Why do most people stay in centralized social media platforms when the Fediverse exists?

I don't think the average user thinks much about the platform they're on, and about who controls it. I think they go to wherever most of their family/friends are.

Also, those platforms are firmly in the mainstream, the alternatives aren't really - you'd have to actively go search for them. People just aren't likely to do that, I don't think.

In my IT program at school, the only people who have heard of the fediverse are the ones I've told.

People follow the crowd and centralized media had considerably bigger crowds

I don’t think federation vs centralization is the primary differentiator. I think corporate vs non-profit/ad-free/donation-only/volunteerism is. Our marketing budget is goose egg. It’s all word-of-mouth.

Because of network effects.

Building a social network is hard. A typical chicken or egg problem. If you don't have a user base, nobody is willing to join, and if nobody joins, you don't have a user base.

It usually requires a bunch of money to build a social network.

The fediverse has a long time to go but I believe it will win sooner or later.

1. Ease of use

The combination of having to choose an instance and then start with an algorithm free blank slate is a tough ask. It literally takes time to sit down and setup your initial “feed”, which is probably a good thing, but not at all what attracts users whimsical curiosities nor what they’ve experienced over their entire existence with social media.

The more people using a social media platform, the more content there is to consume and people to interact with. It's really hard to move to a new platform when there just isn't as much stuff to consume as the centralized platforms like Reddit. I'm using Lemmy for ideological reasons, but if you just want to vibe and scroll online, Reddit has way more to offer. That said, the user experience of Reddit is continually degrading. Potentially at some point it will create enough refugees that sites like Lemmy hit an inflection point of users.

Do you know any regular people? Most people I know have never even heard the word fediverse.

Even if people know fediverse, if the content they want doesn't exist here, they won't stay.

There are Japanese Twitter refugee to fedi (especially Misskey) several times. A lot of big creator doesn't stay as they want to get the highest number of engagement to keep their (art) business afloat.

The Fediverse is a confusing concept. I’m a giant nerd and even I don’t really understand how this is supposed to work. Centralized platforms provide a more straightforward user experience. And as others have said, that’s where the content is right now.

network effects

Because most people haven't gone far enough to even understand this question. The choices come prepackaged, that's what in front of their eyes, so they assume that's how it suppose to be, and take the easy ride

Because I have no clue what the Fediverse is.

Most people don't care about things. This is kind of a recurring problem. Imagine if people just cared a little bit more. All sorts of problems, like littering, would just go away.

But people are lazy and don't care. They don't care that their behavior today will be a problem for them tomorrow.

The big sites are where the content is, and that's what they want. Suffering a little bit of hardship (fewer memes) in order to bolster a stronger future? Ridiculous.

People are giving great answers here. One I didn't notice at a glance is that the Fediverse is feckin small. Most of the world doesn't know it exists yet, and centralized social medias are probably not gonna be super big about pushing that info through their algorithms

Centralized social media is where their friends are.

There are going to be layers to this.

1. There are lots of people who are just downright too stupid. They wouldn't be on the internet at all if Tim Apple didn't put it in a baby baba for them to suck it out of. They use Facebook because their iPhone came with the Facebook app pre-installed.

2. There are lots of people for whom popularity is the only thing that exists. Their brain cannot function beyond "Everyone uses Twitter." They'll adopt this platform only after everyone else in the world does.

3. There are lots of people who have bought the propaganda. The dark web is for drug traffickers and hitmen, torrenting is for pirates, end-to-end encryption is for traitors, and Mastodon is for Linux neckbeards. You shouldn't associate with those people.

4. There's this weird trend where the commercial platforms are becoming hives for conservatives, so they're probably going to stay put in their echo chambers. I have observed little to no presence of actual conservatives on this platform; beyond the horseshoe effect with the tankie crowd.

5. The culture of content consumption is not supported by the Fediverse. We don't do algorithmic slop troughs here, and the amount of content on Peertube and Loops rounds down to zero, so it doesn't fulfill the role of mesmerizing colors and sounds for staring at and drooling like Tiktok does or linear television did.

6. Open source software is usually a bit shit. Be it lack of budget, opinionated developers, redundant projects...we can never have one of something. Why does Lemmy, Mbin and Piefed exist simultaneously? We always end up with software that mostly works, has a lot less graphical polish, a shitty project name, a few missing key features and a couple workarounds you just have to know about. Or an intentionally godawful UI. That'll put people off.

