possibly spicy take, Twitter migration meta
I still feel that Twitter's fiery death and the subsequent migration of folks to fedi has, on the whole, done more harm than good to the fediverse.
The problem isn't even the amount of people, or their background - the problem is the *timing*. A large mass of people who didn't really *want* fedi, but who were searching for a 'new Twitter' and this was the only option available to them, for one reason or another.
They never had the time to lurk around and explore the community before getting involved in it; or the time to understand the dynamics here at their own speed. Because the Other Place was on fire and they had to move their social venue ASAP.
This caused a lot of disregard for the existing community dynamics, and that combined plus the volume caused tensions with existing users.
In this context, the reasons that people give for moving to Bluesky (https://mas.to/@kissane/110793942888550843) don't remotely surprise me. Many people are *still* looking for a 'new Twitter', and Bluesky is much closer to that.
I think that's important to keep in mind when evaluating those reasons: they should not necessarily be seen as 'problems with fedi', so much as 'reasons why fedi is not suitable as a drop-in Twitter alternative'.
That doesn't automatically make people *wrong* for having those problems with fedi, either. But the answer may very possibly be "fedi is not Twitter, and this community just isn't a good fit for you." It doesn't *need* to be for everybody.
(I would also be remiss not to mention the corrosive role of the press and Gargron in this; both severely misrepresented what fedi is. For different reasons, but it has caused a lot of people to feel like they didn't get what they were promised.)
re: possibly spicy take, Twitter migration meta
(For the avoidance of any doubt, this is specifically about the "this is too hard and people expect too much consideration of me" complaints)
re: possibly spicy take, Twitter migration meta
@joepie91 Either way, I do think there needs to be better instruction given, but I do also think there's something to be said about how the fediverse as a whole is advertised (as previously stated). It's kind of a complex issue.
re: possibly spicy take, Twitter migration meta
@joepie91 The degree to which the media has outright sabotaged the fediverse is incredible to watch, straight through to lying about what the CSAM study said (which is a big problem to be fair, but not the *kind* of problem that media represented it as, nor one specific to fedi). I have friends now that won't join because of that.
re: possibly spicy take, Twitter migration meta
@joepie91 honestly, I think these are fair insights to make. I in no way think the fediverse is "perfect" or even a "Twitter alternative". It's easy for me to see at least that if you're looking for something like Twitter, this isn't it.
I can *definitely* also understand wanting better discoverability and ways to follow folks, but for the users like me that rely on instance blocks that can be difficult to balance.