Bsky’s growth slowed quite a bit

What a silly remark. Yeah, of course (percentage-wise) they slowed down. Do you think that would see 190% growth every month?

The main reason it’s much more successful than Mastodon is content discoverability

You are talking about the symptoms, but you are ignoring the diagnostic. The reason that Bluesky has a superior product at the moment is because they HAVE MONEY. They can go and hire people, they can invest in infrastructure, they can spend on marketing, they can go cut out deals with other service providers.

Meanwhile, the Mastodon devs are all sharing the belief that they are saints who are working "for the community". Sorry, it's not enough. We are not going to amount to much if our ambitions are that low.

And the problem Reddit and Lemmy solve is becoming a niche issue

It doesn't matter the format. This is not (specifically) about Reddit, or Twitter, or Instagram or TikTok.

This is a discussion about a model that can keep sustainable development and operations of an open web. ActivityPub as whole allows us to think in much broader terms than "replacing Reddit" or "replacing Youtube. The format of "popular social media" may change, but the fact that people will always have an interest in consuming, creating and sharing content will always be there.

What a silly remark. Yeah, of course (percentage-wise) they slowed down. Do you think that would see 190% growth every month?

You were saying "one million every week". They hit 25 million users on 13 December. We are 4 weeks later, they still haven't reached 27 millions. Not sure why using the actual numbers is considered silly.

You are talking about the symptoms, but you are ignoring the diagnostic. The reason that Bluesky has a superior product at the moment is because they HAVE MONEY. They can go and hire people, they can invest in infrastructure, they can spend on marketing, they can go cut out deals with other service providers.

Bsky having money gives them an advantage, nobody is denying that. But Mastodon had a huge opportunity the first time Musk messed up with Twitter. They were never able to create an easy enough to use solution for people to jump over, especially when microblogging relies on "high profile" posters. If Mastodon had managed to solve the discoverability issue, and convince people that it's as easy to use as Twitter, the outcome could have been different. We'll never know.

The format of “popular social media” may change, but the fact that people will always have an interest in consuming, creating and sharing content will always be there.

Okay, let's go that route. As I said above, short video/"stories" format is king with people below 29 years old, be it Snapchat, Tiktok or BeReal statista.com/statistics/133752…

How do you plan to host video content at scale in a federated way? And if your answer is "make every teenager pay 5€ per month to get access to the network", you'll never get adoption.

At the end, that's an unfair competition. We are competing with actors who can sell data and ads to make money. Most users don't care. Those platforms make money, get more users thanks to the network effect.

I don't really see how to solve this issue.

You were saying “one million every week”. They hit 25 million users on 13 December. Not sure why using the actual numbers is considered silly.

Because it depends on what you are using as your point of reference. In the end of November, they were just 15 million users. On average, they are getting one million users per week.

How do you plan to host video content at scale in a federated way?

Hosting video is not the expensive part. It's the distribution part that worries most people, but people forget that we have the technology to distribute large static files for decades already.

And if your answer is “make every teenager pay 5€ per month to get access to the network”, you’ll never get adoption.

1. Please, stop using others as an excuse to your own behavior. You don't want to pay 5€ a month. You have expressed many times you think a $29/year service is "expensive", and you have said that you think that contributing to cover server costs is enough, which means that you don't see the value of a professional hosting provider. If you are a grown, functioning adult, you are more than able to choose for yourself what you value. Your behavior is not determined by what "teenagers" will or will not do.
2. Why is that "every teenager" is fine with paying their phone bills, their Steam subscription, Spotify, Netflix, etc, etc... but not to pay for a service that is useful to them?
3. It doesn't have to be between the two extremes of "free, but you get your data exploited" and "user pays everything". Alternative business models will show up. Brave's model of sharing the revenue from the (privacy-preserving) ads that users see (opt in) is one model. Bundling with services ("Sign up to Vodafone and get one a family package with 5 activitypub accounts!" "iCloud now supports ActivityPub") is another. But for these alternative models to become interesting, first we need to make ActivityPub valuable as strong contender for an application protocol.