7. A few people who show up are going to be put off by the weirdest decision they'll be asked to make this month: "Choose an instance, your choice doesn't matter, just pick one." If it doesn't matter, why make me pick? I bet if you watched 100 people try to sign up for a Fediverse platform, at least 30 of them will balk at that stage. I've sat and stared at that for awhile myself and I'm one of the ones who made it through.

8. They just haven't heard of us. Ask ten people you know in real life if they've heard of Lemmy, or Mastodon, or Pixelfed. I bet they haven't, or if they have they let it pass in one ear and out the other out of apathy.

9. A few people have looked at the Fediverse, didn't see what they wanted here, and left. If you play Satisfactory, for example, you'll find an active subreddit where the majority of the player base and the developers of the game interact, on Lemmy you'll find one community where exactly one person posts "daily screenshots until I get bored." It's easy to wander off, especially if you don't like left wing politics, Linux and the Fediverse itself.

I asked someone on bluesky i follow what is mastodon lacking that they ultimately chose bluesky, and they said something along the lines "basic ease of use. The way it works is probably perfectly sensible to fediverse people, but I had an awful time there"

They do indeed have (abandoned) mastodon account with posts, so they did try. I don't know what they meant by it lacking basic ease of use, and I didn't feel entitled to ask stranger for more explanation. But it wasn't picking instance, since they already had an account on one of them.

The only thing I personally noticed is off is following people on other instances if you're not looking at them via your instance website Identity not being perfectly transferrable on mastodon. You can post a special "follow me there instead" post, but what if your instance went tyrant and wouldn't let you post it? Or just went offline? I think cryptographic identity would be more robust for that, but it would also mean user having to store private key somewhere, which would be even less user-friendly

Inertia, convenience of what you're used to, and all of your friends are over there and have never heard of 'the fediverse'.

Is this a joke question?

Sounds like a question for them.

Because they actually have content and friends there

I like to follow a couple reporters directly as opposed to subscribing to the local paper and wading through the fluff pieces, so that means using Bluesky.

Back when I was still an artist for my super niche internet garbage, that meant using Tumblr, then after the Tumblr purge, Twitter. Then after Musk, cohost, then after cohost... I mean, I was done with art but I'd probably be on Bluesky for that too.

Part of it is just the network effect. If the people they want to follow are on twitter then they do not really have a choice. Also part of it is the algorithms. For some needing to manually select communities or individuals is an inconvenience. Finally I feel like fedi communities have a very distinct atmosphere simply because very few people use it. This can all change in the future but the majority of the issues stem from just not having enough creators and users as well as the additional effort required to use these platforms.

Ease of access and user experience. A single platform beats that, as you don’t have to choose where to signup and everything will be available without effort.

However, Lemmy is getting better with that and hopefully the user base continues growing. It doesn’t need to have a billion users to be an awesome experience.

Because they want to feel involved. They want to be with the in-crowd. If they come to the Fediverse, then they'll think it's weird and might scare them because it's a new concept they can't grasp. When really, I see the Fediverse as just a social media reset. But because it doesn't have all of the enshittification that centralized social media has, they don't dare bother.

Same reason why people stick with wells Fargo even if they can move to a credit union. It takes effort, changes to habit, and risk just to gain... what you already have.

Have you invited people to the fediverse?

Is there a TikTok replacement in the Fediverse? The main reason my wife uses it is because the recommendations are the best. Feel like you have to do more self searching here.

convenience, marketing

Evolution of human behaviour is slow. Right now we are all enmeshed in the dawning discovery that the current way we run society is falling apart at the seams. Just enter the core of almost any city in North America and you'll see what I mean (and not just N. America). It'll take a while to set itself right, or it may all just burn in a raging nuclear fire launched by a pissed off oligarch who does not get his way.

Definitely not forward progress towards a better day.

Because all their contacts and photos are already there.

Do you want them here? I don’t. I don’t tell a soul about lemmy, because this is place for me to get away from them. A place for mostly rational discussion, populated by people free thinking enough to seek an alternative. If the masses descended on Lemmy, they’d ruin it like they ruin everything else. They’d draw the attention that would lead to it being litigated, regulated, purchased, corporatized etc. Let them stay on Facebook and Reddit.

Edit: ITT: A bunch of people who haven’t paid attention to how mind bendingly stupid content has become on mainstream social media, or worse yet, actually enjoy the chum pumped out by Facebook and TikTok and want it to come to lemmy as well. I’ll wear my downvotes with pride.

Lazy. Most people don't want to learn how shit works. They just want it to work. They'll get what they pay for in the end.

edit: downvote all you want. it's a correct assertion to the question. just because you don't like it doesn't make it correct.