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.
Not just five words. The Fediverse is a modular, federated Reddit-alternative that isn’t owned by any specific person - that makes it immune from traditional shittification of online services, that can be forked by others to be used better if necessary. It also is rapidly developing tools and functionality that makes it better (at least as far as Piefed is concerned), and as it grows organically could be better prepared at dealing with bots, grifters, and trolls.
It won’t appeal to all though. It just flatout is a downgrade for right-wingers who want a twitter-like “let me behave how I want” experience. And that’s a good thing.
Of course it wont appeal to all, you failed to write a marketing blurb. This is just an about page no one reads