I know this has been a regular topic of discussion lately, as Facebook users are looking for alternatives, but there is a harsh reality I think netizens of the fediverse need to acknowledge that will keep the majority of Facebook users locked in. That is the personal social graph that Facebook has built up for users over the years. No other site on the web has a way to find nearly anyone you have ever known, from high school friends to long lost family members. The reason for this is because of the format of Facebook being “you” on the web. Your profile is your name, your personal info, and it is even linked to your phone number and contacts, making social networking incredibly easy.
The closest that exists for this on the fediverse is Friendica, but it is more of a reddit/twitter hybrid imo, and while you can make your profile page personal, the posts you make will go to the entire fediverse. This lack of privacy and tailoring of your messages to a particular audience is what is going to make Facebook unbeatable for the foreseeable future. People want alternatives, but these alternatives simply do not exist.
I would be very curious to hear about efforts to make sites on the fediverse more personalized and enabling of people to control their audience, because this (along with improving user experience) is the biggest thing I think is keeping people from making the switch.
Recently i’ve been wondering if that is even a thing anyone wants. Being connected to everyone I’ve ever known — for me Facebook stopped being a place I posted on around when my graph exploded to everyone.
I mean, that’s good if you don’t want that, but I think a lot of people do. I abandoned facebook in 2017, but returned in 2022, and realized how out of touch I had become with everyone. I have friends, aunts, uncles, siblings, etc all added, and it is always nice to see what they’re up to. If you don’t want to keep in touch with people, then I guess I can see why you would not value that functionality and be fine with Friendica as is, but I think it is something a lot of people are looking for, and I would argue one of the primary values that social media provides to society.