We Will Decohere Midjourney: The perspective from a beach of a globe floating above a pristine ocean during a cloud-filled sunset, blues and golds and oranges reflecting everywhere, a departing ship dwarfed by the size of the globe

In the wake of some of the recent monetary changes at Twitter and Reddit, there has been a lot of discussion of which upstart platform(s) might be next to take on the mantle of the “town square” or the “frontpage of the internet”. These two services appear to be going through their own unique process of being outright hostile to their users, albeit from similar first principles.

As some see it, the core of the problem is centralization. Reddit and others are each controlled and managed by one entity. Despite the fact that users produce all of the value of these platforms, they are being treated as expendable cogs as soon as the bottom line starts encroaching on inherent business interests. The proposed answer is decentralized platforms. This answer is, I believe, correct, but it contains some deep caveats which are going largely unaddressed so far as I can tell.

First it would be good to see which upstart decentralized platforms might be worthy of being the next big thing in these spaces.

Fortunately for us, we have a few decentralized examples of each of these platforms readily available for comparison. And, I’m not going to sugar-coat it: they aren’t very good. Yet.

I’ll focus on Lemmy for this example as it’s the direct Reddit replacement and I garner more value from Reddit than I do Twitter.

Signifiers and Assumptions

Lemmy looks really similar to Reddit which is both a blessing and a curse.

On the one hand, familiarity is good for new users. Decreasing cognitive load for users arriving from other platforms1 in order that they might hit the ground running is good for adoption.

On the other hand, this familiarity encourages users to arrive with baked in assumptions which then causes frustration as those assumptions are thwarted from moment one. Worse still, these platforms (to my eyes) have been created by folks that are focused solely on the technical recreation and functionality of the service.

This is certainly an admirable aim. One of my sincerest joys in writing software comes from recreating someone else’s work so as to demystify their mirage. It’s not magic.

However, from a migrating user’s perspective when these assumptions are inevitably rejected there are (at time of writing) no built-in safety nets for new users which help them to adjust to this new landscape.2

This is a problem of imprecise signifiers and the need to appear coherent to an entirely different platform. From my perspective, though I understand the aim for parity between the two platforms, this is a massive UX mistake.

As a specific example, let’s talk about signing up on Lemmy. In order to sign up to Lemmy, you first need to choose a server on which to make your user account. Being decentralized and run by individuals, the servers have myriad (and very confusing) names. Imagine if the first time you went to Reddit, you had to choose from one of thousands of servers to put your username on. Not subscribed to communities, but just to sign up. Which would you choose and why?

“Jeremy, that’s not enough information to go on.”

Oh, sorry, here are handful of servers that you can choose from3:

  1. sopuli.xyz: “A general-purpose instance run by a Finn - everyone is welcome here!”
  2. reddthat.com: “A friendly front page to a small part of the internet. Community funded & run for the community”
  3. discuss.tchncs.de: “Enjoy your favorite Lemmy communities at tchncs! This instance is general purpose but it tends to attract techy people. It is hosted in Germany.”
  4. lemm.ee: “General-purpose Lemmy instance. New users & communities welcome!”
  5. lemmy.fmhy.ml: “FMHY’s General Lemmy Instance / Piracy & NSFW Friendly”

“I just want to join a community that likes talking about <insert_obscure_interest_or_hobby_here>.”

I hope it’s not difficult to see the problem. And we haven’t even started using the damn service yet!

This level of inscrutability would be a challenge for most newcomers, but add in the weight of the assumptions of this being a “Reddit replacement” and it’s hard to blame anyone for saying “fuck it” and waiting until most (if not all) of their favorite subreddits open back up.4

I want to be clear: I’m not saying that these issues are insurmountable. It may in fact be the case that once someone settles into an instance they’ve chosen and they’re able to navigate the inscrutable communities tab, they get the hang of it pretty quick and are using this as a Reddit replacement henceforth.

However, it’s abundantly clear that the onboarding of users migrating from other services was not a chief concern.

This is a new paradigm. It has to be explained. Old assumptions and models have to be reshaped.

This Adapter Doesn’t Fit

The above example does not illustrate an inherent defect in the idea of decentralized platforms. It shows the defect in foisting decentralized models onto ideas that were hatched in a centralized context. It’s meant to be “the front-page of the internet” not “The dozens of potentially contradictory front-pages of the internet”.

Part of the promise of decentralization is to avoid our data and platforms being under the boot heel of profit-driven (or worse, VC-backed) corporations. Individuals and entire communities can leave at the drop of a hat. This is a wonderful ideal to strive for.

At present, we are missing an opportunity to ensure these don’t remain niche platforms by neglecting accessibility. The fortunate thing about all of these decentralization efforts is they are being built on top of protocols5 instead of platforms. I am hopeful someone will be able to crack the usability facet of this problem to truly enable broad adoption of a decentralized answer to Reddit and others.

What this represents at present is a need to explore myriad possibilities. There will be no doubt be a bit of community fragmentation as a knock on effect of these efforts. Though unfortunate, I think that’s a price worth paying.

For my part, I will be continuing to engage more with Lemmy and other alternatives while exploring their myriad use cases from the perspective of a non-technical user. If our aim is to bring decentralized platforms to the masses (which is an aim I share) then we can’t simply rest in the comfort that it’s technically feasible to reproduce the seeming familiarity of the dominant platforms.

Thanks for taking the time to read this. Cheers!


Footnotes

1. I've seen the nomenclature of "reddit refugees" come up a few times in various spaces. Y'all, nah. Let's not. K? ↩️

2. This failing is particularly problematic when the resolution to understanding the new platform is to...perform a google search. In the depths of the Reddit blackout this made for a particularly frustrating experience on my part as most of the results explaining how Lemmy worked were completely inaccessible. ↩️

3. At time of writing these are among the Recommended servers listed when you explore the different instances available. ↩️

4. This is obviously my bias. Perhaps you can blame me for not persevering through the weight of these assumptions. The other bias I have is a sincere perseverance in the face of technical challenges. That's exactly why I'm a software developer! When it comes to trying new services online I try to approach them as ignorantly as possible. The transition from Reddit to Lemmy needs to be accessible to not just those with perseverance or technical experience, but to your Aunt that just wants to look at cute cat gifs. Otherwise what are we even doing? ↩️

5. Nostr in particular is an intriguing entrant into this arms race for its simplicity, but we shall see how this nets out. ↩️