When trying to convince people to move to Fediverse services, people will often refer to them as “alternatives”, calling Mastodon a Twitter-alternative, PeerTube a YouTube-alternative, etc. But I don’t think this is the most effective approach.

This is a problem I noticed before I even heard of the Fediverse, because FOSS advocates do the same thing.

The issue is that to the average person, THING-alternative just means that if you already have THING, you don’t need it. Or even worse, people will assume it’s an inferior imitator. Most people aren’t looking for “alternatives”. When they adopt new social media it’s in response to trends.

Look at mainstream social media for example. When TikTok appeared as a new video platform, it didn’t call itself a “YouTube alternative”.

So, at a minimum, I would advise not referring to services as “alternatives” but simply “cool new services/apps” and exalting their best features from a user perspective.

I have other thoughts on how to advertise the Fediverse, but I don’t want to make this post too long.