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Kbin, FUD, and Tribalism - Where do we go from here?

It finally happened: many Reddit 3rd party apps have officially shut down. With it comes an influx of users looking for a new place.
With the influx come new points of view, new kinds of users with different expectations. This change is already visible, with obvious trolls and attention seekers throwing out bait. What if there is more to it however?

Browsing casually I noticed more and more kbin posts critical of its development, its functioning, and the speed at which @ernest is able to implement updates.

I find it odd that, while denouncing kbin for its current flaws in deployment (despite being clearly stated to be in alpha) the owner of that instance proceeds to praise Lemmy and wave away concerns regarding its devs who

(Lemmy devs) are willing to create a product that makes the entire internet better, and share it with everyone, for free, regardless of your beliefs.

despite having proven that their politics do affect their product.

"Just defederate" in my opinion also is not an argument. It's closing your eyes to a problem propagated by those who benefit from influence from the shadows - on both sides of the political spectrum.

Hence my mention of FUD (Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt) and Tribalism.
Pushing users towards a preferred platform (in this case, Lemmy) by seeding threadiverse posts with statements such as

  • kbin isn't ready
  • kbin won't have the same engagement as Lemmy
  • the single kbin dev @ernest doesn't have enough time/skill
  • it will never be as good as Reddit

will just lead to Reddit 2.0 painted in red and yellow. As kbin users, we should combat this kind of behavior.

We're all here for a better threadiverse, and a singular means of interacting will not be beneficial to its growth. The reason we're here is because we want a Reddit-like environment, not a single 'frontpage of the internet'. Tribalism in the threadiverse will get us nowhere fast.

Perhaps it was unintentional that kbin was not federating properly with Lemmy instances. What I am afraid of is, knowing the track record of Lemmy devs, it follows a scary trajectory, reminiscent of a few tried and true tactics Reddit and others have used before.

I'd like to state that I am not unbiased. I am helping out with Artemis, a kbin app currently in development.
I do not want to support or make use of Lemmy for many reasons. However, I could not care less if someone is from a Lemmy instance, or if I interact with them in that same space. If I see Lemmy.ml/Lemmygrad.ml behind their name, I will be cautious of their intentions however.

Let's hope we, not as 'rexxiters', 'kbinauts' or 'lemmings', but as fediverse users can actually create a product that makes the entire internet better, and share it with everyone, for free, regardless of our beliefs.

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  • We won't stay on kbin forever anyway. Let's face it, if we are on kbin it's because we fled reddit and we saw that lemmy was...weird. As soon as a sane other implementation of a forum/microblogging using activitypub is proven to be robust there will be another migration. And it will probably involve actors like Facebook and co.

    Now that people made the initial jump of leaving reddit they will be more inclined to making another jump to a platform that suit them better.

    But it won't be just about technicalities but also about language and community. I'm not a fan of the lemmy agenda, but I'm also not a fan of the american soft power leaking in every sub. And to fight this a regional instance of activitypub tools will be very welcome.

    • I agree on this, too. Kbin is a weird name for masses to adapt, for example. We're back in the Wild West regarding this form of social media, and the result of that will hopefully be innovation and reiteration of established standards.

      Hard agree on the American soft power, too. I was surprised there were so many German instances on the fediverse already. I don't really want to interact with Dutch posts though, so if those pop up that's a hard filter from me.

      With eyes on the future of the fediverse, I would prefer not ending up with another Facebook-like situation where 'one place' is the 'default' place - where the 'default' place is run by people less trustworthy than Mark Zuckerberg.

      • Do weird names really matter? People stop paying attention to them and accept them with enough time. "Reddit" is just a funny mispelling

      • Kbin is just the name of the software though (and appropriately, of ernest's main instance), you can create an instance and call it whatever. If you want to direct someone to terraria forums you don't mention phpbb3 or whatever it's using, it's just forums.terraria.org. I hope it ends up being the same way for kbin and lemmy down the line, it doesn't matter what you use - you still get to see all content.

        For example, warframe's community is on dormi.zone. It uses lemmy in the background but for a casual user that doesn't really matter at all.

      • With eyes on the future of the fediverse, I would prefer not ending up with another Facebook-like situation where 'one place' is the 'default' place - where the 'default' place is run by people less trustworthy than Mark Zuckerberg.

