Mastodon toot:
Daniel Lakeland @[email protected]
Fediverse, the social media system for 40+ year old people who built the world wide web and regret it.
Oct 01, 2026, 11:32 PM
Mastodon toot:
Daniel Lakeland @[email protected]
Fediverse, the social media system for 40+ year old people who built the world wide web and regret it.
Oct 01, 2026, 11:32 PM
People on here think too highly of themselves and the Fediverse. The overwhelming majority of people here don’t know the basics of programming and of the few that do, the vast majority of them don’t make any contributions. Even to those who do contribute, comparing themselves or the Fediverse WWW and the people who built it rather arrogant, no?
At the end of the day, the Fediverse would be better off going through a reality check. It’s a niche alternative to mainstream social media that trades content for privacy. The tech is neat and the idea behind it is noble, but that’s about it. It’s not going to revolutionize the internet any time soon.
Software developers are on Mastadon, though. Big time.
The Fediverse in general attracts a lot of tech people compared to elsewhere, but even then, they’re still a minority.
The internet itself was once a niche alternative to mainstream knowledge
The way I see it is, that we are all good or even experts at something. The internet is not only about programming alone. The frustration comes from people who 30 years ago spent time discussing and sharing all kinds of knowledge on websites, forums or wikis but now, large corporations charge money to present the same knowledge more conveniently, but not always in the right context
This includes programming, but also gardening, how to ferment cabbage, how to clean a smoking pipe, what to feed guinea pigs.
It is definitely doable, but will take many decades
I mean you’re technically right, it is possible in theory. However, do you actually think that will be the case? I personally don’t see it.
The WWW made vast amounts of information remotely accessible and easy to navigate. Likewise, social media made large scale remote and asynchronous social interaction possible. Even though both took decades to evolve into what they are today, they fundamentally transformed how people access information and connect with one another. That’s what makes them revolutionary.
The Fediverse isn’t exactly like that. It’s a neat piece of tech, but it doesn’t exactly solve a problem that couldn’t already be solved. You can already communicate with people remotely, build communities, publish content, and interact with people across different platforms. The main thing that the Fediverse is trying to sell people on is decentralization which comes with perks like extra privacy and control, but which is valuable hence why this place has a genuine userbase, but I don’t see it going beyond that.
As it stands now the Fediverse is just another platform competing in a sea of other platforms. The Fediverse is already around a decade old, and not much has changed during this time. It was niche a decade ago, and it’s still niche now. The spot that it carved in the ecosystem is that of social media alternative that caters to left wing politics and tech bros. Even if it becomes more mainstream, it’ll still be viewed as another form of social media rather than something entirely new and different. The Fediverse is most certainly not like the WWW.
Who are all these people comparing the WWW and social media as a concept to the significance of the fediverse? I’ve never seen it. Lots of people are excited about the concept of a decentralized reddit-like social media, but I’ve never seen anyone express what you described.
Feels like we’re getting annoyed at nothing here honestly.