+1 for this recommendation. Gnome is going to feel more familiar to a MacOS user and Silverblue is very resilient.

That alt text is just TOO real

The LinkedIn-styled writing here is hard for me to get through, but I think the general gist is that for profit platforms are easier to onboard which I agree with. This line stands out:

And what do we get in return? A worse experience than cloud-based services.

I have to disagree somewhat, it’s a different experience that is absolutely more difficult in many ways, but for those of us who value privacy, control over our data, and don’t like ads, the trade-off is worth it. Also it goes without saying that the usability of selfhosted apps has exploded in the past few years and it will likely become less and less of an issue.

Fortunately “groupthink” on the fediverse isn’t a structural problem since nobody controls all instances and every instance has different moderation styles.

I love the idea of an instance for a whole metro area, then each neighborhood could have it’s own community.

That’s great! I have been using ClearURLs with varied success. Nice to see it built in .

I also noticed that when Lemmy links do appear it’s often to a random federated instance, not the original source.

Eh, I would have agreed a few years ago. But now default Ubuntu boots up basically looking like MacOS with the browser (firefox by default, not Chrome) right there in your face ready to launch. For someone truly not aware how to use a computer beyond a browser it couldn’t be much easier (except booting directly into the browser). The only thing preventing that from catching on is that those people don’t even know what an operating system is, let alone that it could be changed.

The idea of ChromeOS is simple: it’s just enough Linux to get you online. It turns a PC into something akin to a tablet, with a full-screen icon-based app launcher. The desktop is very simple and vaguely Windows-like: there’s a taskbar at the bottom, a file manager, drivers enough common hardware that most things just work out of the box, including a bunch of common GPUs, networking including Wi-Fi. In terms of apps, there’s a built-in Google Drive client, and of course the Chrome web browser.

This is more or less describing one of the many immutable distros that only run programs with flatpaks. It’s entirely feasible if someone wanted to make a distro with even less functionality, but why?

Why can’t you just download them and delete the copy in Google photos?

No one person can control everything.

Doesn’t seem to be stopping you from trying!

Eh, I think you’re projecting. He literally owned his instance. He was playing with his own ball at his own house and you got “butthurt” because he didn’t want to play with you.

It’s no secret that a lot of people are attracted to Lemmy because they felt Reddit mods were too overbearing, but some of us like Lemmy because we didn’t think Reddit mods were doing enough about the overbearing users.

He said “this” experiment, not “the fediverse” which I interpreted to mean his instance (or perhaps Lemmy).

That said, I’m honestly curious what do you care about his “toxicty” if he’s not an admin of your instance? You don’t seriously believe you have a right to dictate what he does with his own hardware do you?

I’m glad we agree.

What did you interpret the premise to be? I read the post when it was up, and it read to me like OP was saying essentially that too many toxic users and not enough admins willing to stand up to them make the overall experience not fun.

EDIT: Which is accurate in my mind at least when it comes to Lemmy

Sounds like a major perk of that instance to me.

Man I am the complete opposite. I need my browser to display the Web with tons and tons of tweaks and adjustments and filters in place to make it actually readable for me. Rawdogging the Web in 2025 is wild.

Using a camera on public property in the EU is broadly very legal.

Using recycled parts is the best advice. As you said, it’s almost certainly overkill and the price can’t be beat.