I know part of the whole point of the migration is starting out fresh and getting a chance to be contribute to a relatively developing community (this is my first post by the way. Hope I’m doing my part!). And that seems really great! But, as someone who was in the generational bracket where, once I was old enough to get into Reddit, it was already fairly well-developed and thriving, getting into something THIS new is… Weird.
I was never the kind of person who got into anything ahead of the mainstream (mostly because I never got into much of anything, period, and have been relatively agnostic on Social Media in general outside of Reddit) and now, being here, I don’t really know what to do with myself as I just kinda… Wait. Wait for the cultures to mature, for dynamics to form and develop, for the list of communities both here and elsewhere to not just increase in number, but in content. And, while I know it literally can’t happen if even a significant fraction of people feel like this, a part of me does kinda wish I could blink away from all of this and come back when, hopefully, the whole of the Fediverse (Threadiverse? Is that what we call Reddit-analogues specifically? Again, new here, and trying to learn the terms) is more mature and filled-out.
All in all, despite these feelings, I wanna be here on the ground floor contributing. And I wish anyone else in this mindset luck in doing so too, as long as they’re comfortable! Hopefully together, we can all build something fun. :)
Hell no. This is the honeymoon phase. This is great!
Sure, discoverability isn’t the best. There are lots of bugs. Things are confusing. Federation issues are an inconvenience.
But you know what else is missing?
The spammers aren’t here. The trolls aren’t here. The propagandists from the East aren’t here trying to spread misinformation or sway elections. The bots aren’t here manipulating the front page or comments. The corporations and marketers aren’t here trying to sell products or steer discourse. There isn’t CSAM or targeted harassment or doxxing. Most governments are probably not here. And it doesn’t matter if He Gets Us because He’s Not Here.
Everything is too new and too novel and too ephemeral to have been picked up by the people that are going to cause the “big boy” social network problems. And that’s great, because the moderation tools at present would not be up to the task, and the legal teams are non-existent.
When the threadiverse crosses a certain threshold, Bad Things are going to happen. And those growing pains are going to be much worse than the ones we’re experiencing right now.