I tell people I use lemmy (piefed isn’t quite there for me, just yet) and mastodon. That’s it, I just tell them. The rest is up to them.
If anyone were to ask, I’d suggest blocking .ml, assuming it isn’t already.
I wouldn’t recommend Lemmy to anyone I know. Lemmy feels like a meme aggregator more than a forum or a link aggregator. It probably has it’s own niche of people who like what they can find in it but the people I know seem interested in other things, like local news and sports.
Hmmm yeah I find it’s a little more technology people here not sports. I like the smaller community and I’ve made friends here.
That would change if we had more people
The usual trio of lemmy, piefed, and mbin does have some problems, but to the best of my knowledge there isn’t any real alternative available right now if you want something that works approximately like this. What are you going to do, use billionaire-owned corporate social media? Lemmy is at least better than that.
Lemmy is the last stronghold of the Wild West. The only patch of grass in an enormous parking lot. No one owns it, theres no ads, it’s just a bunch of people on the internet like the old days. That’s what gives it value.
That said the niche communities are still too small and the learning curve to get involved is too steep to fix that. The only niche communities that have a lot of users are focused on tech because the user base has to be technically literate to even make an account and see content.
The fediverse in general is like the Wild West of the internet.
Yes there are ads. User A posts a comment in a gaming sub asking about how to fix their controller. Users B and C post comments saying they have had good luck with buying a specific brand rather than going to the trouble of trying to repair. All 3 users are part of the ad.
If they ask for recommendations / alternatives, then I mention it.
I also share links with friends when there’s something relevant or interesting, same as any other social media platform. Usually it’s when there’s a good comment or explanation, else it makes more sense to share the original source
I usually mention and explain the Fediverse and the many already existent platforms to anyone who starts complaining about the current state of social media. And explain why it would be better for the world for us all to move into a decentralised network than a corporate owned infrastructure.
As for Lemmy, most people were never on reddit. In my social experience, very few people ever used it. But the ones that used and use reddit, absolutely lemmy came into the conversation. And older tech nerds become immediately interested. As they should.
I don’t go around recommending apps or programs to people. A book, movie, or game maybe… never anything like “you gotta check out this star walk app! It confirms the bright star you’re looking at is once again Venus! It’s always Venus!”
Btw don’t bother with the star finder applications. It’s Venus. Trust me.
But no I’m not recommending lemmy to anyone. Even if they asked me directly what I used I’d probably say “it’s an app called mind your own business. You clearly wouldn’t like it”
No based on the fact that it’s completely overloaded with idiots.
It takes constant, active blocking and research to figure out how to make this experience … not a complete piece of shit
It’s just not for the average person, even as a former game dev and highly technical person, I find it irritating to just use Lemmy
I had the institute a block one community, and block one user per day policy just to make myself sane around here
And of course, the biggest reason not to recommend anybody to come to Lemmy, is they basically cloned Reddit. Outside of some philosophical feelings that us technical people have, there’s really no reason for anybody to be here
if i end up reccommending it i would:
Let them go through the communities i have on my account/suggest some from my list
Then go through the top communities
Then say that sorting by scaled is generally the best to get some diversity but also recent stuff
And then whatever comes upI don’t know much about this platform but as a person who really tries to avoid politics on the internet and focus on cool stuff like hobbies and cat videos I wouldn’t recommend people come here. There’s enough folks getting riled about politics. People need to focus on their local community and their family and what’s happening there, not mainstream US politics 24/7.
If someone asked me I’d mention “Lemmy”, but I wouldn’t generally push a recommendation to anybody without being asked.
i would, but I don’t think i can.
it depends on which content they like and them exploring would be better. mine’s more into the federation and privacy side
