When trying to convince people to move to Fediverse services, people will often refer to them as “alternatives”, calling Mastodon a Twitter-alternative, PeerTube a YouTube-alternative, etc. But I don’t think this is the most effective approach.

This is a problem I noticed before I even heard of the Fediverse, because FOSS advocates do the same thing.

The issue is that to the average person, THING-alternative just means that if you already have THING, you don’t need it. Or even worse, people will assume it’s an inferior imitator. Most people aren’t looking for “alternatives”. When they adopt new social media it’s in response to trends.

Look at mainstream social media for example. When TikTok appeared as a new video platform, it didn’t call itself a “YouTube alternative”.

So, at a minimum, I would advise not referring to services as “alternatives” but simply “cool new services/apps” and exalting their best features from a user perspective.

I have other thoughts on how to advertise the Fediverse, but I don’t want to make this post too long.

    • chromodynamic@piefed.socialOPEnglish
      6·
      6 days ago

      Firefox is a Chrome alternative, Linux is a Window alternative.

      These are not inaccurate descriptions, but it makes them sound like inferior imitations and gives the impression that they’ll always be second best. It is also a kind of free-advertising for Chrome/Windows.

        • chromodynamic@piefed.socialOPEnglish
          3·
          6 days ago

          Makes sense to do that on Reddit itself. If you’re posting on the equivalent platform I guess you are talking to people specifically looking for alternatives. I was thinking more about advertising on non-equivalent platforms, like Mastodon on YouTube, PeerTube on Reddit, etc.

          Honestly I’m not sure how Reddit itself became so popular among people who never used old Internet forums like I did, so the Threadiverse is something I don’t have ideas for.