How can you explain the Fediverse to someone?

There's a lot of technical answers being proposed but you really need to keep in mind your target audience. Do they actually care how it works at all, or are they less technically minded.

Take the email comparison, it makes an excellent example for people who know how email works but most people don't know so it's not helpful as a comparison to them.

For the layman it's probably best to stick to a simple description, such as: The Fediverse is community organized social media, it works the same as Reddit/Twitter but it's not owned by any company. There are a few extra steps when you first sign up, but it's well worth it for the extra control you get.

It's like email: it doesn't matter if you have an @gmail.com or @microsoft.com address, you can send and receive mail to/from anybody. Lemmy accounts and communities consist of a name which includes the instance, just like e-mail.

That's it, I don't think a regular user needs to know more.

"It's just like Twitter/Reddit/Instagram. Just sign up, you'll can figure out the few differences later".

It’s like the United States. Your Colorado driver’s license is accepted as ID in Virginia.

Each state has their own rules, but there are a few common rules about interstate interactions that are established by the Federal government.

Personally I'd do it just like this, though this was written specifically for reddit refugees and uses the structure of reddit as the baseline for an analogy.

https://lemmy.world/post/583669

It's better because it's more resistant to the pressures of corporate consolidation of power over the industries they operate in. It harnesses more of the advantages of a smaller-scale free market, where establishing smaller scale competitors to larger, more established players is much easier, thus creating a more dynamic space. No one algorithm will ever be able to rule us, we will always be able to simply switch Instances, or even make our own. Even if the Lemmy devs ruin Lemmy somehow, there are other reddit-analogue Fediverse services, and switching is not hard. You would theoretically retain access to all the same content, merely having to start over with a fresh account. Not exactly a big deal, usually.

I mean yeah, you could make your own private reddit too, but y'know, without being able to federate to an existing userbase and body of content, good luck achieving any kind of success.

I have built my own instance. With blackjack! And hookers!

I federate with just everybody. And guess what, it works. That's awesome.

Firstly, your 'instance' is just like your email server. It doesn't matter if it's @yahoo.com or @google.com, I can still email you and you can respond. Some people even have their own servers.

Next, imagine if Facebook, Instagram and Twitter users could all follow each other's posts. The posts are already pretty much the same but we just add @Facebook or @Twitter to the end. You could log in to one, but see posts from the others. The only difference is the layout and design of the interface, like the difference between 'Gmail' and 'Outlook'.

You can also move between servers easily if you want. Sick of @Facebook? Move to @Instagram without losing followers.

This completely depends who you're communicating with and what their level of tech literacy is, but also their level of interest in hearing the techy details. Most of the time I'm explaining it to middle-aged women who still have Facebook accounts, so that should give you an idea where I'm personally coming from.

If they're asking specifically about the term "Fediverse", usually because they heard me talking about it, I tell people that it's just the name for a group of different social media type sites that all communicate with each other instead of being completely separate like the ones they're probably familiar with. It's like having an account on Facebook, and using it to keep up and chat with your friends on TikTok too without ever having to make an account there.

Since one of the main hurdles during big switchovers is the "oh not another account to sign up for" feeling, this on its own is a pretty big eye-opener for a lot of people in terms of why it's better.

Then I'll talk about what the community is like here around our shared interests (mostly fibre crafts), because that's what people actually care about.

If they show no further interest, they still now understand more than at least 95% of people.

Some will be interested in giving it a go themselves, in which case I tell them to start with Mastodon, which is a bit like Twitter except not awful. I get them to join the default server unless they are quite techy, but let them know they don't need to understand what that means because they'll naturally pick it up and can easily move to another server later if they want, so it's not a big deal decision. I'll guide them through the basic gist, get them to make an introduction post, and use my modest reach on there to get them a few initial followers so they don't feel like they're shouting into the void.

The problem with most explanations is that enthusiastic nerds try to fit absolutely everything in at once. Federation, instances etc. And it's just too much especially for a non-techy crowd. Give them the info they actually need to get started and drip-feed the rest over time.

The pentagram is a good start 👍🏻

1. Social media owned by companies, by their nature, undergo enshittification. It may not be now, but it will happen sometime in the future.
2. If we make social media that is owned and controlled by the people, we can avoid enshittification
3. The Fediverse is an attempt to create social media owned by the people.

