Fediverse

40-ish M. Potentially, we’re/they’re more likely to have been using 3rd party apps and felt frustration with the Reddit decision in the first place. Younger users (and maybe older, 50-60+) maybe just started off with the official Reddit app or Reddit is a smaller part of their “content diet” vs other platforms, so they don’t really see what the big deal is.

If true, it’d be kind of an interesting demographic shift, since the last time we probably saw something like that was with Facebook when younger people moved away from it when it became boomer territory, so maybe the opposite is happening with Reddit, with middle/older more tech-savvy users jumping ship, but I’ve no real evidence.

There are a few things keeping users away - the perceived complexity and the sign up process and understanding how it all works, and the fact that it's a "new" site that is trying to replace reddit when many don't feel any need to leave reddit. That's the big one, and a big part of why the population here is made up of who it is.

The younger people that just use reddit as a meme site and for insta thots and porn either don't know or don't care about the API changes, didn't use a third party app so don't care that they're gone, and were oblivious to the whole protest. It's basically back to normal over on reddit now, so nothing changed for them and they don't have a reason to join here.

I'm 30+, a tech enthusiast dev, but I don't use Linux.

• I'm under 30 (Under 20 too) X
• Tech enthusiast/comp sci student ✔️
• Linux User ✔️

Hasnt internet started like that?

No man, I'm 20 and I'm using this site

I think it’s because we remember a time when there wasn’t a lot of stability and centralized content. So the absolute shit show that is going on right now and the resurgence of decentralized content is really refreshing. Plus it’s pretty amazing that the forums we came up using can now talk to one another! Now if we could only bring back XMPP 😂

I'm definitely coming up on 40, but I am not a tech nerd at all. I think Linux is wizard magic.

Even young people who aren't techies are clueless about more advanced stuff. The theory that old people don't understand technology because they didn't grow up with it is wrong

30 years or older. Check.

Tech enthusiast/ worker.... check.

Linux users. Check.

Dammit

No. Next question

• check
• check
• check

I am 45 and you can say a tech enthusiast. I've never worked in tech but I have always wanted to but never took that chance. I feel like I'm too old to start now.

From what I see on Local we are

Trans Old Young Gay Straight Nerds Furries Porno addicts

The youth have an innate pressure to follow trends and their peers. They need and crave social acceptance while still lacking the means to be independent and "go their own way", so it's not viable to expect younger users to form the bulk of pioneering users of an unproven platform like the fediverse.

Older user will generally be more confident and independent, especially when the craving for social approval is not as powerful as it was in younger users.

Older tech nerdsn are the pioneers of new and open technologies like fediverse and smolnet, because they are smart enough and care enough about technological principles/philosophies to use them. As the services grow they begin to reach a phase where it attracts reactionary people who are looking actively for alternatives to mainstream services ru n by corporations. This tends to be fanatical people who think capitalism/global economic system bad, or the very vocally queer. Then if it manages to grow even further, say from an exodus of users from a competing service, the normal people finally come and attract more normal people with far more varying discussion interest besides conputer technogy, spewing debates on political/economic ideas, and being gay.

I'm 28, Linux user, tech worker, pretty much called me out

• 28 (fail)
• Game Programmer (pass)
• Windows user (fail)

Younger people and casual Reddit users never left Reddit. People who were ok with still using old.reddit didn't leave Reddit. When I first joined Lemmy.ml during the blackout, the website struggled to load, the communities were hard to find or non existent, and there wasn't much content (compared to Reddit).

Now that Reddit is dead to me, Lemmy has filled the doomscroll void. I do much less of it now. Also, Lemmy is growing in the right directions.

Younger people may be more affected by social pressure, to be on the already popular apps.

This is the big downside to the Reddit implosion. I liked that Reddit had finally attracted normal people. If I want to know what a 30 year old dweeby white guy thinks about stuff, I’ll ask myself.

It takes a while for stuff like this to catch on outside of this specific demographic.

People who don’t care as much about tech aren’t going to bother to figure out the fediverse right now. It’s way too confusing, but Instagram/twitter/threads/reddit is right there.

Once a few apps get going on iOS and Android, and once it becomes way easier to join a server, then we’ll see normal people start trickling in.

More demographics will come, it takes time. That and people who are willing to break from the habits of flocking to the next big corporation built social media network for something smaller, but more meaningful.

43 here. IT consultant. Have been on every social media platform since Myspace all the way back to Usenet if you want to consider that social media which is what is basically was. On the major platforms these days, I mostly lurk and DM with fam and friends along with small Discord groups. Since joining the fediverse, and more specifically Lemmy, I've been much more active commenting and posting then I've been in years. I actively encourage friends and fam to join, but the fact is the fediverse is young and isn't as user friendly. It has to reach a critical mass of ease of use and user adoption which is what's being driven up right now like all other platforms before it. The more people join, the more it will be streamlined, feeding back to usability so more people discover and join, etc. etc. This is how all platforms evolved except in the case of the fediverse, it isn't controlled by a single entity which has its pluses and minuses. I don't expect MetaThreadBook, Reddit, Twitter, et al to go anywhere anytime soon, but diversification and competition is always good. If we can reach critical mass with the fediverse, it will provide a good check against these monopolistic entities and hopefully result in better overall communities and interactions.

30yr+, tech enthusiast, linux user... these are all the same thing XD

Saw a couple polls over on Mastodon about just this thing and it was very much skewed to people 35+. It's no a platform the youths are on, but that can change as the fediverse gets some traction and works on that on-boarding experience.

I use a mac.

I'm 20, but if this is the case, and I've heard a lot of people saying Gen Z is not that good with technology though I haven't seen anything verifying that, then that's a bit terrifying, honestly. ~Strawberry

I'm over 30, but I'm tech stupid compared to everyone else here, but I can follow, and understand the jist ftmp of the conversation. Not my area of expertise. I grown up with the internet though obviously so I do know my way around.

If anything i'm probably just more open to new experiences than the average person, and I like learning stuff.

But in general I agree with your observations, and it seems natural for early adopters of a platform.

✅ ✅ ✅ - that's me :P

I had been on Lemmy before, but since there was much more activity on Reddit I didn't stick with it. Now that more communities are flourishing on the fediverse early adopters are jumping on, and if ethe growth is stable and communities have activity (not just subscribers or visitors) to rival other spaces, I think diversity will grow. It only takes a relatively small number of active users to create a strong community

Follow #art on mastadon and you see how active that community is.