It finally happened: many Reddit 3rd party apps have officially shut down. With it comes an influx of users looking for a new place.
With the influx come new points of view, new kinds of users with different expectations. This change is already visible, with obvious trolls and attention seekers throwing out bait. What if there is more to it however?
Browsing casually I noticed more and more kbin posts critical of its development, its functioning, and the speed at which @ernest is able to implement updates.
I find it odd that, while denouncing kbin for its current flaws in deployment (despite being clearly stated to be in alpha) the owner of that instance proceeds to praise Lemmy and wave away concerns regarding its devs who
(Lemmy devs) are willing to create a product that makes the entire internet better, and share it with everyone, for free, regardless of your beliefs.
despite having proven that their politics do affect their product.
"Just defederate" in my opinion also is not an argument. It's closing your eyes to a problem propagated by those who benefit from influence from the shadows - on both sides of the political spectrum.
Hence my mention of FUD (Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt) and Tribalism.
Pushing users towards a preferred platform (in this case, Lemmy) by seeding threadiverse posts with statements such as
- kbin isn't ready
- kbin won't have the same engagement as Lemmy
- the single kbin dev @ernest doesn't have enough time/skill
- it will never be as good as Reddit
will just lead to Reddit 2.0 painted in red and yellow. As kbin users, we should combat this kind of behavior.
We're all here for a better threadiverse, and a singular means of interacting will not be beneficial to its growth. The reason we're here is because we want a Reddit-like environment, not a single 'frontpage of the internet'. Tribalism in the threadiverse will get us nowhere fast.
Perhaps it was unintentional that kbin was not federating properly with Lemmy instances. What I am afraid of is, knowing the track record of Lemmy devs, it follows a scary trajectory, reminiscent of a few tried and true tactics Reddit and others have used before.
I'd like to state that I am not unbiased. I am helping out with Artemis, a kbin app currently in development.
I do not want to support or make use of Lemmy for many reasons. However, I could not care less if someone is from a Lemmy instance, or if I interact with them in that same space. If I see Lemmy.ml/Lemmygrad.ml behind their name, I will be cautious of their intentions however.
Let's hope we, not as 'rexxiters', 'kbinauts' or 'lemmings', but as fediverse users can actually create a product that makes the entire internet better, and share it with everyone, for free, regardless of our beliefs.
We won't stay on kbin forever anyway. Let's face it, if we are on kbin it's because we fled reddit and we saw that lemmy was...weird. As soon as a sane other implementation of a forum/microblogging using activitypub is proven to be robust there will be another migration. And it will probably involve actors like Facebook and co.
Now that people made the initial jump of leaving reddit they will be more inclined to making another jump to a platform that suit them better.
But it won't be just about technicalities but also about language and community. I'm not a fan of the lemmy agenda, but I'm also not a fan of the american soft power leaking in every sub. And to fight this a regional instance of activitypub tools will be very welcome.
@PabloDiscobar hi, just a problem of understanding. What do you mean with "american soft power leaking in every sub"?
@ernest @lavender
I mean the same thing that happened to reddit: the intrusion of american culture in the platform.
Is it normal that europeans know the american constitution better than their own? No, this is the result of soft power.
This is a known concept in Europe, some people tend to import problems from remote countries into their own. How many times did a subject completely unique to america popped up in a discussion where it wasn't relevant? Very often. Now take the opposite, when did americans stopped talking about the subject of like microtransactions in gaming and started to talk about Italian politics instead? Never. But start talking about any of the subject below and you will unleash more and more comments. Even if it's among europeans.
Example: gun laws, we all have an opinion about american gun laws. Even as europeans we have an opinion about american gun laws. But do you have an opinion about Greek gun laws?
another example: prisons
another example: no cake for lgbtq
another example: gerrymandering
So far the noise level is low on kbin, but it's growing steadily, I can see it. It is inherent to America, (and somehow uk). They have a business in making people mad, in feeding them anything that will polarize them and make them angry. And of course people will talk about these subjects on their social networks. The net result is that we end up talking and talking about america. That's why I'm talking about regionalization of instances. It's about talking with people who will join because they are interested in a specific subject, but will eventually end up discussing about other things which will still be relevant to you, to where you live. We can only care so much about the governor of Florida.
Glad to read I was somewhat correct in my assumption.
It's one of the main reasons I don't really watch the Dutch news broadcasts anymore, 50% of the content is American drama not relevant to me.