All the analogies about email and whatnot, or the comments trying to explain how federation works, they're missing a big part of the question. They're not technically wrong, but those answers are exactly what put me off the Fediverse initially. And I suspect those answer will put off other people, too. And it should be relatively clear why, if you think about it from newbies' perspectives: the question that newbies are asking is what the Fediverse is. Trying to answer how the Fediverse works is avoiding the question entirely. You can't explain the "how" to someone if they don't even know what it is. It's like explaining how to design a software to a caveman, without explaining what a software is.

For the lay person:

It's like if you could see Twitter threads and Reddit posts on your Facebook in a single feed, and choose between them which set of rules, interfaces, and styles you prefer. Since everything shares content, it is easier for new sites to open which helps keep the user experience competitive.

If I were speaking to someone with limited current technological know how, but is familiar with older tech, I would use terminology that he/she would understand.

So, to me, the fediverse is similar to a network of BBS’. Where the “instance” would be your specific interpretation on what your experience should be like, run and maintained locally.

Thanks to the internet and portable html viewers, there’s nothing you can’t do on the go that you would have been previously restricted to using a landline and PC to accomplish.

Allowing unfiltered access to a whole network of independently run instances/BBS’, all from the comfort of your recliner, is pretty bada**. 🤘🏻

Don't. Just set up an account, install an app and tell them to go play. They'll figure out the important bits in time.

You know how with SMS and emails, there are many different providers, but anybody can talk to anybody as long as you both have a number/address - that's essentially how it works on the Fediverse.

Rather than one big server controlling everything (i.e. Twitter, Reddit), you have many smaller servers ("instances") ran by different people talking to one another to form the wider network.

You sign up to an "instance" (like an email provider or phone carrier), and then they provide you an address you can use to communicate with other servers/instances your host is connected/"federated" to.

The fediverse is like an apartment block and an instance is one of the apartments. When you create an account in the instance, you "chose" to move into that apartment.

A community in that instance is like a room in the apartment. There can be any number of rooms in the apartment, just like there can be any number of communities in the apartment.

Even though your account is in this instance, it doesn't mean you're stuck there. You can "visit" your neighbours in the other apartments (instantances) and interact with the people there.

This gonna be long, might just want to ignore :)

It's not that easy or we'd be doing it already.

Problem one: Techie. The term ‘federation’ may evoke images of a space opera for some, potentially alienating a large audience who may perceive it as overly technical or complex. This is despite the numerous companies utilizing federation to effect positive change in the world. The reality is, the average person may not immediately associate the term with these beneficial applications.

Problem two: Bifurcation. Any explanation and advantages you give for decentralization will feel inadequate compared to their worry and confusion over bifurcated communities and the next several problems in this list.

Problem three: Four letter word. Users on centralized platforms often view ‘Federation’ with skepticism, insisting that it’s too complicated. "Eww you don't want to go over there, that place is just a hot mess, it's too complicated. Just stay here, it'll get better here."

Problem four: Identity. Everyone on centralized social is completely wrapped around their identity. I am MrMcSniggles, it is my legacy and there can be only one. In Federation, there can be a thousand MrMcSniggles. Verification and ID ownership is pretty weak in the Lemmyverse.

Problem five: Login. Oh what server do I choose? We tell them that it doesn't matter, but if they pick an extremist node, or a node small enough not to get global community traffic, they're going to have a bad experience. They're all going to gravitate toward the largest nodes, which is better these days but goes against the whole point of federation.

Problem six: Discovery. So who will see posts? That's simple, yet mind bending for the uninitiated. You post it on your local node. If no one on your local node shares or boosts it, the global community will never see it. What posts do I see? Well you see, at best, what the people on your instance are seeing. Oh so that's everything on the federation? No. Oh so what do they see. That discussion is also off putting enough to turn many away.

Problem seven: Permanence and Migration. If you get through login and they're still onboard, what happens if a server goes tits up? Do my old posts still stick around? Well, kinda, but not really. Do I get to keep my old subscriptions at least? (hopefully soon) For the moment, no, unless you sign up for this third party service.

