Does it feel like the fediverse is exclusively used by older tech nerds?
The mastodon and lemmy content I’m seeing feels like 90% of it comes from people who are:
~30 years old or older
tech enthusiasts/workers
linux users
There’s nothing wrong with that particular demographic or anything, but it doesn’t feel like a win to me if the entire fediverse is just one big monoculture.
I wonder what it is that is keeping more diverse users away? Is picking a server/federation too complicated? Or is it that they don’t see any content that they like?
I think the federation system is quite a barricade for some people. I recently changed over to Lemmy from Reddit, and it was quite challenging to first understand how it worked. Also I am not sure that I even now understand how this works fully.
Also the smaller community on Lemmy might be a turn-off for some people.
Absolutely. It's certainly difficult getting used to new layouts after the set-in-stone layout of Reddit. The federation system as you said, is pretty hard to wrap my head around, too. I was willing to take a risk and join Lemmy not knowing what's in store, but I bet many aren't willing to try something untested and new.