I believe in an open internet, FOSS, privacy by default, etc. I migrated away from Google by self-hosting Nextcloud. I prefer messaging apps like Molly, SimpleX, Threema, Matrix, etc. over standard SMS. I love the Fediverse (Lemmy, Mastodon, etc.).
But everyone I live with and everyone I know simply refuses to take part. I can’t interact with them socially because they’re all on Facebook. I can’t communicate with them because they all use group texts for SMS/RCS. I feel like I’m living in a different part of the world and am completely disconnected from everything that’s going on around me (with the people I want to interact).
My question is: does anyone else experience this, and how do you reconcile it? I want to share photos and clever posts with my family but they aren’t on the Fediverse. I want to communicate securely with them but they only want to SMS. I want to share documents but they only use Google Docs.
There are people I’ve met on the Fediverse and through some secure messaging apps with whom I’ve struck up a rapport, but these are still (predominately) strangers, and I’d really like to involve the people I care about in these exciting new times. They just wont participate.
I feel like I’ve invited everyone in my family to go on a great, grand vacation away and I’m the only one who’s packed.
I’m 19 yo, and I proudly announce that I have never been trapped by social media. I’m that one guy who never uses Instagram, and you can only find me through my close friends. I just don’t care about whatever they are doing. Honestly that’s something that has shaped my mental health pretty well.
For communication, it’s unfortunate that everyone uses what everyone uses. My strategy right now, is to wait. Patiently. Waiting for those big platforms to fuck up. You can’t expect anyone to go a different path instantly. Being too pushy about FOSS may disgust them, and backfire.
For example, my dad recently expressed his hate for Google Photos, so I offered him Immich, and he’s happy about it. Now I’m waiting for the opportunity for Matrix.
…he says, on public social media.
Lemmy counts, dude. Idk what to tell you. Just because you don’t have a follower count doesn’t mean it sucks you in any less.
Also I’m a bit skeptical that people will want to adopt the fediverse even when the big platforms DO fuck up. Look at how many people are still on Reddit. Look at how many people saw Twitter melting down in real time and, rather than try to do anything with Mastodon, said “If Elon makes me really mad, I might switch to Threads.” Human inertia is INSANE. Learning how the fediverse works is hard, and doing research to pick an instance is effort. Why would they do that when there’s a perfectly good 1 for 1 Twitter clone right there (which, as a bonus, is built by a billionaire who hates the same billionaire they hate)? And that’s assuming they can bear to leave all the followers and content they’ve amassed behind at all.
Even if that were a non issue, there’s another problem. Libre apps/platforms by and large are not, by ANY usability/feature-completeness metric, better than the competition. My dad, who’s a photographer, recently got fed up with Adobe Lightroom and tried to switch to Linux + Darktable + Rapid Photo Downloader (for ingesting SD cards). Darktable doesn’t have auto color calibration and using the manual tools takes 30 seconds per photo, and Rapid Photo Downloader worked at half the speed Lightroom did. He tried really hard to like it but within a year he ended up biting the bullet and giving Adobe more money.
My dad was one of the developers of HP UNIX. I learned vi from him. He understands the value of open source better than anyone, and he’s no stranger to having to finagle things to get them to work. Open source alternatives couldn’t keep HIM on board.
What do you think my non-technical friends are going to say when I introduce them to Matrix and tell them that there are no modern amenities like stickers, threads, or custom emoji, they have to pair devices manually to get chat logs to sync and even then they sometimes randomly don’t, and none of the mobile clients except the official one support voice calls???
I honestly do not see how we can possibly win this. Frankly, I’m having second thoughts about Matrix.
I know Lemmy counts as social media, but I can get off at any time I want, unlike some weird people camping their phones for notifications all day.
When big platforms fucked up, there are influx to the Fediverse. Yes, when comparing us to the big platforms, we are still way smaller, but people are moving. We just need to wait patiently. Our job is to announce our existence, but without being pushy about it, because no one likes being forced to do something.
I told my friends about my Matrix instance and bridges, and sent them a screenshot, and that’s it. I also told them if they want to enter the Fediverse, I’ll be their guide. Nothing so far, but I’m waiting.
I should also tell you how I got to the FOSS side of the Internet. It was boredom. I learnt about Linux from my high school teacher talking about it for 30 seconds, and that summer holiday I was bored, so I tried to mess with Linux, and now I’m here.
I believe in us.