@petes_bread_eqn_xls@mastodo.neoliber.al True, but they also have geographic restrictions on many of them.

@belchion@rollenspiel.social Are there any good models for distributed search functions out there?

@onepict@chaos.social @oldladyplays@wargamers.social

Unfortunately, “reach” can be pretty important.

Let’s say you are a user in, for example, #Pakistan. How many Pakistani Mastodon instances are there? One? Two? For a country of 240 million people?

When almost no one in your country uses the #Fediverse , using Mastodon exclusively means you have effectively isolated yourself from your community.

I was able to do a clean break from Twitter when it got bought by Elon Musk, but that was because I was in a relatively privileged position. There are plenty of people around here who are interested in folklore and table-top RPGs, and share similar backgrounds. I miss some people from Twitter, but not enough to remain active there.

Others do not have this privilege, and we should acknowledge that.

2/ As an addendum, I want to make clear that I have absolutely zero sympathies for the social media platforms and their owners themselves. In fact, I consider them to be a dire threat to civilization, as their algorithms and owners promote hatred and bigotry of all kinds.

What I want to stress is empathy for many of the users on these platforms. Most of them stay there for reasons that make sense to them, after all.

And “empathy” does not mean “agreement”. But if you don’t take the time to understand their points of view, you are unlikely to convince them to give the #Fediverse a try.

@oldladyplays@wargamers.social

I absolutely agree that X must be destroyed. I just don’t think that berating X users for staying there is going to accomplish that.

We must make it easier for others to leave, and for that we must understand why they still stay there - and offer a welcoming off-ramp.