this post was submitted on 30 Jul 2023
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Asklemmy
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It has sort of been said already, but I didn't find a reply stating my exact criticism so I'll chime in. Lemmy and the fediverse is confusing. Instances, federation, de-federating, and all the other techno-garble is not something most internet users have any frame of reference for and I imagine it is very off-putting to a vast majority of potential users.
I'm not usually one to harp on user experience but it's just a mess trying to get into this whole thing. I was driven by a hatred for reddit to figure it out and I'm a software developer by trade, but still was scratching my head at wtf all these terms were and how it all works. Lemmy and the fediverse desperately needs some onboarding/marketing work and to ditch this sentiment of "if you can't figure it out then we don't want you here."
100%. Mass adoption really needs "easy". From an average user experience, Reddit is instantly useable.
I do want to mention that despite what I said above, I think apps are doing a good job at making exploration kinda easier. Been digging wefwef/voyager and looking forward to Boost and Sync to check out.
I tried to explain it to my parents this past weekend, and I did not do a good job (because I only like 70% get it in the first place).
Agreed, though I think it's less "we don't want you here" and more "you're on your own". I liken it to Linux in that sense where new users are expected to try harder to learn the ins and outs. The difference is with Linux what you learn can be applied in so many more places in your Linux experience. With Lemmy, once you grasp the technical depth of it there's not much you can do with it except explain it to another person.