you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] 24 points 10 months ago (4 children)

You unfortunately are coming at the problem from the wrong direction.

The only social network they will want to use is the one with all their friends on it; and for the older generations, that's basically just Facebook.

In order to get them to move you'd need to get their friends to move, and in order to get their friends to move, you'll need to get their friends to also move. It's called the network effect and it's why it's incredibly hard for any non-established social networks to gain much of a market share.

Your best bet (which is by no means a guarantee) is to wait for the latest Facebook scandal to be in the news, and chat to them about it whilst they're watching it on TV. Plus add a bit more fuel by doing the ol' "oh this reminds me of something else I was reading a couple of months ago..." And have some other recent scandals in your back pocket to fire out. Bonus points if you can already establish yourself on something like Friendica, which will allow you to say "yeah I quit Facebook a while ago, the company running it just seems skeevy, I've been using friendica instead for a bit now" or something like that

Then you have to hope that registers enough as a talking point amongst them and their friends that it sticks. But you have an uphill struggle ahead with no certainty of success.

  • source
  • hideshow 4 child comments
  • [–] 8 points 10 months ago

    It's not the friends. It's the distant family that you never see but still want to know about births, deaths, etc. It's the neighborhood groups that tell you when your package gets delivered to the wrong house. Its the city groups that tell you why the railroad crossing is closed and which house has the best Halloween decorations.

  • source
  • parent
  • [+] [S] 2 points 10 months ago (2 children)
  • [–] 4 points 10 months ago

    Well I'd lean on the shoulder of giants in terms of the actual service and not do it completely from scratch given we've got Facebook-likes in the fediverse, you could suggest to them. But basically yes from a network perspective unfortunately

    Although you have given me an idea for an angle that the fediverse is perfect for: set up an instance for your local area

    That allows you to also do the "screw untrustworthy big tech, keep things local with people you know" kind of angle.

    Also obviously a fair bit of work, and you still have to ultimately convince people to use it, but worth highlighting regardless.

  • source
  • parent
  • load more comments (1 reply)