I don’t really see how to solve this issue.

Where there's a will, there's a way.

If we go back 20 years ago, people would never believe that we would have a personal computing environment based on Free Software, and most would believe that Microsoft and Intel would dominate forever. Today we have Linux-based systems reaching almost 5% of the global market, and in some places going as high as 13%. But we didn't get there overnight, and surely we did not get there on "community" alone.

Hosting video is not the expensive part. It’s the distribution part that worries most people, but people forget that we have the technology to distribute large static files for decades already.

Then why isn't PeerTube more popular, especially with the amount of ads YouTube shows nowadays?

Your behavior is not determined by what “teenagers” will or will not do.

Why are you attacking me personally? Is it supposed to convince me to pay 29$/year for your service? If yes, sorry to say, but that's not very effective, and I will keep donating to other instances like lemmy.zip, feddit.org or sopuli.xyz

Why is that “every teenager” is fine with paying their phone bills, their Steam subscription, Spotify, Netflix, etc, etc… but not to pay for a service that is useful to them?

If tomorrow a phone operator would provide the same service for free everyone would go there and leave the existing providers alone.

Steam has no subscription, what do you mean?

Spotify and Netflix are usually used in a family bundle because their parents find it convenient. But with the rising prices of streaming services, I see more and more people cancelling them and pirating content.

But we didn’t get there overnight, and surely we did not get there on “community” alone.

Did we get there because every Linux user paid a subscription to use the operating system?

Then why isn't PeerTube more popular, especially with the amount of ads YouTube shows nowadays?

Because those ads also provide revenue for the content creators. Content creators also need to be paid for their work.

Why are you attacking me personally?

It's not an attack, but it is curious that you feel it is. I am using you as an example because you are one of the most active users here, you are frequently found promoting the Fediverse as an alternative, yet you don't find it important to support the people that are working to keep the whole thing running.

I am using you as an example to show this common behavior here of people complaining about the state of the social media and exploitative companies, while at the same time exploiting the goodwill of the dozen people who are volunteering their time and money to put up this alternatives.

It's pure hypocrisy. I don't care whether you specifically sign up to Communick or not, but I do care about the fact that people do not understand basic economics and go around expecting that the Fediverse can succeed without paying the people that work to make it happen.

If tomorrow a phone operator would provide the same service for free everyone would go there and leave the existing providers alone.

Only those who are completely financially illiterate would fall for such a ridiculous proposition.

Did we get there because every Linux user paid a subscription to use the operating system?

Seriously, I don't know anymore if you are arguing in the good faith.

The point is that we got there by having professionals being paid to work on it.

Because those ads also provide revenue for the content creators. Content creators also need to be paid for their work.

Content creators get paid via Patreon. There are several channels who use that way to sustain themselves. Patreon is a donation-based model, not a subscription.

It’s not an attack

It is, especially with the bold emphasis on "You". You saying it's not doesn't deny that fact.

It’s pure hypocrisy. I don’t care whether you specifically sign up to Communick or not, but I do care about the fact that people do not understand basic economics and go around expecting that the Fediverse can succeed without paying the people that work to make it happen.

According to you. The day other admins will tell us that they can't make the projects live anymore without additional donations, we can discuss this again. In the meantime, there is no indication that your statement is correct.

Only those who are completely financially illiterate would fall for such a ridiculous proposition.

There is no free lunch, but in Facebook/Reddit/Twitter case they sell ads and user data to make money. And the vast majority of the population seems okay with that.

The point is that we got there by having professionals being paid to work on it.

Professionals who got paid because they were delivering a product or a service to companies.
- zdnet.com/article/inside-ubunt…
- businesswire.com/news/home/201…

Which company is going to pay to get more features or a professional version of Lemmy or Piefed?

Lemmy is for personal use, not corporate, and that's the main difference with Linux or Firefox. It is closer to something like gnucash.org/ than to a Linux distribution.

