The mastodon and lemmy content I’m seeing feels like 90% of it comes from people who are:

  • ~30 years old or older

  • tech enthusiasts/workers

  • linux users

There’s nothing wrong with that particular demographic or anything, but it doesn’t feel like a win to me if the entire fediverse is just one big monoculture.

I wonder what it is that is keeping more diverse users away? Is picking a server/federation too complicated? Or is it that they don’t see any content that they like?

Thoughts?

  • CrunchyBoy@lemmy.worldEnglish
    221·
    1 year ago

    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.

    • Addition@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      7·
      1 year ago

      This is the answer. I’m 26 and most of my peers didn’t really use the internet beyond the occasional usage of the school library computers until Apple released the first iPhone. By that time places like Twitter, Facebook, and Reddit were up and running.

      That’s all their experience with the internet is. Polished experiences through dedicated apps on extremely popular platforms. Now those people have had kids and all those kids know is the same thing. It’s all apps on phones and tablets.

      Lemmy: A) Is too complicated in it’s current form for those types of people to effectively understand and use.

      B) Lemmy is currently emulating a type of early internet experience that only nostalgic older millennials nerds crave. General users tend to prefer bigger platforms.

    • Dark_Blade@lemmy.worldEnglish
      3·
      1 year ago

      I mean, Reddit killed off ‘polished UX’ and that’s what drove me here. All the great 3PAs are on the Fediverse, after all!

    • koopercupp@lemmy.worldEnglish
      2·
      1 year ago

      I’m 26, probably among the oldest of gen z. I love lemmy. The quality is higher here because the community is smaller. There are much less reports than there used to be on reddit.

      • Dackel@programming.devEnglish
        2·
        1 year ago

        Yeah Im like one of the youngest with an age of 14.But thats okay because lemmy is just awesome for me.

      • DogButt@lemmy.worldEnglish
        1·
        1 year ago

        Ahh, the great modem connection sounds, letting you know that the internet was only just (roughly) 2 minutes away. Or longer.

        56k4life

    • EliasChao@lemmy.oneEnglish
      1·
      1 year ago

      I use Ivory for browsing Mastodon, and I’d bet that the app is more polished than any other first-party social media app.

      The problem with Mastodon (and Lemmy to some extent) is that the onboarding process is not as straightforward, thus causing some friction for the less tech-savvy users.

    • OverdueSandwich@lemmy.worldEnglish
      1·
      1 year ago

      Couldn’t agree more

      We are used to Comfort and once you are used to it (or even never experienced else) its hard to lay it off for other benefits

    • wolfcatreader@lemmy.worldEnglish
      1·
      1 year ago

      Word! I feel active learning and feeding off one’s brain curiosity diminished for younger folx.

      With that comes laziness to “set things up”. “OMG, it’s too complicated for me. I’m having a headache. I can’t, I just can’t.”

  • ZagTheRaccoon@reddthat.comEnglish
    10·
    1 year ago

    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)

    • pythoneer@programming.devEnglish
      2·
      1 year ago

      In reddit’s early days, it was exactly like this. I remember that it felt like a Linux user forum, but with some conspiracy theorists. I actually feel that lemmy is a little more diverse than that.

  • Ghostc1212@sopuli.xyzEnglish
    7·
    1 year ago

    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.

  • illah@lemmy.worldEnglish
    6·
    1 year ago

    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.

    • bittabet@lemmy.worldEnglish
      1·
      1 year ago

      While most crypto/web3 ended up being get rich quick schemes for their founders, I actually think that the main weakness of lemmy right now will be funding for the long term. So some sort of web3 type micropayment system may need to be the eventual alternative if you don’t want a reddit style ad infested experience.

    • jscummy@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      1·
      1 year ago

      First thought when I read the title. Surprisingly, the early adopters of a new, not particularly user friendly tech platform are the same as people who use other niche technologies

    • Schooner@lemmy.mlEnglish
      1·
      1 year ago

      Even as a crypto enthusiast, the web3 movement smelled like VC manure being dumped on a field hoping something grows.

  • RagingRobot@lemmy.worldEnglish
    3·
    1 year ago

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

    • metallic_substance@lemmy.worldEnglish
      3·
      1 year ago

      This place reminds me so much of early reddit. It’s been a strangely nostalgic experience so far. The part of that which I’m enjoying the most, is that commenters are more polite to each other as far as I’ve seen

    • MoogleMaestro@lemmy.zipEnglish
      2·
      2 months ago

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

      This is what people always miss. Generally, sites become popular because niche subcultures form outside of the “big” websites as they no longer really serve their purpose of connecting to like minded individuals. They never “start big”, they generally snowball from small hardcore users to larger more generalized userbases over time.

  • MoogleMaestro@lemmy.zipEnglish
    2·
    2 months ago

    Young people don’t even understand that the internet isn’t only the 5 websites that have existed since before they were born lol

    That’s probably a big part of it. We kind of designed the internet to become an information super oligarchy, even if it wasn’t intentional.

    I’m 33 for the record so I guess I’m an older tech nerd. Nice. 😎

  • THE MASTERMIND@feddit.chEnglish
    2·
    9 months ago

    Because ipad kids are happy with instagram,tiktok and other shit and doesn’t give a fuck about privacy.

  • Yaztromo@lemmy.worldEnglish
    2·
    6 months ago

    I started back in the Wild West BBS days on the 80s; graduated to USENET in the 90s, website forums in the Web 1.0 days, /., Reddit, and now Lemmy. Yeah, I’ve been around. Been “Yaztromo” all that time too.

    I don’t mind that “Eternal September” hasn’t infected this space yet — that’s a feature, not a bug!

  • Margot Robbie@lemmy.worldEnglish
    2·
    1 year ago

    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.

  • ScaNtuRd@lemmy.worldEnglish
    1·
    1 year ago

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

  • kool_newt@lemm.eeEnglish
    1·
    1 year ago

    There’s always a group on the forefront, it makes sense that it’s tech interested people Fediverse being based on open source software and all about sharing means it’s right p Linux user’s alley.

    The 30+ demographic not sure, maybe just people a bit grown up and now under as much peer pressure to be on the more popular corporate platforms.

  • DigiWolf@pawb.socialEnglish
    1·
    1 year ago

    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