The main obstacle to fediverse migrations is the network effect. People stay on shit platforms because everyone else stays. It's the classic coordination problem. You stay on the fence as long as everyone else stays on the fence. And then suddenly a critical mass is reached and everyone sees that everyone is moving. So everyone does immediately. This stuff happens through collective perception. But there's a way to coordinate it without individual investment (being the "first" to move).

We can break the network effect if we had easier ways to signal when we would be ready to commit to moving. Imagine you could go to a site, plot in your Instagram user and see who among your mutuals would be willing to move at a certain date, and then you could sign the campaign indicating your commitment to everyone else who followed you. It's much more fun to move together and be part of movement! #adversarialinteroperability

i’m super into this - and would like to develop such systems hacks. I don’t totally understand your suggestion though. If more and more people sign - will it not make the dependency (I change if they change) more hard to reach. I probably misunderstood though …

That's a valid concern and I follow you - yes, it would make the commitment harder and harder to reach. You could introduce some kind of version control. The simplest would just be to have a chronological list that would mean: "If all the people below me are committed to switching (which they are), then I'm game too" and then sign at the top of the list.

A more complicated version would have a fluid system, so you indicate specifically who you would need to switch (person 2, 15, 16 and 34 etc) or a certain number of people from that list (35 people, no matter who they are). And then you commit to the system. When your threshold has been met, your name automatically goes on the list, you get a notification (to orient about your commitment now being in effect and public) and that will then create effects in the rest of the network.

It could get even more complex (but also with higher potentiality) if we had ways of identifying people currently not in the system (lets just say with an email), so I could name person A and person B that are currently not on the list as someone I would need to make the switch. Those people get an email about my commitment, encouraging them to sign up. If they do, the system identifies them as part of my conditions and then automatically puts me on the list of people who are ready.

I agree that the network effect is the strongest barrier to switching.

It seems like some people organized #fediparty kind of analogous to the cryptoparty concept in Germany a couple years ago. Rebooting this approach seems like the most attractive approach to me, and I'm motivated to try holding one in #leipzig this year

while I really like the approach of migrating whole networks at a time, I am a bit skeptical with the level of organizational overhead I imagine your concept requires.

I think people agitating to leave and eventually setting an ultimatum works, and what people do already.

Perhaps we can enshrine the day Twitter was sold to Musk as Exodus day, and agitate for it every year as a coordination point for switching?

That's a good idea for some communities - those that had or have a relationship to Twitter. Ultimately, what will work is entirely dependent on each particular community. That's the reason why I'm thinking less in broad one-directional communication campaigns and more in structures that use the "coordination problem" inherent in each community. @abekonge

Just going to link this fun looking fedi workshop from @tommi here since it seems relevant https://tommi.space/fedilab/

Hmmm... you know how there is #scicomm ? Let's perhaps start using #fedicomm for this precise topic, of _communicating_ (what) the fediverse (is)

Thanks so much for sharing, @douginamug! Actually, the workshop has a dedicated website, now!

https://ournet.rocks/

@malte @abekonge

wow, very nice! Really enjoyed reading through the history bit. Here are some optional text alterations you might want to consider:

"In a century thorn by global wars" -> thorn -> torn

"60 millions" -> 60 million (same for "2 billions")

"initial sparkle" -> spark

"fagocitation" -> digestion/consumption/etc