the average early tech adopter.

Old enough to understand the importance of privacy and to care about the federation aspect of the fediverse, tech savvy and nerdy enough to not be discouraged by an unfamiliar interface and still developing environment. And apparently we like Linux too.

"You must be new here"

We're always the first adopters.

Fit the first one. Not the other two 😂

I'm normier than the listed demographics and find the Fediverse and it's associated jargon to be inline with 4 dimensional crochet in terms of ease of use

I fit the profile

Probably so. But then why are Android and Android Apps struggling for engagement? But more randoms, casuals, just a wider overall demographic will be needed for niche communities to become viable.

The communities I mainly communicated in on Reddit either don't exist, or have paltry engagement here.

This is why I am keeping my Reddit account active to make posts in these forums to invite others over here to build engagement.

Working aged zoomer here, it's amazing how much my generation doesn't know about computers in some aspects and how much they know in others. It seems I was born in a sweet spot when things still difficult but not completely dumbed down.

Bah, I'm three raccoons in an overcoat.
Who.. have a steady IT job.. dang it.

23 year old electrician here. I'm pretty interested in dectralized tech. My first was Bitcoin

This is also me: I'm a 39 year old Ubuntu user who has been excited about the Internet since the day I first learned what a modem does, in maybe like, 1990?

So far I think Lemmy's a bit too technical for regular people to get started with the Fediverse and to figure out how to find the right communities to join in order to have content show up in their feed comparable to what they're already getting at a commercial service, which takes no effort at all to continue to scroll. Why would a normal person want to use alpha release software? We're still in the early days, we're the early adopters.

Gosh I feel like this guy called me out.

But then I saw the user name.

Hmmm.....

I think that's probably accurate, but it needs context. When I discovered reddit, I was a teenager and I just lurked for a long time. At the time, the typical redditor was closer to 30 years old and a tech worker. I was a lurker because I didn't yet understand how to write a thoughtful, worthwhile comment. So there might be some lurkers right now because of that.

All kinds of people gravitate towards conversation, but older users will be more comfortable engaging in conversations at first. Reddit is not a good place to converse right now. We just need to focus on building community and encouraging conversations.

Branding is also another factor that comes into play here. Most regular users are used to having a more polished app. Simplicity is the driving force behind apps like tiktok and Instagram. They build on top of each other rather than reinventing the wheel. So it's just a transfer of skills and patterns. With the fediverse, regular users have relearn those patterns and skills, which most people just aren't going to do.

One way to solve this problem is to just abstract the idea of the fediverse. Rather than saying "join the fediverse, we're decentralised" we could say "we're a multiverse of internet communities".

I also dont think regular users care about whether a post is from another server or not. This can be abstracted as well by only showing the community not the server. What I'm trying to say is, even though the fediverse is a decentralised network, we need to treat is as a centralized one.

Definitely the server federation thing is overwhelming. I don't even know what that is. I was told Lemmy.world is the alternative Reddit.

I spent most of my time on Reddit in the learn programming subs, so I'm glad at least that demographic has moved here. I'm almost 34, don't work in tech but want to, don't use Linux but want to (and if the rumors of windows adding ads to the OS are true I will switch to Linux full time except for gaming). I wasn't really that invested in the reddit API changes but I liked reddit when it was more under ground and wild west. I used to spend a lot of time on rcsources (those days are behind me regardless, though). So I wanted to see if there was still room on the internet for the outlaw tech cowboy shtick, and Lemmy stepped up to the plate.

2* y.o. Linux user & sysadmin/sre/devops/younameit checking in.

I am still gonna use reddit for porn only, using patched Reddit app (by Revanced manager). 😂

I don't use Linux, but other than that...

I’m 36 but a tech potato.

I can build a computer and do basic troubleshooting. That’s about it.

Yes. I have yet to run across 💀💀💀 or 🔥🔥🔥 in any reply thread as well as popular slang. Also AITA posts with some of the worst advice known to humankind. Thank god it’s over!

Reddit evolved into in something unrecognizable over the last 5 years as it’s popularity exploded.

It's funny if so - I was so old on Reddit. But this means I'm old enough to remember Usenet so this platform is comfortable for me.

I don't think it was difficult at all to sign up though, doesn't seem like a barrier to entry.

Get off my lawn.

I'm a 20 year old. I may be the only one in this thread unable to drink legally lol

If 'getting in' would be more mass compatible we would have a more realistic view about society. That would bei great but the society is of douchebags and this is what mass social media is suffering from in my mind.

24 yr old tech worker / Linux user checking in! I'm not old yet but I've got the spirit!

I am around 20 and use lemmy, but I agree my friends need instagram

I feel it's complicated for the non-tech users but interestingly I have started to see some folks coming to Lemmy because I (a tech friend) started using it and advertising to them. I think it's these early adopters who play a major role in bringing the non-tech folks and people from other diverse culture.

Right now, the fediverse is not very user-friendly for non-tech people.

