Not a great day for social media. Twitter down, Reddit has not 3rd party apps, Lemmy is being hugged to death by people bailing Reddit and Twitter.
I guess I’ll go outside.
Lemmy isn’t hugged to death. The issue is that everyone is just heading to the same handful of instances.
I didn’t realize this until I started self-hosting my own instance, but if you don’t join one of the 3 large instances (beehaw, world, ml) then you miss out on a LOT of historical content. The way federation works is that it only pulls in new post/comments after someone on your instance subscribes to a community on another instance. So if you find a cool new community on another instance, you can subscribe to see any new posts and comments, but you won’t see any of the old content at all unless you manually search for the post/comment.
Long winded way of saying, the best user experience (content wise) is always going to be on the largest instances unless Lemmy/ActivityPub changes how content backfilling works.
Or at the very least, it’s proof that the best time to start a new Lemmy instance for yourself is now instead of later 😉
The best thing an admin can do is either subscribe to all the major instances before users pour in or ask the earliest members to do so. Just makes search and timeline stuff a bunch easier on folks new to federation
It also means that your server load / storage needs blow up with the more users you have.
Maybe they should update the join-lemmy.org page to suggest joining smaller instances. They put popular instances at the top and presumably that’s what everyone wants to join.
Edit: and then randomize the list of smaller instances to further distribute the load.
Yes, that’s most likely the cause.
And many uninformed newcomers (like myself) assume that they can only directly interact with people or communities on their home instance, so the large ones get hit even more.
Here’s the current usershare breakdown by instance, if anyone’s curious:
Source: https://github.com/tgxn/lemmy-explorer/tree/main/frontend/public/data
Lemmy.world is getting a very big chunk, but other than that it actually seems fairly distributed.
I guess there has to be a lowest common denominator instance. Not at all a bad thing, it leaves the dedicated communities out of their inevitable implosion range which still having access.
Amazing graph, shame it’s a bit jumbled at the bottom. Very informative.
Really everyone always wants to be on the most popular “site” instance to ensure it will just not go away suddenly. After that they go for ones that give them a cool @ domain name. This is how email and Jabber/XMPP worked for years. Modern fediverse should be using some form of modern distributed identity, not 1965 email style identities.
Yes, I figured. My domain name is not as cool as “shitjustworks” or whatever. But I can say that my instance is gonna stay for as long as Lemmy as software is supported, no matter if there are many users or not. I strongly believe that FOSS and the Fediverse are the future and I want to give something to the community by hosting the instance.
I went through the evolution of email… At first it was universities, then ISPs etc. Having your identity tied to them SUCKED every time you no longer qualified for an account, changed providers ETC. I was a hotmail user before Microsoft purchased it, and an early beta Gmail user… While this is some centralisation these two identities have lasted decades, where AT THE TIME AOL was the (this is the biggest, never going away) option, now almost no one has an @AOL.com address.
Point being that no matter the current promise your instance could DIE if you get ill or can’t afford to host it etc. The model is BAD. I have said it before and will say it again, Identity SHOULD NOT be tied to instances, AND it needs some form of bot and trust system built in.
I partially agree with you. But my plan is to hand over the entire thing should I fall ill or get tired of hosting and maintaining it.
But in the end, everything’s gonna go away. Even Reddit, like all the platforms before it. That’s just the way things work.
What would be better, though? Having a P2P-like system where everything is truly federated? Like… Everyone has all accounts and all content at all times? I don’t know how this would work.
At this point in time, there are clear advantages to the current federated system, but there are also clear disadvantes, like what you’re describing, as well as some other things, like the different rules and moderation techniques of instances, defederation, etc.
undefined> What would be better, though? Having a P2P-like system where everything is truly federated? Like… Everyone has all accounts and all content at all times? I don’t know how this would work
I think something mandatory in the server instances that runs a blockchain (not crypto to be clear but that is how it works) IE every instance server is a validator node. When you create an account you do it from an instance, it gets recorded into the blockchain but at that point you have a lemmy account. You can directly log in on any instance as YOU (kind of like how SAML/OAUTH lets you use a google / microsoft / steam account) and use the services. When you post it is signed with your blockchain info. You could get banned on a specific instance and that gets recorded in the block chain. Other instances could chose to look at that info and decide they don’t want users that have been banned on multiple other instances or on specific trusted instances. Over time your account essentially becomes more or less trusted but the key think is that your YOU and not bound to one instance.
How do you handle the current issues with open registration and federation? Having accounts based on the individual instance is kind of what enables Beehaw to exist in the way that it does.
Sounds good to me. Any downsides?
I seem to remember some parts of the Fediverse being able to pick up your user and move to another instance? Is that Mastodon by any chance? If that’s so, sounds like something Lemmy should look into.
It doesn’t sound like it would be too hard, pack up your user stuff in a JSON and sign it (basically a JWT), and establish a protocol by which one instance passes the user to another. Or, even better, let the user take their JSON and import it manually into another instance – this could also double as personal backup.
Is that Mastodon by any chance?
