Lemmy is to Reddit what Methadone is to Heroin

Simple.

Just like you introduce Linux!

I don’t. It’s bad enough that people spend too much time on social media. Why the fuck would i introduce another one?

I’m practically only here because rif died. Its not because it’s enjoyable. I open the app to maybe see one good post among the thousands and thousands of “same”-posts.

when you talk about the Fediverse to friends, family, or colleagues

Sorry, why would I do that? There might be 1-3 people who’d be “suitable” for something like Reddit before it became crap, and 0 for the Fediverse.

I say it doesn’t sell all your data to random companies all over the place.

“The memes and news site I use.”

That’s it. No infodumping, no explaining the technicalities, just tell them “just pick one, it’s basically like a username” and worry about it only if they want to learn about the underside of it.

We don’t “explain” email to people - they just pick a site, sign up, and move on.

Working in tech I learned to only explain the workings of something if they ask since most users are perfectly fine on a surface level and can intuit more than we credit them for once they know the basic gist.

Here’s a better link from mastodon. It gives you a preview and has no ads.

“I’m trying to cut down on social media.”

Great, mastodon isn’t optimised for engagement, it’s just stuff you follow in chronological order.

I just describe it as an online forum I like to argue in. 🤷

Depends:
single platform: there i talk mostly about features like no tracking and no ads but also add that there are less people but its still lively

Fediverse: “imagine you comment under a youtube video with your twitter account”, then i add that i actuallynever did the equivalent but that its possible, then i rant about bsky not being decentralised (because DIDs) and its red flags, then go back explaining fedi and reference it to email

I start sending fediverse links containing memes etc. and eventually they sign up on one of the sites.

The whole thing with federating is irrelevant to most users.

I tell them it’s a social media built in a way that makes it impossible for any company to take over it in order to make profit. And then I show them to some instance I’ve hand-picked for them, without really telling them there are other instances as well. It’s not something they should worry about at that point. I can explain it later on, anyway.

Just wait until they get banned from reddit, get them to sign up and show them the Boost client (that used to work on reddit) and away they’ll go. That’s how i did it :-)

I don’t bother explaining it unless asked. I just share content with them. They can figure it out if they’re interested.

If I am asked, then it’s “a decentralized platform similar to…” whatever. Most folks are “don’t know, don’t care” when it comes to anything technical.

I don’t. I say oh yeah I read that on Lemmy. They don’t ask, I don’t offer.

If for some reason they say what is Lemmy? I say just a community version of Reddit not run by companies.

They never ask further, so I don’t need to start explaining parallels to email.

I gives concrete advantages like the choice of client to browse those platform, features not getting removed for profits etc. I think the decentralization as a selling point is a failed strategy