I would like to see more investment in informative media. Social media has been one of the best sources to get information about local events, news, and alerts.

Speaking from an American’s perspective, I would like to see federated networks organized similarly to the United States. There should be one main federal instance, then a sub instance for states, eventually down to micro instances for neighborhoods or zip codes.

My complaint about “corporate social media” has been its need to make money from advertising driven by engagement. This means I miss tons of posted information by family, friends, businesses, bands, restaurants, record shops, farmers markets, city council members, police departments, reporters, etc.

I still want to connect with these users but getting them on board with the fediverse is an uphill battle if they’re only in it for the memes. Creating a platform that makes some tangible sense to people, I think, would drive more adoption. If you want to connect with your city, join cityname.state.US.verse. This wouldn’t exclude the creation of other networks like I dunno… nestle.corp.verse or tiktok.social.verse.

I should edit my comment and add “post rage bait”.

You’re absolutely right. I’d describe myself similarly to you. I even created a local community here for my city. But it feels like I’m speaking quietly on top of a mountain while the nearest person is a time zone away. Perhaps a handful of people would stop by and subscribe to the content but this isn’t about subscribing - it’s about engaging. Communities are about exchanging ideas. Posting something that compels people to engage is one way to increase activity. As more people notice the community, they’ll be more likely to engage when there’s enough noise around that doesn’t single them out too much.

The major social platforms know this. This is why they promote trash over quality information. This is why I get frustrated on Instagram because it continues to show me posts from two or three days ago notifying me that I missed an exciting event.

You can post all the great informative content you want on your little corner of the fediverse but without engagement, is it really there?

By permitting advertising.

“Normies” are not “microbloggers”. Most people just want to follow what their friends and family and news organizations and “influencers” are posting.

My biggest gripe with the fediverse (indirectly) is that all the information I would get on Twitter about my city is not available to me - concert announcements, restaurant specials, road closures, major news, hobby meetups, etc. They’re posting on Facebook and Instagram (which is IMO the worst of all social platforms) and slowly adopting Threads. My issue with these platforms is mostly regarding the algorithm deciding what it thinks you want. This is driven by advertising.

Twitter didn’t really pick up steam until celebrities and news outlets were posting and engaging on the platform. Then they pushed hard for ads to increase revenue and expand features and stability (for better or worse). Then they just got greedy. Then they were sold for the dumbest amount of money in the history of sales.

Getting normies here means getting influencers here. Influencers want to make money for being assholes. If you don’t want influencers and ads here, don’t ask for the normies to come. Accept the beauty of this micro micro blogging platform. If you want to share outside the open fediverse, embrace cross posting to the closed platforms. That’s kind of the whole point of it. You can post in your tiny little corner while still engaging with the more popular platforms.

TL;DR: be careful what you wish for.

I genuinely can not find a single thing to like about it. It feels like development was stopped shortly after they finished the wire framing. Plex and QuMagie are significantly better (and they suck).

I’m not blaming my hardware or Elestio for the archaic user interface. It looks like it was developed in the 90s and never made it out of alpha.

Thanks again! I just moved a publicly shared photo album from Google Drive to Ente and it’s great. Just the fact that you can sort images properly is a relief. I can’t believe how horrible photos sites are in the 2020s. Ente certainly has a lot of missing features but I’ll be using it for stuff like sharing (less than 5GB) photo albums with friends and family.

As I said, I already tried that. Immich is a hard no.
Frankly, it’s shocking so many people recommend such a really bad photo application.

Ente

Thanks!

Appreciate that. Archaic, no?

Mastodon seems like it could work relatively well.

The other side of the issue though is for social media to feel “social” now, people, consciously or not, want to feel connected to brands and advertising and popular culture. Social media, now more than television or magazines used to, generates our water-cooler moments. It generates the content we sit right here and discuss - it generates memes. These fringe alternatives aren’t popular because the they lack gravity. Gravity comes from investment. Investment comes from potential; typically, potential to make money.

But yeah, group ware, et al, could work for smaller groups. The friction there is getting people to install, and give a crap about, another app on their phone.

What used to be apps for catching up with your friends and family are now algorithmic nightmares that constantly interrupt you with suggested content and advertisements that consistently outweigh the content of people that you choose to follow.

In the case of Facebook, the decline is either reflected in — or directly facilitated by — two specific features: People You May Know and the News Feed.

Yep. I was screaming to bring back the chronological timeline when they pushed out the “beta testing”. I actually stopped using social media regularly because I was missing events that were happening in my neighborhood. There was no point once they chose what to show me. But, I’m not the target demographic for their platform.

Someone who wants to interact with their community and keep in touch with their friends and family is not what social media is for. It’s for selling ads. It’s for maintaining your attention. It’s for engagement and making you feel a way they’ve determined will keep you scrolling.

And honestly, it’s tough to complain. The more successful a platform becomes, the more content is uploaded and viewed. This doesn’t cost them nothing. Without charging to use or upload to the platform, they have to sell ads. The more engaging the ads are, the more successful business are with posting those ads. So they double down and post more ads - they engage more with the audience the platform has directed towards them. It just keeps snowballing from there until the platform no longer represents what it did initially.

The actual problem is that no one is willing to pay for “social media”. They’ll pay out the butt for streaming services and two-day delivery but connecting with real people and getting unbiased investigative news, not so much.

Fair enough. Plex may not have the bells and whistles but it’s simple and intuitive to use. I’ve also tried the QuMagie app on my QNAP which does have all those features but found it to be a bit more cumbersome than it was worth.

I tried Google Photos briefly as well and was very shocked at how bad it is, compared to Apple Photos. It took me several days just to figure out how to delete more than one picture at a time. I have to assume it’s much more robust on an Android than on an iPhone but even their web interface was horrible.

I don’t know why people recommend Immich. I found it to be the most bare-bone photo app I’ve ever used. It feels ten+ years old. I tried really hard to make it work but Plex photos is about 20% better and it still sucks.

Second sentence:

It has a 4.4mm headphone jack to go with the more conventional 3.5mm type.

4.4mm is for balanced audio output. This audience for this device is audiophiles.

That’s a good one. The photomarket on reddit was the main reason I was hesitant to shut down my account. And eBay is way too expensive and unfair for sellers.

Twitter.

I know this is the “wrong answer” but I had always used Twitter to keep tabs on local government agencies, newspapers, reporters, restaurants, bars, events, concerts, sports teams, etc. Not to mention all the accounts that pertain to my hobby’s and interests.

I’ve used bird.makeup but it’s not reliable if it works at all. Some agencies, like our transit system and streets department, will post on one thing on their website and something else on instagram or twitter (many have stopped using twitter after the api change). RSS is fine for some things but not everything. I haven’t been using instagram for years because of advertising and the algorithmic timeline. I at least need lists.

Really, the right answer here for my needs is that all these groups need to join the fediverse. I just don’t see that happening.

Or maybe I should say I wish the “existing platform” of my city government would start their own instance.

301 terabits = 37 terabytes… PER SECOND.

The bill actually addresses any foreign adversary.

Sweden is not an adversary of the United States.

Thankfully, this part of the Fediverse is working…