Problem eight: Algorithm. You go to the community tab, you select all, let's see some raw unfiltered.... OK, look at that, bots reposting everything on Reddit. Bots reposting every game for every team for every sport. What do I do? Well get to blocking. Oh I can block that easily? Well, it's like 4 clicks per block, if it's stuff you know you don't want you might be able to block a user and get multiples done, sometimes it's just a community you want gone, and another, and another and well hell, this is another full time job. They're going to miss the Algorithm. Trying to convince them that less doom scrolling is good is often a fools errand.

Problem nine: Defederation. Every time a node gets defederated, there's a huge stink. We do it really often because we lack admin tools to handle global individual/community censorship. In one paragraph we tout free speech, but in the same paragraph we end up talking about the banhammer required to keep the communities civil.

Solution one: You can explain that federation is like email providers, which is closely resembles, but the finer points on the analogy are lost on the uninitiated, it turns to confusion, begs more explanation, ends up making it sound more complicated than it is.

Solution two:
You can say that Federation is a backend thing and it doesn't affect your social media except that you have to include what service you're using in your @'s This works pretty well, but it breaks your request to tell them why federation is so good.

Solution three: You can dumb it down and make a series of points ignoring the negatives. No one can take down the network. You are not a product to be sold, you are free to move around the network as you see fit to find your home. As other services video, images, audio, blogging pop up, you can interact with them from your existing accounts. But all these end up being far more complicated as they start asking questions.

None of these are great, upside and downsides. I really wish we could come up with some kind of nickname solution like IRC, that and some good admin tools would go a long way toward reducing the excuses people use to stay away.

I recently setup my own instance and wrote this for people new to lemmy:

Federated?

        ~ Anyone can host a server
    ~ Servers host instances
    ~ Instances host Communities
    ~ Communities host wonderful people
    ~ Instances can communicate freely between eachother
    This is the federation


  

What makes Lemmy and any federated platform so interesting is the ActivityPub protocol. This allows Lemmy, which is a content aggregator social media, to communicate (or Federate) with other types of social media, such as Mastodon (a twitter microblog style) and PeerTube (video hosting). Meaning any instance of the Fediverse can independently read each others content, without the necessity of having to use different apps and/or accounts.

Here you can find my full post.

Each home has communities. No matter where your home is, you can access and participate in all communities - from your home and others.

You choose a home to your liking, for example from which country, or moderation policy, or topic themes. You make your account on that home, and then access and join the communities you want to.

It's built upon communities that can congregate in one area and engage with other communities.
It's not run by Wall Street or billionaire backed entities so the platform lacks an algorithm designed to keep your attention to show you ads.
It's new, lacks the shine and polish of established platforms, and there's a bit of friction with on-boarding and usage.

Let's imagine a field full of lobsters. Each lobster represents a server. Most of the lobsters like to hang around with each other, but some of them don't like certain other lobsters and will refuse to hang out with other lobsters.

Now each of these lobsters have at least one tiny little mite riding on them. These mites want to talk to the mites on the other lobsters, but they are too far away. So, they build a big sign on the back of their lobster that the other mites can see. Since they are on the back of their lobster, they can change what's on the sign or add to it or make a new sign, but the other mites can add to the signs by signaling with semaphore what they want written on the sign. However, the mites on the lobster that their lobster doesn't like are never close enough to send their semaphore signals, so although they can see the sign they can't change or add to it.

Imagine you have a big board on your front lawn where people can come to write stuff and respond to others on the board. This board is an instance.

Your neighbor has their own board, which they have “federated” with yours. Messages from your board can show up on their board, and people there can write on those messages same as ones native to that board.

You can federate with them so their stuff shows on your board, or defederate if you don’t like the people there.

Anyone with the ability to make a board can have one federated with other boards to make a really big web of boards, but to a person looking at your lawn’s board it feels like one big one.

I know it's more complex, just if you are trying to explain what the Fediverse is to someone who's older

"Remember Usenet?"

"Just like that, but anyone can run a server and start their own newsgroups"

It’s a gargantuan group of forums that you can access through your home forum. Your home forum admins act like admins on your home forum but have no power elsewhere.

Or “It’s like Reddit, but with longer URLs and a slightly different user culture.”

Different social media sites can share posts and comments with each other. Imagine threads posts appearing on X, or Facebook post appearing on Reddit.