I know we all dream of having all our friends and family on the Fediverse so we can avoid proprietary networks completely. But the Fediverse is not looking for market dominance or profit. The Fediverse is not looking for growth. It is offering a place for freedom. People joining the Fediverse are those looking for freedom. If people are not ready or are not looking for freedom, that’s fine. They have the right to stay on proprietary platforms. We should not force them into the Fediverse. We should not try to include as many people as we can at all cost. We should be honest and ensure people join the Fediverse because they share some of the values behind it.

By competing against Meta in the brainless growth-at-all-cost ideology, we are certain to lose. They are the master of that game. They are trying to bring everyone in their field, to make people compete against them using the weapons they are selling.

Fediverse can only win by keeping its ground, by speaking about freedom, morals, ethics, values. By starting open, non-commercial and non-spied discussions. By acknowledging that the goal is not to win. Not to embrace. The goal is to stay a tool. A tool dedicated to offer a place of freedom for connected human beings. Something that no commercial entity will ever offer.

From here

I unfortunately prefer not to. I’d rather they find it out for themselves. There is no problem with my friends, just that they might also spread it to their friends (some of which, well, if you’d see their fb feed you’d not want them on here).

Then again, this being very “plain” looking kinda filters the chaff out, so there’s that.

Show it to them, send links to interesting posts shared on the platform.

I know we all dream of having all our friends and family on the Fediverse so we can avoid proprietary networks completely. But the Fediverse is not looking for market dominance or profit. The Fediverse is not looking for growth. It is offering a place for freedom. People joining the Fediverse are those looking for freedom. If people are not ready or are not looking for freedom, that’s fine. They have the right to stay on proprietary platforms. We should not force them into the Fediverse. We should not try to include as many people as we can at all cost. We should be honest and ensure people join the Fediverse because they share some of the values behind it.

By competing against Meta in the brainless growth-at-all-cost ideology, we are certain to lose. They are the master of that game. They are trying to bring everyone in their field, to make people compete against them using the weapons they are selling.

Fediverse can only win by keeping its ground, by speaking about freedom, morals, ethics, values. By starting open, non-commercial and non-spied discussions. By acknowledging that the goal is not to win. Not to embrace. The goal is to stay a tool. A tool dedicated to offer a place of freedom for connected human beings. Something that no commercial entity will ever offer.

I prefer not to. This is probably the only place on surface web I can shill opinions that average online users can’t grasp.

Whenever I shill Lemmy to the average person, the reaction is almost always a mixture of disgust towards the UI or that it’s too complicated. I disagree to the point that I’m honestly baffled why people think that — I mean, you don’t even have to familiarize yourself with federation; just treat it as a regular discussion board. There’s also the guys who buy into the “problematic dev” story when he has no control over what other instances do. But alas, perception is reality.

That’s not stopping me from shilling the community anyway. It just sucks that I’ve sworn off Reddit and have to rely on others to promote Lemmy. I did edit my flair in case someone stumbles upon my old posts, lmao.

From what I understand of internet use as a whole, there’s no way to convince someone to change their browsing habits directly. Most don’t care enough. If you tell them about something you’ve done or found on here, they might become interested and browse. It’s an open platform for lurkers, so share a link or two when appropriate. If they ask why you prefer it, tell them in a way that would be meaningful to them, but never do it unprompted. Don’t get your hopes up, but some might join.