The GnuCash Project is a volunteer-driven organization, meaning it depends on volunteers such as you to survive and grow. This page explains different ways to contribute to the project.

wiki.gnucash.org/wiki/Contribu…

To get to the point where creators can get meaningful in income from Patreon, they already spent years producing content on YouTube or some other mainstream channel.

And even then, they still stay on YouTube because they get more money from YT (or their sponsorship deals, which is contingent on the size of their audience and thus dependent on YT) than from their supporters.

Indeed, so how would you plan to move enough people to PeerTube for this to change? As long as Youtube is a viable product, there is no real space for any other video website.

Funny you mention gnucash, because it is going around for 20+ years, yet it still has not made a dent on Intuit business. Even after all this time, anyone in the US who needs to file taxes still pays through the nose for QuickBooks.

Linux has been around for 30+ years, is it making a dent on Microsoft and Apple's business for personal computers?

So, yes, the fact that it exists does not mean that it is successful. And its failure is both due to a lack of ambition ( no one there pushing for ways to grow the organization) and for this cultural issue where the commons are not willing to financially support R&D if they don’t have to.

Could you show me an example in the tech/dev/opensource space where end users countered the "tragedy of the commons"? Because after discussing all this time with you, it seems more due to human nature than anything else.

Linux has been around for 30+ years, is it making a dent on Microsoft and Apple’s business for personal computers?

Yes! Android is Linux based and dominates market share worldwide.

For desktop, Linux has 4-5% of usage share worldwide, going up to 13% in India. If you include ChromeOS (which is also Linux based) the figures get close to 10% worldwide. Also, the fact that companies like Dell and HP have Linux offerings available give them bargaining power against Microsoft, which certainly counts as "creating a dent on their business".

Because after discussing all this time with you, it seems more due to human nature than anything else.

It's not "human nature". It's a cultural issue. High-trust societies (e.g, the Japanese) are a lot more inclined to support the commons even when not directly required to do so. Low-trust, heterogenous societies become increasingly reluctant to help others unless coerced by authority or when they see direct personal benefit.

Also, blaming things on "human nature" is a cop-out. It removes agency from individuals and leads us to apathy. It's the exact kind of thing that powerful figures wants us to feel.

Yes! Android is Linux based and dominates market share worldwide.

Android is led by Google, with all their resources, both in terms of devs and money.

Android is an open source operating system for mobile devices and a corresponding open source project led by Google

source.android.com/

Also, the fact that companies like Dell and HP have Linux offerings available give them bargaining power against Microsoft, which certainly counts as “creating a dent on their business”.

It comes back to what I said before: Linux and Android are useful to companies because they can use it, especially in the case of Google, it allowed them to compete with Apple in the mobile OS market, with the play stores and ad revenues.

Every time you buy an app or game on the Play Store, the total amount is split between Google and the developer. The exact percentage varies, but Google takes a minimum of 15% in exchange for hosting the app and serving it to users.

androidauthority.com/how-does-…

What interest would any private company to invest in a Reddit-clone? Reddit itself had to enshittify to hell to make profit.

High-trust societies (e.g, the Japanese) are a lot more inclined to support the commons even when not directly required to do so. Low-trust, heterogenous societies become increasingly reluctant to help others unless coerced by authority or when they see direct personal benefit.

Where is the Japanese open-source Reddit clone? You also haven't provided the example I asked above about an open-source project where end users countered the “tragedy of the commons”.

Also, blaming things on “human nature” is a cop-out. It removes agency from individuals and leads us to apathy.

Disregarding human nature leads to unrealistic expectations. I'll take an example I know well as I post a lot around here.

When I post to a community, I do not expect anything in exchange. I am aware of the 1-9-90 rule , and I know that due to the current population of Lemmy, I won't find that many other people posting. But that's okay, I'm fine with that, and I know that over time some other people might come, first to comment, then to post themselves.

Now if I completely refuted that rule, I would be very frustrated. "How come that in a community with 2600 active users per month I am the only one posting?". I would start making meta post, calling out people "You should post more if you want the community to survive! You not posting is hypocritical as you do not put your time and energy in the platform but just want to use it!". And that would probably chase people away, without making them post more.