Ok let's be honest. I like the fediverse because it caters to me. I have huge technical privilege. I've been writing code and making games and building computers and setting up websites and all those sorts of things since I was a child — and I find doing all those things fun. For me I've set up microblog.pub as a single person activitypub/fediverse/mastodon instance because then I can play with it. I spend hours tweaking my css to make the site look how I want. I contribute patches and discussions to the help build, improve, and add features to the microblog.pub software that I use. All of that is a source of joy for me. But that's me.

Most people don't have my technical privilege. Most people just want a social media platform that will do the job of connecting them to their networks and showing them the content they're looking for.

And I can yell and shout about how #indieweb or fedi/masto/AP is better than platforms for this that or the other reason. And I do genuinely believe in those open platforms for those reasons. But those reasons aren't why I love them. I love them because the open systems are empowering to me, specifically, because of my technical privilege and because they provide a space for me to play in the way I like to play.

What sucks, though, is that this is about community. There are plenty of things in life where if you want to do things your weird way that's different to everyone else, you can do that and have your fun and it doesn't actually matter what other people think. But that's not true for social networking. If everyone else has different wants, needs, and priorities from their social network and thus chooses to do something else from what your wants, needs, and priorities direct you to choose, then your experience of doing the thing you choose is lessened by the fact that your communities don't join you.

So I'm left stressed. I deeply love open platforms. I love the web. I want other people to love it too and to come join me playing there. But I also totally understand why the touted benefits of those platforms don't even remotely make up for the poor UX to people who just want the social media to work. It's all well and good to be invested in the community project of building the network but not everyone has the desire or the resources to be part of that kind of project. So I'm anxious because I know that it IS better for most of my friends to use something else. It makes more sense for them to go to a platform that is all owned by and managed by a single legal entity because that is what provides the most value for the least cost (difficulty of use). But then my playground is lessened. And I recognise that that playground was only ever fun for me and not most of my friends, because of that technical privilege,. But it still makes me anxious and it still makes me sad. Cause I want to keep playing.

@ash Most of my online community is game devs, so perhaps a platform that demands technical literacy is fine for me. The thing I find most appealing about Mastodon though is that the very features that confuse and drive away new users are the same features that will confuse and drive away big corporations. It's a platform that feels very messy and unpolished, where maybe we can be safe from The Algorithm trying to drive higher engagement and thrust content down our throats.

@ash personally, I'm fine with giving this a lot of time. But there's always some kind of privilege and mine in this case happens to be a gentle decline of available energy to spend on social media generally. Or my interest, if you want to be pedantic. So I'm okay with however this turns out. 🍸

I realize this isn't the case for everyone.

@ash *anime head pats*

@ash I've got similar things I want to say in this space, especially now that #blacktwitter is becoming #blackmastodon which kinda intensifies my commitment to helping the less technically inclined in my wider community to at least "dip a toe..."

All that to say, I feel ya sis. Community is everything, even if only online-- and it's damn hard to relate to and maintain at times.

As my grandpa used to say, "I can lead a horse to water, but I can't make it drink."

@jlgatewood@mastodon.cloud Yeah it gains a whole new level of stress when you're trying to be a part of caring for a community that risks being harmed by bad actors. Learning how to do the work you can and let the rest be is a continual process for me.