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So I was correct. Thanks!

That’s great!

Yeah, maybe that was a bad example. I believe my point is that if the quality of the product and/or the number of users is large enough, it doesn’t matter if you don’t have a viable business plan yet.

The big risk when it comes to the fediverse is that it still is so small that big tech could just highjack the whole thing, and it wouldn’t even be a bullet on the weekly board agenda. I.e. it’s still pocket money we’re taking about.

Exactly. And there are countless of popular open source projects which are funded by VC. Many of which I have no idea how they plan to make money. Astral (the creator of ruff and uv) is one recent example.

Just say that you use Rust and AI, and the VC will come.

Instead of writing the same answer to all sceptics, I’ll just write one answer here:

I believe that you greatly overestimate the rationality of VC at a micro level and greatly underestimate the number of business cases that can be made on top of popular open standards. Developing a fediverse software like Pixelfed is basically free if you’re with the big money. The question is if it will hurt your other investments and strategy. Right now it looks like the answer is “no”. The risk of putting too many eggs in the oligarch basket seems quite high.

Is it not possible to make money of the internet because you don’t own the infrastructure and the standards are open?

How can you make money of the internet if you don’t own all infrastructure and control all standards? I promise, there are countless businesses cases.

No official Android and iPhone apps => no users.

Facebook has always been removing posts and comments containing links to Fediverse. At least they did a couple of years ago. But it doesn’t happen all the time, so there is some kind decision making algorithm.

Didn’t get banned, but they marked the post as spam. That was 3 days ago. Maybe they’re blocking now as well.

Maybe a more reasonable question: Is there anyone here self-hosting on non-shit hardware? 😅

The fix to that problem seems trivial though.

Hopefully there will pop up some commercial FOSS fediverse FB alternatives now when Facebook is about to go all in on the crazy. Or that the EU will pour some big money on the existing alternatives.

Anyway, Frendica seems to be the best option right now so I’ll give it a serious try.

Best would probably be if I quit social media. I find arguing on Facebook, Reddit and Lemmy very addictive.

However, I prefer it if my local boomers are on a slightly addictive but open and transparent social media, which isn’t controlled by an oligarch or random orange fascist.

I want something that is so similar to Facebook, that I basically can post a link on Facebook and when the boomer follow that link they’ll effortlessly create a new account and start using the fediverse FB clone, because that’s where I’ll post my content from now on.

A microblog app is not what I’m looking for.

Thanks, but it looks a little bit too old school and low budget. These are not people looking for a retro feel or extra privacy. They want something that look and feel like FB.

Can’t access OfferUp because I’m not in the US. What’s special about it? Is it on fediverse?

In Sweden, the most popular alternatives to FBM are Blocket and Tradera/ebay. But they’re all commercial and not on fediverse.

What do you think of Matrix based messaging apps? Seems like a better alternative to Signal and Wire. Depending on what server you’re using.

Same here. A fediverse alternative seems like a no brainer. Weird if there are no commercial apps already… Probably an easy way to get VC.

Thanks! Yeah, I realized Pleroma isn’t what I was looking for.

Facebook’s selling point is that your friends are already on it. If you want to convince random people, you have to show them what they’ll be joining.

Well, that’s why I’m asking.

Only problem is it’s mostly 50 year olds complaining about their neighboorhods’s minor problems or local contractors advertising themselves over and over again.

This is basically what I’m looking for. For me its not a problem. Most of the active people on Facebook are boomers. And that’s also the biggest reason why I’ve been “forced” to use Facebook. And also because it’s been the default communication platform of all local communities I’ve been part of.