I think it’s simply that getting a direct answer is easier than reading different forums with different views and come up with your idea. That doesn’t mean people want google search to stop searching. We have gemini, if I want to use gemini I can go to gemini. I don’t get why everything has to be AI. We can have multiple tools, not everything out there is a nail.
I mean it’s really depressing even being in Europe honestly but at the same time it’s a huge opportunity. It’s time to take it :) Let’s show them how decentralization AND open source can be a new standard! I’m seeing the same trend in Linux too and this is so important as well.
Also a lot of new projects to help decentralization are emerging, check https://spritely.institute/ which there’s Christine Lemmer-Webber a co-author of the ActivityPub protocol :)
I agree with the whole thing but remember that the Fediverse as it grows it will face the same challenges as any other social media does when it grows. I 100% agree that it’s important that social media has to be decentralized and away from corporations but as people join the Fediverse, corporations will pick up on that and I’m sure we will end up with private companies doing apps for the Fediverse that will contain algorithms and all that kind of stuff. (I mean you can already see threads which is federated with the Fediverse).
Having the Fediverse doesn’t guarantee that everything will be nice and good (though it’s a very important step) but the same that happens with e-mail nowadays with google that we are all almost using the same platform even though it is a decentralized system and it’s not open source.
The Fediverse is decentralized AND open source nowadays but that doesn’t mean it’s how it will always be. I hope people remembers in the future that it’s important to support the open source platforms we have in the early days and they don’t jump ships when a private company opens a new fancy app. Let’s remember the lessons we just learned and remember, we currently have a decentralized AND open source social media because we have a lot of people doing hard work on it, let’s support them and educate people about the importance of the topic.
I use firefox and neither have this issue. Check for some of your extensions that might be causing that!
I don’t think the problem is the UI. Fediverse is more complex by nature than a centralized platform.
You have to choose a server, then an app to visualize (not only online but on the phone too) and there’s plenty of alternatives.
If everybody joined the same server we end up with a centralized system and if every large server has to use specific UI what’s the point on decentralizing?
I also thought that fediverse had to try to be easier to use but the point is that it’s more complicated precisely because the user has more power and hence has to do more decisions.
And I think people have to understand the basics of the fediverse, otherwise people will not stay precisely because it’s more complicated. If I didn’t care a bit I would be on Reddit not here and I’m currently using both because there’s simply much more content there and hopefully with time I can use Lemmy more and less reddit. I’m willing to do the effort of slowly transitioning because I believe in this but people who doesn’t care won’t stick around.
First of all, as long as it doesn’t replace search I’m fine with more options, I don’t like when a company forces me stuff, that’s it. I just think this is pointing to a future where search disappears and I don’t quite like that.
You might dislike a direct answer but young people don’t. The design of the applications can encourage certain types of behaviors, can spread misinformation and promote racism as we have seen in many social media now.
Things like Instagram and TikTok stress me out by the speed they show content and I could conclude no one will use those but then you see the new generations and how they even listen to music there, just the chorus of a song and go to the next one. This way of consuming information is being promoted by how the apps are designed; it is no coincidence that depression is increasing among young people.
You can say that in principle people can use more responsibly this types of social media, but that’s not the reality when we have algorithms trying to maximize the time we spend on the phone. Also, how do you know that companies don’t add biases to LLMs? Turns out Gorg (the LLM on twitter) they have added to the prompt to not criticize Elon or Trump. That’s the current problems of LLMs is that we don’t have context and even if there is context, if you have to put effort into it people won’t do it. This happens to scientific articles where people never check the sources, imagine with other stuff…
I honestly like LLMs and I think they are fascinating and very useful in a lot of situations! And efforts like Perplexity gives me a bit more faith than google just throwing an LLM that suggests to eat rocks. And while you might see that eating rocks shouldn’t be done, there’s this bias that can be build behind any LLM that affects in a way that will be hard to avoid or notice. Same way current algorithms affects us more than we think they do and polarizes opinions.
I mean will see where this goes, I just want companies to take the matter seriously.