Fediverse

40-ish M. Potentially, we’re/they’re more likely to have been using 3rd party apps and felt frustration with the Reddit decision in the first place. Younger users (and maybe older, 50-60+) maybe just started off with the official Reddit app or Reddit is a smaller part of their “content diet” vs other platforms, so they don’t really see what the big deal is.

If true, it’d be kind of an interesting demographic shift, since the last time we probably saw something like that was with Facebook when younger people moved away from it when it became boomer territory, so maybe the opposite is happening with Reddit, with middle/older more tech-savvy users jumping ship, but I’ve no real evidence.

This is the big downside to the Reddit implosion. I liked that Reddit had finally attracted normal people. If I want to know what a 30 year old dweeby white guy thinks about stuff, I’ll ask myself.

It takes a while for stuff like this to catch on outside of this specific demographic.

People who don’t care as much about tech aren’t going to bother to figure out the fediverse right now. It’s way too confusing, but Instagram/twitter/threads/reddit is right there.

Once a few apps get going on iOS and Android, and once it becomes way easier to join a server, then we’ll see normal people start trickling in.

When did 30 become "older"?

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

✅ ✅ ✅ - that's me :P

I had been on Lemmy before, but since there was much more activity on Reddit I didn't stick with it. Now that more communities are flourishing on the fediverse early adopters are jumping on, and if ethe growth is stable and communities have activity (not just subscribers or visitors) to rival other spaces, I think diversity will grow. It only takes a relatively small number of active users to create a strong community

More demographics will come, it takes time. That and people who are willing to break from the habits of flocking to the next big corporation built social media network for something smaller, but more meaningful.

Let's be honest here - Lemmy today is a very broken experience. I can't recommend it to my partner because she will complain non stop that this not working, that is laggy, etc. It's all fun for enthusiasts, but it's nothing more than a very broken alpha preview of what could be made in few years.

There's also a lack of content. Can you get a professional skincare advice on Lemmy? No. Can you talk to Bill Gates on Lemmy? No. Is there a Chinese Cooking Demistified community on Lemmy? No. It's just Linux, Fediverse, cats and porn.

And then there's a question of money. For Lemmy to go mainstream it needs to spend millions on promotion, ads, development, customer support, lawyers, etc. You can build great thing on enthusiasm, but they will remain a niche. If you want to reach the masses, you need a lot of capital. You can see that clearly with Facebook's Twitter clone - tens of millions sign ups in 24 days. Can't do that without spending tens of millions.

Doesn't bother me

you ever feel like tech people embrace new technology first?

you're not wrong, and it's something that needs to be acknowledged, but I can't think of a single innovation on the internet that wasn't dominated by older (when you demarcate 30 as "older") tech people before coming to popularity among the general public

Avoiding corporate software companies and abandoning established communities on principle isn't something your average person does. Also, wrapping your head around the Fediverse, even if the sign-up process is as simple as other platforms, can be an obstacle for most people.

Yeah I'm one of the 90% here, except for the Linux part, FreeBSD man. No problem with that and it would fine with me if it doesn't change. Talking to my peeps here.

Yes, I'm one too. That's why I am here. The channels are generally relevant to me, and I can communicate with people, and not disappear in the mob, or deal constantly with low effort smart ass comments, trolls and bots.

What is it that you want to win? http://web.archive.org/web/20230707004346/https://ploum.net/2023-07-06-stop-trying-to-make-social-networks-succeed.html

I think it is something along those lines, the early adopters are quite fed up with Reddit and have the knowledge to explore new options. The fediverse is still strange and not so easy to understand for the casual user.

As many, I fit the description except for the age, but I hope this monoculture thing goes away. I don't want an entire social network to be a huge bubble. If I want a bubble I join one of the many communities populated by people similar to me, but I want to have the chance to look "for something completely different", getting in touch with world views completely opposte to mine.

There are a few things keeping users away - the perceived complexity and the sign up process and understanding how it all works, and the fact that it's a "new" site that is trying to replace reddit when many don't feel any need to leave reddit. That's the big one, and a big part of why the population here is made up of who it is.

The younger people that just use reddit as a meme site and for insta thots and porn either don't know or don't care about the API changes, didn't use a third party app so don't care that they're gone, and were oblivious to the whole protest. It's basically back to normal over on reddit now, so nothing changed for them and they don't have a reason to join here.

I'm 30+, a tech enthusiast dev, but I don't use Linux.

Sub-30 yo but super-20 yo

STEM equal, just not tech

Windows user (although I have Linux installed on my PC)

Close, but rly close enough

… so you’re saying that my subscriber numbers are actual people and not mostly bots? I assumed they were bots. (I created an over 30 community).

Jeez I’m not that old

I am 45 and you can say a tech enthusiast. I've never worked in tech but I have always wanted to but never took that chance. I feel like I'm too old to start now.

Well, we (old farts) know shit, kids are brainwashed nowadays.

The average person is about as technologically literate as a rock and curious about learning new things as a weed. Only a small subset of intelligent, curious, principled people dare to think of using alternatives that require users to have more than two brain cells or an attention span of more than 30 seconds.

Oh man, that's totally me! But I can't tell you why it is so appealing to my demographic. I don't know anyone IRL here and nothing about it seems like it would scare off everyone else...

BUT while we are all here:

• Trapper Keepers
• Garbage Pail Kids
• Music on cassette tapes
• Vim > Emacs

Me, me and me. Maybe I've finally found my people?

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.

I'm literally less than a decade old and only own a phone and a shitty HP laptop

Not EXCLUSIVELY... but kinda, but even though I'm only 1 (or maybe 2) out of the 3, and a bunch of programming jokes and jargon go over my head, I really don't mind. And... if you're going to start with a particular demographic as a core userbase, man oh man could you do worse these days.