Part of that is making it monetizable. Influencers can build huge followings (and make some cash) because existing platforms recommend their content to other users.

Mastodon devs have chosen not to provide recommendations and quote posts. That's reasonable, but it reduces the utility of the platform, and it cedes space to Twitter & co.

To my knowledge, the only creator that's exclusive to Lemmy is the unix surrealism author. Until it's easy to monetize content, we're gonna have a hard time attracting creators, and a hard time attracting users.

[–] grrgyle@slrpnk.net 7 points 2 days ago (1 children)

I feel like this is comparing the mall to the park.

They both attract people, but not always the same people, or for the same reasons. And that's OK.

I get what you're saying though, because I've felt this way when trying to come up with reasons for people (sole proprietors) to get with the fedi, but maybe this place is just not for influencers - not like the corp platforms, anyway. I think the fediverse will attract more and more people with its network effects, but probably never all of the people all of the time.

My modest hope is that the fedi bleeds the big platforms just enough to put them in their place and keep from enshittifying to infinity.

[–] sbv@sh.itjust.works 2 points 2 days ago (1 children)

maybe this place is just not for influencers - not like the corp platforms, anyway

The things people need to build a livelihood on a platform are quality of life features. In a lot of cases, I think it's small stuff: being able to reward patrons with a tag on a specific community; automatically highlighting popular posts; making it easy to find a user's monetization page; etc.

I think the fediverse will attract more and more people with its network effects, but probably never all of the people all of the time.

At the moment, Lemmy is an ad-free version of Reddit missing some community and notification features. There are good political reasons to be here, but that hasn't driven a sustained increase in users.

So we won't get critical mass for network effects by being a better Reddit.

One to make the platform self-sustaining (or grow) is to give creators a reason to use the platform, which will give people a reason to come and stay.

[–] grrgyle@slrpnk.net 1 points 2 days ago (1 children)

It's not just ad-free, it's actively anti-corporate, anti-advertising, even anti-monetization. I would go so far as to say even anti-content in some ways. That's a cultural disconnect that goes beyond tooling.

[–] sbv@sh.itjust.works 1 points 2 days ago (1 children)

It's not just ad-free, it's actively anti-corporate, anti-advertising, even anti-monetization.

There are upvoted positive posts and comments about

the Switch 2 announcement (but not Nintendo's legal policy),
the Framework advertising event last week,
Valve/Steam/SteamOS/Steamdeck/Gabe Newell in general,
Costco in general,
EVs in general (excluding Tesla and Cybertrucks 😂),
podcasts that solicit funding and carry advertising,
anime and anime adjacent products,
Lenovo's laptops,
individuals selling stuff on Redbubble/Etsy/OnlyFans,
subscription razor blade delivery (not from Amazon),
and "voting with your wallet".

It'd be cool if the platform made it easier for orgs to build and interact with a following here. Niches of users really like talking about them. That doesn't mean ads, it means features that would benefit regular users as well.

[–] grrgyle@slrpnk.net 1 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

That's people just sharing their opinion freely. Word of mouth chatter is definitely not the same as advertising or even influencing, though of course they try to be.

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[–] MithranArkanere@lemmy.world 12 points 3 days ago

Don't let the grabbing hands grab all they can.

[–] turnip@sh.itjust.works 3 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Ho does one even use mastadon, it seems to require a login on every instance?

[–] grrgyle@slrpnk.net 6 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

You navigate from your local instance. So like you just use hyperlinks (like here on lemmy, I'm clicking around, but my URL still shows slrpnk.net/... - yours probably shows sh.itjust.works/...), or if you try to do something like follow/reply/boost/etc on another instance, it'll prompt you to connect from your own.

pop up modal prompting for username@instance

So like here I'm looking at a post on mastodon.social, which I don't have an account on. If I just type in my home instance in the pop-up modal there, then it'll complete the action from my home instance. If you're already signed in on home instance with a cookie then it'll to it automatically.

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