You are correct, and it’s on the Lemmy roadmap as far as I know. It’s just Mastodon has had a bit longer in the oven. We’ll get there 😄
I believe Mastodon has that (seem to remember seeing it when I setup my account) but I think the instance you are on has to still be alive at the time to do i so it doesn’t quite address the sudden shutdown of the instance that holds your identity.
That’s a good point. 😃 All the more reason for them to offer the ability to download your account data.
Except unlike email, it is not a big deal to change accounts on lemmy, almost all interation happens in communites not user to user.
It matters if you create a community and are the only mod, or are a mod etc etc. You basically lose that if you lose your identity .
Why don’t instances create user caps (at least temporarily) to help spread the load? Seems wild to have unlimited sign-ups when instances max out typical hardware at a couple thousand users.
Well, not every user uses the same amount of server resources. Some are very active, some only use the server rarely, some register an account, check out Lemmy and never come back for one reason or another.
Should maybe rate-limit concurrent connections or scale.
With lemmy.world I believe the issue was that it was handling that number of users fine, then version 0.18 came and when they upgraded to it their server started struggling.
It’s just the fediverse. My timeline is nothing but hugs and love. :3
That’s another way to see it. 🥰
Yep, the local instance I’m using is working flawlessly
Like, which one?
If the platform can’t handle large numbers of users flocking to popular instances, then it is doomed to fail.
2023 has been historical for social media, so much changing so fast.
The instance I’m on is working fine, I think the problem is people are gravitating towards the largest 2-3 instances.
This is true. I was having a lot of issues with lemmy.ml it’s getting overwhelmed. I wish there was an easy way to carry over subscriptions between accounts.
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@African_Grey @chickenwing the brute force method
There isn’t an assisted way to export/import your subscriptions, and doing it manually can be a pain especially if you are the first to request some of them, which is more likely on a smaller server
Lemmy is being hugged to death
There are worse ways to die. 😁
It’s coming from the Reddit apocalypse. You could call it “death by snoo’s news”.
I’d rather be on a site that hugs you to death than one that wants to screw everyone over because they are afraid of AI and API calls. Besides, it’s nice seeing the communities come together.
Working fine for me
Things were pretty bad this AM
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Okay, now THAT is fucking hilarious and if true, I’m living for it.
The “disconnect a random rack” approach to tech management.
NO WAY
HAHAHAH Musk you are a genius!!
My choices now are
Mastodon
Lemmy
Kbin
Actually edit the novelI truly don’t understand why people keep trying to use Twitter despite open and obvious changes designed to be hostile to users. Not to mention the reliability issues that continue to crop up as a result of axing nearly your entire engineering staff.
Some people can’t figure out Mastodon, but I don’t think enough of the people who can’t figure out mastodon are realizing that nothing would be better than twitter. And I mean literally just not doing social media anymore would be a marked improvement over using twitter
I think most of them just don’t even know about Mastadon. I didn’t until after Reddit announced it’s API changes and people started talking about Lemmy and the fediverse.
I just simply had heard about none of this.
Well, I apologize for my slightly elitist attitude. I sometimes forget just how online I am. I’m glad you’re taking a chance on this technology! I hope you come to like it! It’s come a long way since I first tried it 7 years ago, and I believe is now viable for people who want to talk about things
I’m a reasonably online person myself, I think it just depends on how deep in specific areas one delves. :)
Instead of diving into the Fediverse, last year I was exploring Royal Road as a place to write and self-publish a serial. While it’s getting better known, if you aren’t in the writing communities it’s less likely that you know about it.
For sure. I just made a really unfair assumption, and then phrased my “where did this assumption come from” really poorly.
Anyway. Get yourself something nice. Go tell all your friends
I have been spreading the word through my Discord, which has most of my friends and some of the folk who read my story. :)
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I’m gonna be honest — I am actually enjoying Mastodon entirely because people have convinced themselves that the Fediverse is too difficult to understand. Right now it’s all the fun and friendly nerds, not the bitter and hateful nerds.
Imo, there was no greater news aggregator than 3rd party Twitter apps. I will miss them very much. A couple of my favorite sources are not on Mastodon (yet?) and the 3rd party apps aren’t up to snuff yet. Hopefully we get there one day.
My problem really is the sources. I’m on Mastodon, but the people/organizations/journalists I want to follow aren’t. Maybe they’ll get there, all things take time.
sunk cost fallacy is a hell of a drug. it’s also why a lot of people stay in bad relationships (friends/romantic/family/etc)
We need the big media companies to leave twitter - it seems almost every business and public figure that people actually want to follow has a Twitter account. This is especially true for media talents and talent agencies like hololive, and the YouTube/streaming space as a whole.
Once they finally realise that it makes sense to create a mastodon account it might actually push another wave over to mastodon.
I wouldn be surprised if talent agencies like vshojo and hololive eventually created their own mastodon or lemmy instances for their talents to have an account and community on - it seems the best way to validate and verify real vs fake talents. As well as moderate to their own standard.
People will be able to ask Is it @user@talent.agency? Yes it is, therefore they must be the real one.
Damn, that’s a really smart idea, and I can definitely see big companies doing this.
People have built pretty good friendships and entire communities on there. Like it’s an absolute shithole of a website especially now(like any other corpo website is any better) but it was our shithole.
