Patchwork has some big advantages. It's fully distributed, not federated like Mastodon/diaspora/OStatus, and works offline. But the experience isn't as polished yet. There are still some lingering issues with Patchwork... namely, it only runs on desktop computers, and your identity is tied to one device. But they are actively working on these issues.
I haven't really followed up on diaspora much, but why is that?
Isn't the idea behind diaspora something similar to sub-reddit's/facebook groups? You find a "pod" of interest/relation and join up. Thus a focus on the social/community aspects.
invite them to join then? mastodon has some great apps. if you have the skills you could even set up an instance or two for your friends/family to meet up on.
it won't work for 100% of the people you know, but it isn't that difficult to get a few friends to try a new app/service.
even if you can't/don't know how to set up an instance, there are hundreds of public servers that you can join. honestly, the only excuse is that you don't want to put yourself out on a limb.
I'm sorry but I'm not going to spend my personal time convincing hundreds of my contacts to move over to a random service called Mastodon. I've got better things to do with my life. I'm going to use Facebook as a tool and move on - as I'm sure the less vocal majority are doing.
There is a philosophical viewpoint and a practical one. I choose the practical one.
lmao ok like this is an all or nothing situation. my response should have been prefixed with if you care about promoting alternative networks you could... (which is what OP was asking for), mastodon is the largest one right now.
i think SSB has a brighter future, but it isn't production ready quite yet.
"practical" as in, what you think is best. it is practical for me to invite people to promote decentralized social networks because my community is competing with the facebooks of the world for attention. your "impractical approach" is my "guerilla marketing strategy".
I completely get your perspective but you also made my point for me.
I'm not looking to promote any social network or philosophy. I'm simply looking for a modern tool with which I can contact my friends and family that live in different states and countries in an efficient way. That's it. And I'd bet this is also the case for a majority of people.
I get that if you want to start a niche community or small groups for special interests, there are tons of other ways to organize. For example, Discord for gaming.
But at the end of the day, even those who use Discord a lot and are heavily involved in gaming communities will still have a Facebook so they can connect with the random person they just met at a party, or send photos to their grandma.
If you want to roll your own for your friend group the easiest is https://buddypress.org/ on some free/cheap hosting + a 25$ theme to make it look modern.