        It won't. There will be different federations with different politics, specially on the NSFW content, corporatism level and global militantism. All these instances will be incompatible and will defederate and refederate differently.

        You will have a Microsoft instance, which will never federate with google or facebook or amazon or Apple. They won't share their customers. Lower brands will probably federate for techsupport for example, etc. This will be interesting to watch.

      • Whats wrong with Dutch posts?

        I actually like seeing the posts in other languages. Imagine what using traditional social media like Reddit was like for other countries? Why are English speakers suddenly unable to cope when the tables are turned? (In general, not saying that’s you!)

        Personally, I’d love some kind of built-in translation options. Tag the different language but allow an auto-translate user setting so everything can be switched to one’s native language.

        I love the idea of interacting with the parts of the world, or speakers, that don’t participate in English.

        • I am Dutch, and I personally loathe Dutch content. Seeing the inane 'gekoloniseerd' spam any time anything Dutch was mentioned grew tiresome quickly. Add to that that a lot of posted content centers around Randstad issues, this vague sense of holier-than-thou dialogue, and I felt even less compelled to interact with Dutch online spaces. I may be a bit jaded - but Holland is not the Netherlands.

          I can read Swedish, French, and German - and those occasionally visible spaces, apart from the meme-focused instances, seem far more mature and focused in their conversations.

          • I can understand what you’re saying, something about the pervading online community doesn’t fit for you. Can’t say I’m familiar because I can’t speak Dutch ;) German and English for me.

            Thanks for the answer!

    • @PabloDiscobar hi, just a problem of understanding. What do you mean with "american soft power leaking in every sub"?

      @ernest @lavender

      • Yeh that's a little bit of word salad to invoke emotions.

      • @SnowboardBum @kjr

        I am presuming @PabloDiscobar means that in general, online spaces gravitate towards American-focused content posted by Americans, for Americans, moderated by Americans. The web is a different place when you're about 6 hours ahead of the main content generators. Other kinds of views and experiences get posed, but get washed away the moment the East Coast wakes up.

        An example is Reddit's 'WorldNews' sub mainly focusing on American issues. As a Dutch person, I would not consider some Texan individual's issues with city council world news.

        • I gotta say, as an American on kbin, I'm actually really enjoying waking up and seeing the majority of the posts on the front page be in German. It's a nice reminder we're not the center of the universe and there's a whole rest of the world out there, lol.

      • I mean the same thing that happened to reddit: the intrusion of american culture in the platform.

        Is it normal that europeans know the american constitution better than their own? No, this is the result of soft power.

        This is a known concept in Europe, some people tend to import problems from remote countries into their own. How many times did a subject completely unique to america popped up in a discussion where it wasn't relevant? Very often. Now take the opposite, when did americans stopped talking about the subject of like microtransactions in gaming and started to talk about Italian politics instead? Never. But start talking about any of the subject below and you will unleash more and more comments. Even if it's among europeans.

        Example: gun laws, we all have an opinion about american gun laws. Even as europeans we have an opinion about american gun laws. But do you have an opinion about Greek gun laws?

        another example: prisons

        another example: no cake for lgbtq

        another example: gerrymandering

        So far the noise level is low on kbin, but it's growing steadily, I can see it. It is inherent to America, (and somehow uk). They have a business in making people mad, in feeding them anything that will polarize them and make them angry. And of course people will talk about these subjects on their social networks. The net result is that we end up talking and talking about america. That's why I'm talking about regionalization of instances. It's about talking with people who will join because they are interested in a specific subject, but will eventually end up discussing about other things which will still be relevant to you, to where you live. We can only care so much about the governor of Florida.

        • Glad to read I was somewhat correct in my assumption.
          It's one of the main reasons I don't really watch the Dutch news broadcasts anymore, 50% of the content is American drama not relevant to me.

    • You mean that people who left Reddit due to commercialism go back to corporate-owned SNS? You might be right but I'm not in. Apollo was a one man project. I'm pretty sure the Fed UI can be nailed right by kbin enthusiasts.

    • Regional federation makes the most sense to me as an endgame, as well.

      I don't want to visit (or tell people to visit) @fart.dingleberry.fuck because it has the best news discussion about my area.

69 comments