I’ve been feeling a significant amount of sadness at the feeling like I’ve now fully lost the 2 places that were my havens for safety and community during the pandemic (Twitter and Reddit). I mostly disconnected a few weeks/months ago, but this weekend feels like the full, official breakup. I wonder if anyone/everyone else is feeling the same?
Yesterday felt to me like the day Web 2.0 died. It’s actually rather awkward. Web 2.0 devolved into enshittification, Web 3.0 to many looks to be a scam from the outset, and that leaves us with the Fediverse as the most hopeful continuation of what we liked about Web 2.0. But what is the Fediverse? More of the same as Web 2.0? An entirely new thing? I’ve been coming to view the Fediverse as being Web 2.0.1. It’s a bug fix. The corporations controlling Web 2.0 were the problem, not the idea of a more dynamic and interactive web. The solution isn’t strictly speaking Peer 2 Peer solutions, as many people still want a curated and moderated space, so they’re not dealing with a constant onslaught of dicks and nazis they didn’t ask for (I’m sure someday the Peer 2 Peer networks will have a viable solution for that, but for now, they don’t as far as I can tell). But a networked governance structure in which volunteers own the instances and the users have more choice in how their space is moderated seems like a major fix to what we were seeing before, and I think it’s a major benefit for all of us
I’ve been really intrigued by the developments coming from the Web0 / small web train of thought. https://web0.small-web.org/
web0 is web3 without all the corporate right-libertarian Silicon Valley bullshit.
That’s certainly one way to phrase it. In bright yellow highlighted text.
what is the Fediverse? More of the same as Web 2.0?
Fediverse seems more like it’s bringing us back to Web 1.0, which is a good thing. That was a time when the internet was open and end-users drove the evolution of software—not greedy corporate shareholders.
Idk if it’s web 1.0
More like it’s taking the best bits of web 1 and putting them back into web 2, a renaissance if you will.
Maybe a web 1.5?
Absolutely, and the coordination is deeply suspicious. Steve Huffman said he didn’t want to be like Twitter, but then admitted in interview that he’d had several meetings with Elon. u/spez’s nose is brown, and it smells musky.
What’s weirder to me is that it falls right in line with Discord’s less damaging but also controversial changes ahead of their own IPO. The most controversial of which they released on 5/23/23.
… Discord.
Makes me wonder if all of this is on purpose to push web0.
Totally. I was just thinking about how my very specific life circumstances mean that I’m otherwise distracted and handling it pretty well. But if I were in a rough patch right now this situation would be really, really, really hard. I hope the people in that situation are okay and finding new refuge in places like this ❤
it makes me really thankful that spaces like this already exist - even though they’re not nearly as developed/robust as the platforms we’ve left. I imagine playing cards with good company on a lifeboat can be just as fun as playing a PS5 on a cruise ship.
I absolutely love this framing. You’re right.
Same honestly. I regret not connecting with people on Twitter offline more often.
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appareantly theyre agressively rate limiting: 300 posts per day for new accounts, 600 for unverified, 6000 for verified
I bet Elon is furiously Googling how to downgrade to a micro/free tier instance on AWS.
Big brain idea: keep creating aws accounts. Use free tier! Profit!
But because he also thinks microservices are a scam, there will be no service mesh, meaning the entire website will be trying to run on a single T2.Micro
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Do they actually have an issue with scraping or are they just trying to get more people signed up for Twitter Blue?
the latter is more likely. I mean hey, he’s a businessman first and foremost. Gotta squeeze and cut and squeeze every penny you can.
I have to say the silver lining in all of this is that decentralized forms of community building are on the rise, and this is a good thing. I don’t think it’s healthy to centralize all data and power in the hands of private companies that can decide to, oh you know, kill api access etc.
I’m overdosing on schadenfreude right now.
Let’s get them over to Mastodon! #fediverse (yes I’m going all in)
Been on Mastodon since November. It’s a lively and nice place that I tend to visit several times per day.
Just went over to Twitter for the first time in a while, and everyone’s bleating about wanting an invite to Bluesky.
Meanwhile, Mastodon’s over there just working fine and doing what they want Twitter to do.
It’s bizarre.
Normies are confused by Mastodon and how it works. Tried suggesting it as an alternative on /r/worldnews and most people just said that it was too confusing; one guy said that he couldn’t login but turns out he forgot which instance he had signed up for originally.
What is happening to my internet?! ): It’s all going downhill.
Capitalism
In the case of Lemmy and Fediverse things, Socialism.
It’s like having most of the content and communication being hosted by few corporations running on the faith of investors and struggling to realize the expected profits was a bad thing.
Cory Doctorow explains this pretty well here
Wait hold on…
Cory Doctorow?!?
The guy who wrote “Unauthorized Bread” Cory Doctorow?
That makes so much sense.
BTW if you haven’t given it a read, I’d check out his short story comp called “Radicalized” it’s a great read about the dystopian world that we can have right now if we’re not careful.
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It’s time to abandon Twitter to the fascists and bots.
Some people cannot seem to even be able to login.
Rabbits
Good! It’s time to change to something with better potential than twatter
