Vitamin D supplements. You’re not gonna get much sunlight, and you need vitamin D not to get depressed.

The locals are used to seasonal depression. Foreigners tend to have a hard time with it.

You cannot interact with microblog folks on Lemmy, unless they actively post something in a Lemmy community by tagging it. So if you want to combine microblogging with threaded discussions Mbin is the only platform that does both. Mbin lists followers publicly.

I think there are Mastodon forks (or configurations) that hide followers from the public though. But it will only ever be half hidden.

It’s useful.

Let’s say you see someone who posts stuff you’re interested in. In a brief moment of absolute brilliance, you think to yourself “aha! Maybe this person follows other people whose content I would be interested in!”

So you check, and sure enough, there’s a bunch of interesting people listed. So you follow them as well. Your social graph grows, you have a better time there, the people you follow get better reach and gets to enjoy pleasant interactions with you. Everybody’s happy.

These social media platforms are designed to be public. If you want to do stuff in secret, do it somewhere else.

That’s fantastic.

It seems clear the English speaking web has a preference for Bluesky. It would be interesting to know how much variation there is between users of other European languages. It seems to me the Germans are pretty active in the Fediverse, which makes sense considering a significant portion of them have been huge privacy nerds since the fall of the GDR.

If everyone made an effort we’d live in a completely different world almost over night. At least as someone who cares about sustainability side of it, that’s what matters. But I appreciate that veganism consists of a bunch of different forms of arguments and motivations.

Thanks for not fucking up the planet any faster than you have to, and for being a better person than I am.

I’ve almost given up meat. I don’t see myself ever giving up cheese. But I appreciate you guys and what you’re (not) doing.

When could it really?

I know it did, but I feel like we’re just waking up from some 80-year trance where we idiotically thought the US was something we could depend on.

Seems to me most people in that thread seems relatively open minded? The people dismissing Lemmy completely appears to be downvoted, and people seem to have a nuanced understanding that it’s a better platform in theory but sadly less active.

I’m sure they’re right. I’m a slow person who thinks there’s plenty of activity over here, but if you’re used to the adrenaline of Reddit it must feel a little small town-y.

Bingbingbing!

The people still exclusively on Reddit are on Reddit because they don’t like the Fediverse or they’re unwilling to change their habits. Had they liked it and been genuinely open for change they would have made the switch, or at least used both platforms.

This is not so much true for the average user, as they might not be aware of the federated alternatives at all, or they might think it sounds too hard. But it’s absolutely true for the self-hosting community.

Also there are plenty of alternatives. Both PieFed and Mbin are perfectly fine platform with, as far as I know, no tankie developers associated with them.

I think Homage to Catalonia is an important read. It’s a great account of things that can go wrong in a resistance, despite amazing people and incredible efforts.

Until now !superbowl@lemmy.world has been my source of uplifting content of last resort. Sadly I have woken up to the realization that owl pictures might not be enough going forwards. Appreciate the thread.

Does it currently make a profit? If not they will find ways to make it worse. And even if they do make a profit chances are they’ll want to increase their margins.

Maybe stuff like the Google deal could keep money pouring in while keeping usability at a respectable level though.

I’m gonna say yes, for the exercise.

Four assumptions:

1. Reddit will keep getting worse, due to the nature of enshittification and venture capital. Eventually enshittification reaches a breaking point where people leave or stop arriving.
2. Lemmy (in a broad sense - et al!) will keep getting better, due to.the nature of open source software.
3. Non-free alternatives to Reddit will eventually enshittify, law of enshittification.
4. Free alternatives will use ActivityPub for the obvious advantages.

If these assumptions are met, given infinite rounds of enshittification and unhappy users, eventually a federated and free alternative will be the most lucrative option for the majority of users. Eventually Reddit will Digg itself a hole. Maybe Lemmy won’t take over then, but it’ll stick around.

The most unrealistic assumption is of course that the federated solutions will keep getting better indefinitely. Maybe they won’t. But as long as people keep developing and contributing to the Fediverse, it’s alive and improving in a way commercial alternatives cannot in the long run compete with.

If I saw this question posted the first time I visited Lemmy (some months before the Reddit app drama) with “popular” being defined as the current level of activity, my clear answer would be a loud and clear “probably not”.

Congrats on getting out of it! Questioning one’s own set of beliefs is not an easy task even for people who genuinely believe they are doing it constantly. Cool stuff.

So when images are attached to comments from Mbin (without markdown), they will finally show up in Lemmy? Is that what this means?

I don’t think that’s the question I try to ask, though I probably struggle to formulate myself well. It’s not really about comparing to Harris.

It seemed that Trump engaged a lot of people who would not usually bother with politics in 2016. He ran a campaign that completely dominated the Internet. People seemed to have nothing better to do than to create right wing memes in half serious, half joking support of him.

I don’t see that any more. What I see is a more normal campaign ran by a guy frequently making fascist talking points. He could still win, and maybe it’s still a successful campaign, but it feels very different to me from the 2016 one.

But then again, I have changed my Internet habits so that I wouldn’t see it anyway. Maybe there’s still hordes of 20-something incels posting frog memes for the masses to be offended by, it’s just off my radar.

I have a PhD, the only time I use my title is when booking tickets for trains or planes with German companies.

I’m a social scientist. Nobody hears the word “doctor” and thinks of a person like me.

I guess Etsy could be a good place to look. It has gotten annoying in the last few years, but sadly it’s still the best place for a lot of people to sell their crafts.

She might enjoy a unique handmade piece by a silversmith there just as much or more as a high-end necklace, and unique hand-made designs can be cheaper than diamonds. Maybe you can even reach out to a silversmith and design something together.

I tried searching for #jewelry on mastodon.social, and @kosmimatis@handmade.social was the first thing to pop up. Of course you probably want to look around more, but their latest post is not necessarily a terrible starting point. For illustration purposes of course.

In short, I think it’s possible to go about it looking for a silversmith rather than a jewellery store. What it lacks in expensive stones it makes up for by being potentially personal. :)