I think we’re all a bit disillusioned with it now. I feel like on the 2000’s era internet we all were showing up bright eyed and optimistic about the possibilities. We lived in a world without the internet and having it felt like a superpower. But in the 2010’s and especially around 2016, the misinformation pump got turned on hard and we saw the internet bring some truly sinister real world events to fruition. SEO started getting used more and more through the 2010’s. Social media companies started finding nasty ways to profit off of us by being more selective in what we see. And now this has been the year of enshittification with big companies finally making moves that actively worsen our experiences in order to cash in on a lot of investment money that never turned into anything real. Basically I think what happened is a mixture of people becoming more cynical and the internet becoming over-automated and now this year businesses finally realizing that potential profit is worthless without acting on it.
With all that said though, the Fediverse feels like our chance to finally fight back. Lemmy still only has around 60k monthly active users. We need to try to bring that number up.
Why bring it up? More people rarely add more value past N. I suppose the better question is what is N? I’m loving lemmy right now, do we really need the cesspit that was large subreddits?
Well, for context, Mastodon has around 1.5 million monthly active users. Twitter/Reddit are around 450 million monthly active users. You can enjoy Lemmy’s small size but also see that at 60k monthly active users it hasn’t even reached a size comparable to many other famous small sized forums. I don’t know what N is. I personally think the Fediverse should be the replacement for corporate social media and that social media can be essential in how information spreads through society. It can decide elections. It can shift society’s views on issues. I think it does us a disservice to go the hipster route and cling to our small niche thing and resist growth. The beauty of Lemmy is that there will always be small communities regardless. Anyone who wants a small community need only defederate from the big servers and stick to a small, niche server.
So you are proposing we “fight back” by bringing more users, including the ones who are denigrating the internet.
Something something “pot called the kettle black”.
The internet has become soulless and i hate it
It didn’t. It’s more alive than ever.
It’s just you visiting wrong places, not paying attention to the correct ratio of negative and positive content.
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Where are these magical “right” places?
It’s a subjective matter. I’m not you, I can’t say what brings you joy and motivates you positively.
Say, Mastodon, Reddit, Youtube any other social site. Pursuing the topic of politics alone is going to push your mental balance towards negativity, pesimism, cynicism and possibly depression. Skip it, limit it, and if you can’t resign from it, then balance it out with pics of funny things, jokes, possibly a community dedicated to some interesting project or hobby.
Today alone (…)
The fact that such an experience managed to frustrate you is a strong indicator that you could use a bit more organized approach to the online content.
I think this is true to an extent. The internet is still filled with magical things, but no one can deny that a huge portion is just ad-filled garbage at this point. Most everything “mainstream” is designed to manipulate us and suck us dry. I still say the internet is both the greatest and worst invention of all time.
Adblocker do great job at filtering out the majority of ads. Resign from social sites (or their parts) that drown in toxicity (anything dealing with “news” is usually the 1st place to avoid) and it’s going to improve your online experience.
I still say the internet is both the greatest and worst invention of all time.
I’d argue that there are better contenders, but this is a discussion for entirely different community. 😜
Adblocker do great job at filtering out the majority of ads.
Oh believe me, I’ve been running UBlock Origin for a long time. When I use a computer without it, I’m just amazed at the amount of ads nowadays
I’d argue that there are better contenders, but this is a discussion for entirely different community. 😜
Oh of course, little bit of hyperbole in my statement, but I definitely believe the internet has been a gift and a curse for society.
Yeah, I was born in the early 80s and grew up watching the internet grow, so I know how to navigate for the best experience for me. But I don’t think it can be denied that the vast majority of people don’t and fall right into the toxicity most of the time. And the effect it’s had on sociaty is hard to ignore.
So that’d be the gist of it, and the suggestion to everyone who perceives the Internet as a souless place: “learn how to use the tool that is the Internet correctly, so it won’t misfire on you”. I don’t think there’s any flaw in this approach.
I agree there’s no flaw in the approach but like anything most people won’t learn. People can’t be bothered by and large.
Since I’m even older than you, allow me…
“KIDS THESE DAYS…” 😆
A-bleeping-men. The “unspoken rule” of the internet is “Follow the trends and what the majority is saying. Because if you are not, then please fuck off.”. Its all about self-validation for the sake of (everything) nowadays. Even if it means screaming at randoms for minor/futile reasons.
*sigh. Back in my days, it was all about trash talking with randoms and enjoying the company of said randoms – and we loved every second of it. It was a little, happy place pretty much.
Nowadays its a “depression center” of sorts where everything is wrong and nothing is right.
Inflation went up, interest rates went up, venture capital money dried up (and Russia/ China pulled out of crypto/risky investments). All the “market capture” corps turned off the free use lures and started to monetize their users at the same time. There are smaller startups that still have free use lures, but which will be big next is a toss-up.
I wish all the rich people would go fuck off to doing whatever they were doing before ruining computers for everyone.
