Watching the social media landscape news the past couple weeks has me in a dual mindset of despondancy and determination about the fediverse. The despondancy comes from the reinforced realism that usage decisions around these systems will forever be driven by FOMO and frictionless entry and our systems aren't really ready for either yet. I have mixed feelings about Mastodon changing onboarding to make it all "mastodon.social" by default (where 90% of the users will go now) but getting rid of the biggest analysis paralysis part of getting people here is vitally important. To be frank, normal people don't give a damn about decentralization or data control they care about FOMO and "it just works". Friendica, my network, has even further to go on that front than Mastodon even. The determination comes from the knowledge that we did get a glimpse of people being able to feel FOMO about the fediverse thanks to Musk's Twitter enshitification. As people, including me, continue to refine the fediverse we could be in a position where more of them feel it enough to stay on the next wave. The fact is I'm not working on these systems to "conquering the world". I'm working on these systems because I enjoy using them on a daily basis and I want to improve that experience for myself and others. I hope that as we improve more will come into the fold and we could eventually hit a critical mass to be a real fraction of the social media space. If we remain niche though I have to be fine with that too. "Be the change you want to see in the world," as the saying goes... #friendica #fediverse #mastodon #SocialMedia #rant #ElonMusk #twitter