Fediverse

I just don't understand how people find accounts they like to follow.

Mastodon is a good reminder of why algorithmic feeds exist

The option for a chronological feed is nice, but without an algorithm filling in the gaps it’s really hard to get started on there

I prefer pull vs push media. Less intrusive. I have a feeling lemmy users may also like RSS feeds for the control it provides. I know in mastodon you decide who to follow, but the whole culture to encourage re-blogging means a lot of potential unwanted crap in our feeds.

I completely agree. I like the concept of Mastodon and like that it exists, but I just can't get into the idea of following individual or organizations rather than topics. Thankfully Lemmy is a thing.

I disagree. I hate ads with a passion too. But as long as we can pay a sum to remove it, it is fair to have a free option with ads. A kinda unlimited "demo".

We are fools for thinking anyone would give away their own time and effort for free forever. We have completely lost the perspective of how much things should cost because of how much we've taken for granted that was paid for with our personal data. And the biggest fools is those who think most software developers and server admins can live reliably on donations alone.

Though Youtube is taking the ads a bit far, maybe. One shouldn't scare away users before they have even become customers.

The second ads are required the customer stops being the users and starts being the advertisers. This starts the enshittification ~~snowball~~ shitball, Randers.

I'm working on the app full-time and the ads / subscriptions cover development costs.

Wrong. The next terrible thing is mass-AI-generated propaganda and disinformation. Like in the "dead internet" theory

When's the last time you developed and released a full fledged software project for free?

I just paid the one time fee for no ads. Works for me.

I hate ads too, but devs have to eat so why should we not pay them when we use an app or service they spend countless time making and maintaining?

Sync is a one-time payment of £17.99 / $20 to remove ads and for the amount I'll be using this app, I think that's absolutely fair. I'll spend more on one takeaway pizza on a Friday night.

I really don’t think that Mastodon needs influencers. It’s just normal people talking about normal stuff. Don’t need any “I‘m so glorious, and here’s my product that will make you think you’re glorious, too” kind of influencers there, thanks!

I mean, you guys are stuck with me as your only real celebrity for a while... (and the Debian logo design person.)

Please, just no. Keep those scum influencers away. It would immediately ruin the platform.

Xitter

LOL, my brain read that as "shitter" and I found that pretty fitting.

Here's an alternative question: Do we really want the fediverse to take off like big tech did?

I sort of like that this little corner of the Internet isn't filled with a bunch of megacorporations and political bot farms trying to fiddle with our opinions to their benefit. Once it gets too big, it's going to lose something really important. Also, I fear that it could become impossible for a little operator to run an instance anymore.

There's a part of me that legitimately wonders how far Twitter could go as an influncer bubble. Granted this is unlikely to happen but if everyone who's not an influencer just left for Mastodon and Twitter just became a hollow shell of influencers trying to sell products to customers who just aren't there, how far would Twitter's inerta carry it before anyone realized?

Hot take: Algorithmic timelines are cool, provided we can (1) opt out from the default algorithm and (2) plug in our own algorithms

The virgin official app: NOOOOO!!! YOU NEED TO PAY A SUBSCRIPTION TO AVOID SEEING ALL THESE ADS DISGUISED AS POSTS!

The chad third party app: Hey man this whole thing is maintained by one dude so I gotta show a banner ad every now and again. I know that sucks so I'll stop if you wanna make a one time donation of a buck or two.