I mean, there's instances de-federating from each other, weird federation sync anomalies still going on between instances, users have to create and maintain multiple user accounts on multiple instances if those instances have defederated each other, even the 'official' jerboa app for lemmy shits itself if you try and connect in to an instance that's one sub-dot version lower than what it was built for - plus it crashes on 1/3 of my android devices, some of the best lemmy apps have been removed from app stores due to non-compliance with app store terms and have to be installed manually from github. It's all still very DIY right now instead of plug-and-play....and if lemmy is to appeal to anyone other than tech nerds, it needs to become much more user friendly and much more plug-and-play.

I tried explaining it all to my wife (who is still a Reddit user) and she argues that lemmy on fediverse sounds way too complicated...and she's not wrong.

I kind of fit the description so I certainly can't argue with you.

I think a big part of the reason you're so spot on is because of the timing. Painting with broad strokes here, but the group you mentioned is kind of the group you need for something like Lemmy to be built in the first place. And I fully appreciate Lemmy had been around for awhile now, but let's be honest, it's only recently become 'popular' thanks to u/spez.

I hope the username will expand as more people find out about Lemmy. I think with that will come feature changes (more likle9in the form of third party apps) as a more diverse group of people start using Lemmy.

The Reddit migration was probably mostly people who know what an API is so that fits your demographic.

Also, people generally don’t take a stance on something unless it affects them personally. So API, privacy, data collection etc just doesn’t register.

This is why I’m single as a 24 year old woman.

There are a many people over the age of 30 on Reddit as under. People like us make up 50% of reddit users.

Maybe I'm am outlier but I'm 21 and here.

I think that might be because most people who go through the hurdles of setting up an account and figuring out the entire frediverse are people who are much more interested in the tech and it's applications rather than your average social media consumer who can just get all they want in a single location with a easy to understand concept

This is me 46 *nix user, nerd

I'm 3 out of 3. Sorry I don't have a good answer for you.

My unfounded guess is that this demographic has seen the internet at it's beginings and is more willing to put up with the lack of bling and willing to discover/ build things from the ground up, just like the Forums of the Old in the mythological era were done. No corporations, no low effort rewards, no likes/ karma/ whatever. You have to actually get involved for lemmy to live.

Am I too young? My age is 19-22. Oh now I think about it, there is no teenagers community. I feel old for being here.

As for tech enthusiast, maybe. I'm always impressed with open source software, but I don't understand coding.

Linux user? Well I played around with Ubuntu, Linux Mint, and Tails, but at the end of the day, I still switched back to Windows just because how much they've dominated the world. It's hard to find programs for linux, especially games. Wine doesn't always work, Virtual Machine is just too much of performance degregation. Maybe Linux isn't meant for me.

What's keeping young people away is kids these days just like to use things that are already popular. iPhones, Nikes, Instagram, TikTok, Youtube. None of my classmates from high school know what Linux is, know about the Snowden leaks, think iPhones are the best because everyone else is using them (I'll admit, I fell victim to peer pressure and got an iPhone, but now I switched back to a Galaxy so I can install apps without a corporation approving it, and I gave the phone to family.), wants 200 dollar shoes, constantly on mainstream social media in class, disrespect teachers even the nice ones. I mean kids these days just don't care, they want to have fun with minimal effort, they aren't gonna spend 5 minutes to try to understand the fediverse.

The Fediverse is the Linux of the social media world. Normal people don't know it exists, but it will shape the inner workings of the platform(s) that will be popular in the future.

My take today after observing for some weeks, is that Lemmy fills all MY needs. Reddit will probably not die. Threads seems to be a hit.

I just don’t care enough. Yeah, I wish everyone stopped using Reddit and Meta apps, but Lemmy is certainly not ready for 500 million new users right now anyway, and if they were, moderation would just be hell again.

I haven’t used Reddit since Apollo shut down unless it’s the only place still I can get in touch with some business, and I’ve blocked Threads on my network and devices.

I’m very happy with this. It would be nice if some cool, open source, free, tolerant and loving network would pop up to save 14-18 year olds and our next generation from manipulative commercial SoMe, but honestly Lemmy would probably never be that.

My only concern currently is that lemmy.world want to allow Threads for the time being while I see absolutely nothing to be gained from that.

Older than 30 nope, tech enthusiast yes, Linux user sort of, because my self-hosting servers run Linux but my personal daily driver is Windows. Windows native art programs have a lot of responsiveness problems and other random issues when running on Linux, and it's annoying to have to boot up a separate OS to use specific programs.

Taking the extremely tech-unsavvy fanartist community as a reference, it's not that federation and choosing a server is that difficult, that's just a lame excuse. Their usual social media platforms do UI redesigns, A/B testing and introduce weird limitations all the time. They just learn to cope with it.

People who don't care about tech don't think about the websites they use at all. In their minds, websites are just omnipresent things that exist naturally, like the sun. They only care about whether the website is able to connect them to their friends and showcase their posts to other people. They will only pay attention to the website if it introduces a change that affects their daily usage of it negatively, just like how people don't consciously think about the sun unless it inconveniences them.

No man, I'm 20 and I'm using this site

Did you see the linux memes comments? It's full of windows users who are infuriating me.

Its the BBS era come again.