I think it's worth ideating on how to create a #Facebook / #Meta to #FediVerse migration pipeline, and what one might look like.
I'm at a disadvantage here, because I'm not a UI/UX person, and am pretty inept at it. I do, however, have a high-level sketch of what this might look like.
The first, most obvious thing is to offer competing apps to their Threads app. The obvious sell is "privacy": OSS alternatives can offer a "browse Facebook without the trackers" experience. It would be enough, I think, to have one app that offers this and this alone.
This is one part of how pipelines work: each stage has a low bar to entry, and offers resolution to some problem.
There could be several apps, each aimed at different stages:
1) Look and feel as close to Threads as possible, but without the trackers. Ideal is for Your Dad to find it on his own and be like "try using XYZ; it's just like Threads, but it doesn't track you!"
2) Simple filtering, moderation, ad-blocking, etc. Think like EFF's "PrivacyBadger"- not the most technically-sophisticated, but accessible to people who don't want to deal with NoScript/TorBrowser/etc.
(Pipeline continues)
3) Full-featured moderation and ad-blocking, combined with better FediVerse integration. This is the gateway for converts, what ideally gets them to migrate their accounts. Ideally designed to facilitate integration.
You might go a step further, and develop one for people who want to push content into the Facebook / Meta sphere, but reside primarily in the FediVerse. This is the specialized app for people like journalists, major personalities, etc. Should consult with actual pros on its design.
Now, how do you capture actual people? The key is to understand network theory, and its findings on social graphs.
First thing, the apps designed to facilitate migration should help solve the "what instance do I join?" issue. One way would be to provide some sort of aggregated, whirlwind-tour type view of instances. Help people see what instances they interact with most, and what those communities are like.
So if I'm interacting with example.social a lot, help me get a quick impression of it.
Beyond that, social graphs tend to be composed of relatively tight "islands", with a minority being either super-connectors within an island, or cross-connectors between them. (These tend to be specific kinds of people, with specific needs)
Identifying these clusters, and even the topics that tend to dominate them is actually not difficult. It wouldn't be too hard to set up an open "FediVerse observatory" to help people find communities of interest.
(This would be a great student project, btw)
@emc2 That is technically possible, but goes against the "no indexing / no search" principles of many people on Mastodon.
I don't think those goals hold up in the long run. I'd honestly be surprised if there's not a data science/social science grad department already studying the FediVerse.
It also seems contradictory: you can't be simultaneously maximally-open and public, but also dictate how people can/can't browse.
Major caveat: the issue of *licensing* content is wholly different, and I fully support having the ability to say things like "you can't create a derivative product (LLM) from this".
Definitely. There seems to be a lot of semblance to the FSF vs OSS split back in the day (the FSF side tended to adhere to the anti-usability, RTFM mentality). There also seems to be a strong overlap with what I call "puritanical leftist" attitudes and the separatist side.
I think in the long run, the separatist portion withers and loses relevance, while the open portion grows, adapts, and improves, just like what happened in the end with OSS vs. FSF.
@emc2 @autiomaa Part of me actually wonders if the emergence of #Threads may be an opportunity to spawn a new subset of the Fediverse that is more focused on the singular goal of aggregating users to break down the walled gardens without the other cultural hangups of the existing Fediverse culture that cause it to eschew usability in many ways.
To date, I think that would have been difficult, because there seems to be a culture in Fedi of de-federating based on FUD, and no one wants to join a new server with no one to talk to. Threads will likely not have that hang up and might ironically provide the content to facilitate the growth of a more competitive Fediverse.