Fediverse

Not EXCLUSIVELY... but kinda, but even though I'm only 1 (or maybe 2) out of the 3, and a bunch of programming jokes and jargon go over my head, I really don't mind. And... if you're going to start with a particular demographic as a core userbase, man oh man could you do worse these days.

Doesn't bother me

I'm all of those things, but not an active Linux user any more. Definitely been there before though.

I guess I'm all 3. I'm 39, tech enthusiast (tho I've long since given up on working in the industry), and have been using and occasionally contributing to the Linux community since the mid-90s.

My husband is afaik, still just on reddit. idk if he's moved to the official app on his phone (he was a rif guy for years) or what he's doing tbh. But, he's not really a geek 😁

Yes - guilty! We understand what it is, and we have used the centralized systems long enough to remember how they started. It's so romantic to be at the beginning once more - until the next eternal September :)

Let's be honest here - Lemmy today is a very broken experience. I can't recommend it to my partner because she will complain non stop that this not working, that is laggy, etc. It's all fun for enthusiasts, but it's nothing more than a very broken alpha preview of what could be made in few years.

There's also a lack of content. Can you get a professional skincare advice on Lemmy? No. Can you talk to Bill Gates on Lemmy? No. Is there a Chinese Cooking Demistified community on Lemmy? No. It's just Linux, Fediverse, cats and porn.

And then there's a question of money. For Lemmy to go mainstream it needs to spend millions on promotion, ads, development, customer support, lawyers, etc. You can build great thing on enthusiasm, but they will remain a niche. If you want to reach the masses, you need a lot of capital. You can see that clearly with Facebook's Twitter clone - tens of millions sign ups in 24 days. Can't do that without spending tens of millions.

you ever feel like tech people embrace new technology first?

you're not wrong, and it's something that needs to be acknowledged, but I can't think of a single innovation on the internet that wasn't dominated by older (when you demarcate 30 as "older") tech people before coming to popularity among the general public

Yes, I'm one too. That's why I am here. The channels are generally relevant to me, and I can communicate with people, and not disappear in the mob, or deal constantly with low effort smart ass comments, trolls and bots.

What is it that you want to win? http://web.archive.org/web/20230707004346/https://ploum.net/2023-07-06-stop-trying-to-make-social-networks-succeed.html

I think it is something along those lines, the early adopters are quite fed up with Reddit and have the knowledge to explore new options. The fediverse is still strange and not so easy to understand for the casual user.

I do not think that it is complicated to join or use.

But many do not care about privacy and centralization and hence will not leave mainstream platforms. Also the network effect is strong.

I'm actually quite a bit younger than that. I was very much into stocks but got scammed in the GME fiasco when they disabled the buy button and got into Monero (at least I know beforehand that crypto is manipulated as fuck). Monero lead to FOSS and now I run a xmr node, i2p node, lemmy instance, selfhost cool stuff, etc. I learned a lot of stuff this way.

I'm almost 48. My profession: foreign languages and literature. I have had a computer since I was 7 years old. I know how to use Linux and I have played video games all my life. I know a little code. I'm good with computers. A lot of people my age in my profession are not all that good with computers. They think they are because they can make a PowerPoint presentation or took a class on how to use a spread sheet as a grade book. So, I don't know, I don't think everyone on here are older tech nerds, so it's not exclusive to them. They could be the majority, though. Am I a nerd? Yes. But a different type of nerd. I speak three languages and read six. I can diagram a sentence and correct peoples' grammar and vocabulary in my sleep. I know all about literature from the 16th and 17th centuries. I play video games and I like technology enough, but it does not consume my life. Are there lots of people on here like me? I don't know. I DO know that I've interacted with a lot of younger people on here. To understand how to use this new type of social media you have to understand technology pretty well. It isn't for people who just want to tap or click on stuff that "just works." You need a basic understanding of how decentralized social networks function to be able to navigate it and you have to have patience with things that might slow down or do strange things every once in a while. There are lots of people my age that would not have the patience to learn how to use this space on the internet. In a lot of ways, they are very similar to the stereotypes of "average twenty-somethings" I've seen mentioned in this thread. No worries about privacy. In some cases, perfectly happy with their privacy being invaded because they want to see ads related to products they would buy. I also enjoy shopping. It's fun. I don't like ads, though.

No. (Yes)

Not yet 30 and can't be bothered with Linux on desktop

Honestly wouldn't mind Lemmy being a 30+ monoculture. Let the kids stay on their TikBooks and SnapFaces where they make porn or whatever else kids do these days.

There is natural overlap in ideology between the fediverse and FOSS (Free and Open Source Software so including Linux). The same principles apply like building something together without big corporations*. But that does lead to a rather narrow demography I'm afraid.

* I know a lot of big corporations ARE involved in the Linux kernel but I'm talking about the various distros in case of Linux.

have been around on mastodon for years (was one of the first few thousands accounts). it really depends where you look. i'm under 30 and the majority of people i see + interact with are under 30 too.

the "professionals" side of mastodon absolutely does skew more to that age range, but the more shitposty social groups skew way younger, and with a lot of them existing on other instances.

lemmy also has a mix and again depends where you look.

tl;dr i'm not sure i'd totally agree with that 90% statistic