It’s been difficult to broach the subject and explain the technical concepts to the average person. I did have some success in first sharing the email comparison, which lead into interoperability.
I’m just curious to hear people’s success stories, if you have any.
I ask if they’ve heard of mastodon because most people with any ties to the internet have. Then I say there’s a new wave of platforms that are all federated, kinda like how like someone could send an email from a user @aol.clm to a user @msn.com or whatever, which means there’s no real way to centralize the platforms.
I know mastodon is very popular and I’ve browsed around a few times, but i don’t really get it. It’s person following instead of topic following, right? I had a Twitter account, but i only followed local bars, music venues, etc. to see upcoming events and happy hours deals. I can’t think of a person i would want to follow.
For Twitter-alikes (Mastodon, Misskey, etc.) you probably want to be following hashtags instead of people, though that’s not really what the UI will initially drive you towards. That’ll let you follow topics and interests, with the option of also following people you find interesting from the hashtags you’re following.
Not one person that I’ve told so far has been aware of Mastodon, unfortunately. At this point, if I met someone in real life that actually knew about the Fediverse already, I’d probably shit a brick.