Several weeks into the #TwitterMigration it seems clear to me the value of Mastodon is not that it is a Twitter replacement, but that it is a gateway technology to decentralization. Mastodon has flaws, I'm not claiming it's perfect, but many criticisms I've seen stem from expecting centralized services from a decentralized structure. It's up to us to try and explain the differences and set expectations for what alternative services can look like.
To this extent I'm really interested to know how the age breakdown of people on the #Fediverse. On one hand it would seem to make sense to me that most people here remember the "old internet" before the centralization and they're here to rekindle that flame of independence. On the other hand the youths are generally pretty up on this whole technology thing. I grew up on the internet and since then smartphones have become even more ubiquitous.
(Please boost for reach)
@mcneely many fediverse instances are very young, teens and early twenties, particularly in fandom communities that run on misskey and pleroma and akkoma. i guarantee your survey won’t reach them, but in many fediverse areas. they were here first.
@mikarv yeah that was sort of what I was imagining. There seems to be a general sense of "haha we're doomed and being exploited" that pervades the younger generations so a decentralized as free experience would seem like an attractive alternative. And like you say, fandom knows no limits. But I wasn't sure I would reach those communities either 🤷♂️
