We already see lag in comments and posts with the current load. It could be buggy apps as this is relatively new, but who knows. I am no network engineer, but I would imagine that issue to only get worse as user numbers increase.

And then tell you’re throwing a tantrum when you get annoyed by it.

They seem to be serious. The more concerning thing is that people are agreeing with them. I guess common sense is not so common.

I’m not calling everyone pedantic. I’m calling you and the other guy who chimed in with pedantic takes pedantic. You can claim you’re right all you want, but nothing about the title of the post “Pixelfed user count has gone vertical” is inaccurate. Whether it’s the user count or the user growth rate that is exponential is irrelevant. Nothing about my post is misrepresenting the fact that on the graph, the number of users is going nearly straight up, exactly as the title describes. Feel free to keep trying to correct me, but I know I’m right because I have eyes and can identify basic shapes. I am very willing to admit when I am wrong, but this is not one of those cases.

It’s still early. It’s not even federated yet, just more or less a 1:1 tiktok clone.

Jesus fucking Christ, you people are miserably pedantic. Nothing about my original post is wrong, so please kindly shut the fuck up with your “well achtually” takes.

Combo of terrible moderation rules changes by meta, the release of the pixelfed app on Android and iOS, and coverage of that app by major tech news outlets.

The y axis starting zero does not change the fact that it’s exponentially growing right now. Filter that link posted below for 120 days and it is still a nearly straight vertical line of growth.

I don’t know about that app specifically, but I know some fediverse apps do not have all instances in their directory. For example, fedilab doesn’t have friendica.world. I would suggest hunting around for an app that supports your instance, but I agree, it is a dumb problem. What is the point of being able to join whatever instance you want if it is not listed on the app?

If the fediverse ever wants to scale, something like this has to come about. I personally think we need a whole lot of regional servers. For example, we make a cluster of servers by country, so lemmy.us, Lemmy.de, etc. Then, when those servers start to fill to a certain threshold (say 1000 users), we break them out regionally, so lemmy.ne.us, lemmy.se.us, etc. The way servers are assigned would be by selecting your country and region. It shouldn’t be too complex and would simplify the sign up people for a lot of people.

I fully acknowledge that it is not universally good for everyone, and for those who do not find it good, there is plenty of other options out there. However, for the billions who use it daily to keep up with friends, it is good for them, and there are basically zero good alternatives. I agree that we should not invalidate others experiences. Just because something is not good for you does not mean it is not good for others.

Totally agree on the private company seeing everything you do and using it to train AI and monetize your data. That is why I am here after all. Wouldn’t it be better if we got as many people out of that system as possible, and into more democratically controlled systems?

How is it creepy to see what your friends post? I would also argue that you do have a middle man involved in any communication, even ones that are not on social media. Unless you are visiting them physically in person, you have some phone/internet providers mediating the communication. Social media is just another form of communication provider.

I would argue on the loneliness side of things, that having quit Facebook for a number of years, and then returned to it, I felt infinitely more isolated and lonely when I was off Facebook than when I was on it. Returning to it reconnected me with so many friends I had not talked to in forever, and I quickly realized how valuable social media is for social connection. It’s kind of sad that you view it as performative, because that is not how I view it at all. I now have a healthy social circle that is there for me if I am going through a hard time in my life, help me find a new place to live if I’m moving, etc, and who I can be there in a similar manner. That is real value that is a lot harder to maintain by texting people directly.

It may be true that a large number of current users do not want to be publicly trackable. To be clear, I am not saying that all of the fediverse should be public personal profiles. However, the people on Facebook who want alternatives are going to be sorely disappointed. It’s not so much of meeting a goal as it is fulfilling a need. People want this, and it would be good for society if they had it. The infrastructure is here, it’s just a matter of building it.

On the second point, I’m in my late 30’s and have found a great deal of value with connecting with my friends and family. I was disconnected for a lot of years and it was extremely socially isolating. Reconnecting has been therapeutic for me, and it is one of the big reasons I will probably not be deleting my Facebook any time soon.

I mean, on the flip side, about 60% are under 44. I think 40-50 is the cutoff for being considered “old” these days. I say this as someone who is quickly approaching that first cutoff, lol.

That’s somewhat of a myth. 43% of Facebook users are under 34, and nearly 20% of them are under 24.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/187549/facebook-distribution-of-users-age-group-usa/

I’m gonna have to disagree. Today, I am able to keep up with the goings on of my friends and family on Facebook. This is not a ten years ago thing. Nowhere else on the web can I log in and see my friend from high school posting a funny meme, a colleague post a picture of his family, or my mom wishing my brother and his wife happy anniversary. You may not use it for that, but many people do, and I don’t know how you could call that a bad thing. Isn’t social connection what social media is all about? Why would we want to not accommodate that as much as possible?

I think an option on login for “personal account” vs “anonymous account” would be great. Personal accounts could require a phone number and allow import of contacts to help find personal accounts you know. There is a so much untapped potential here, we just need to make it a thing.

I mean, that’s good if you don’t want that, but I think a lot of people do. I abandoned facebook in 2017, but returned in 2022, and realized how out of touch I had become with everyone. I have friends, aunts, uncles, siblings, etc all added, and it is always nice to see what they’re up to. If you don’t want to keep in touch with people, then I guess I can see why you would not value that functionality and be fine with Friendica as is, but I think it is something a lot of people are looking for, and I would argue one of the primary values that social media provides to society.

Considering one of the biggest values that social media provides to society is being able to connect with friends and family…yes?

I’m saying the reason it is not going viral is for the exact reasons I mentioned. The reason facebook went viral in the first place. We need either a potential modification of sites like friendica to make it more linked to your social graph (i.e., import contacts to find users, require proper names so people can find you, etc), or we need a new fediverse platform to come along that does that. So I would argue we can directly control it, by implementing these features that would make these networks valuable to most people.