> everything else happening to the average people in the world around you

Did you read the part where I said "invite your friends and family", or you just jumped to write such a thoughtful response?

My parents don't care about Facebook, Twitter or whatsapp. They care about being able to see and talk with their grandkids. If I tell them that they can do that by using a different app, they will install the app without second thought.

If they want to continue using Facebook/Google, they can. But the important thing to me is that now they are less dependent on Facebook and they have an option.

This solution is one that maybe 1% of the US populace can implement or take advantage of via family.

It's always worth remembering that only 5% of the adult US populace can complete a task like finding and applying for a job using only web technology†. Being able to self host is a skill that maybe 0.1% of the populace can do, being generous.

An important life lesson is knowing that just because you can do something doesn't mean everybody, or even a majority of people can.

† https://goingdigital.oecd.org/indicator/24

> This solution is one that maybe 1% of the US populace can implement or take advantage of via family.

I don't like to just drop links, but please read https://medium.com/incerto/the-most-intolerant-wins-the-dict... and see if you understand how it applies to what I am proposing.

What you're proposing won't work for any but the technological elite.

It requires too many technical skills to work.

Alternatively, it requires too much money to hire the technical skills to work.

If it doesn't work for the majority (even a reasonably sized minority) of people, regardless of being borne of the best of intentions, it's not a viable alternative. Period.

You really didn't read the text, did you?

> It requires too many technical skills to work.

What is about Mastodon that requires technical skills that Facebook or Twitter do not? The fact that they are required to know the name of the instance when setting up a client?

Just like they learned (conditioned could be a better word) into putting all their data into their shiny smartphones, people can learn something like "to use this you need your username and the server name, like email addresses". And if you tell me that some people don't even know that and had someone else setting up their facebook for them, why can't this "someone else" set up an ActivityPub client as well?

> Alternatively, it requires too much money to hire the technical skills to work.

I don't think I charged anything from my friends and family that asked to get access to my matrix server. I also don't charge anything from those that got an account on the Jellyfin box I run. I also didn't send an invoice to my wife or parents for helping them setup Element on their phones.

"Ah, but this doesn't scale!"

Sure, if it's just me doing it won't. But there are already other people that learned once and managed to teach others.

> it's not a viable alternative.

Do us both a favor. Instead of making absolute statements based on incomplete information and your prejudices, find a way to prove me wrong.

Get one of your current vices (Twitter? Instagram? TikTok? WhatsApp? iMessage?), and do your best effort to use the open alternatives that exist. For the social networking stuff, you will quickly see that the only "problem" is that the people you are used to seeing are not there. Instead of shrugging your shoulders and going back to the old ways, see how many people you can bring along with you.

I'm not even asking you to delete your current application. I'm just asking you to try to use the open alternative and help as many people as possible to join you. If you find any reasonable justification that prevents you or your peers to adopt the open alternative, then I will believe you.

what i’m saying is that you’re ignoring societal problems by removing yourself from them, and this will not fix anything… and you will still be subject to side-effects as long as you wish to interact with people outside of your parents (ie, society)

I’ve been on my local school board for 20 years and the changes happening due to social media are staggering (for children and adults). My lack of participation hasn’t changed anything. Telling people not to participate will not work because you’re rivaling companies that pay experts tons of money to get people addicted to these things. As individuals we’re massively out-gunned.

I’ve started working with and donating to advocacy groups looking to regulate these companies because I haven’t seen anything else even begin to work.

I'd rather say that I am weakening the grip that some corporations have over society at large, and that the more people did the same, the less of a problem it would be.

I am also saying that there are a good number of people that think this is not a problem, so I don't want to waste my time and energy trying to convince them otherwise.

Understandable, my perspective is that most people simply don’t realize how much of a problem it is, because there are massive amounts of money and expertise keeping them from it.