As an internet oldie, my Lemmy experience has given me a serious throwback to the childhood of the internet.
The last couple of weeks I have read more genuine articles, blogs and been exposed to more real people than I’ve been in a long time. I had forgotten what internet was before seo and bots, but you have reminded me.
So, I just want to say thank you to all of you magnificent people here!
When people comment that having multiple communities fragmented over the fediverse is bad, I think back to this concept. We aren’t built to handle the scope of thousands, perhaps tens of thousands of people under one roof. We are socially constructed for small groups of people–tribes, and the fediverse emulates that more closely where it is decentralized.
I don’t mind if there’s N Android communities if it means that when I ask a question, it’s going to be seen, and people are willing to answer.
The other thing that I don’t quite get about it is, you can come across the “fragmented communities” either through random chance or consciously seeking them out, and just subscribe to them. Now you can participate in multiple communities from your home instance.
I get people are lazy and just want to have the stuff they like shoved in their face, but IMHO you get a much better result when you have to put a little skin in the game.
It also discourages some level of shitposting because shitposters have to work just as hard to find the places to make their dumb jokes and in my experience most of those types are not going out of their way to do that.