The Fediverse is awkward

The Fediverse, for those who are not familiar, is a collection of servers communicating with each other -- sharing data created by people like you.  It's generally considered a Social Network but it is wider.  For our purposes we will think of it as providing social interaction.

It has a variety of software services.  For example: micro blogging, image sharing, podcasting.  Those are the ones most people initially experience.

All the servers share a common protocol (set of rules) so they can all interact.  

The Fediverse provides replacements for Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc.  These services are great alternatives and often have many more features to keep you more in control and safe.

So far it sounds great, yeah?  There's around 10 million users, who have churned out 1.5 billion posts.  There are thousands of servers managing all this work.  

You sign up to one of the servers, and can interact with anyone on any other servers -- because they all talk to each other.

I've been on the Fediverse for two years and one month -- I'm not the longest serving user, but I am also not a newbie.

I have good fun posting and interacting.  I've never had any grief.

So why are more of us not using it?

Generally, we are sheep (well most of us) and we land where our own group has landed.  That's probably why so many people are on Farcebook (as I call it).  It might be toxic, but most of us are fearful of missing out if we're not part of the group!

Me personally -- I left FB five years ago.  It was hard but I found other ways to communicate with my 'group'.  I survived and I feel better for it.

Back to the Fediverse -- it sounds ideal??

Or is it?

In my view, there are two fundamental issues which confuse most people.  

We're used to things working, in a sensible, simple, slick manner.  We don't like to think too much.

Problem 1.

You have an account on a Fediverse server.  You can follow anyone on another server just by searching the ID and clicking follow.  Great.  You can interact (like & reply) to the posts you see.  However, sometimes when you are reading a post, or replies, you end up on another server.  That's ok?  Yes, but now you are sitting on the other server as a guest.  You are not logged in.  You can not interact with the post.  The solution(!) is to copy the link to the post you are looking at on the other server; go back to your own servers; search for that post.  You can then interact.

Really?  Yes.  Clever people have fabricated some browser plugins, or better techniques in mobile apps, but the principle is still the same -- these 'fixes' just do what I described above.

Problem 2.

Hashtags are huge on the internet.  You see them everywhere.  They are a great way to group posts, or discover new posts.  You see a tag (let's say #bookreviews); you click on it and you see posts from others using the same tag.  Fantastic.  Happy discovery.

The issue is that you're on your server, so it only shows you posts from accounts it is aware of.  These will be from people you follow, people on your server, or people others on your server follow.  It does NOT show you posts from all over the Fediverse.  You're seeing a subset of posts.  There's no way around that, and you're not necessarily aware of it.  It means that the results you get for clicking the tag could be entirely different to someone on another server clicking on the tag.

Conclusion.

These two problems, I feel, are fundamental issues with the Fediverse.  It makes it clumsy for some/most people to use, or even understand.

Our current expectations, developed over many years, make us assume that we can click and see it all, or click and interact.  That's what the current social media main-stream services offer.

It's by no means the end of the world.  You get used to the quirks.  However, in my experience, when I am trying to introduce new people to the Fediverse, it's hard to keep them on-side when they realise these issues impede their experience.

I don't know what the solution is, but I believe these need to change if we are serious about making the Fediverse less geeky and more user-focused.

What do you think?