The only thing stopping me from liking Pixelfed is the network effect (lack of content I want to see), and that’s obviously out of anyone’s control but society itself. Of course there are more features it could have (all fediverse services are constant WIPs), but I don’t think Pixelfed is a bad client. Loops obviously needs work, but it has app clients, federated servers, and open code like any other Fediverse project. I don’t understand what issues you or others are having?
I mean, Bluesky is essentially a Twitter replacement, so it’s not like many people are going to be on there for tech/FOSS news. Every user on Mastodon knows what the Fediverse is, which means they’re disproportionately more likely to care about FOSS and tech, therefore they’re gonna spread the word more. Especially since most Fediverse users know the negatives of being on centralized social media, so they won’t make a Bluesky account because they have a Fediverse account that will never be stuck on a enshittified platform. Therefore all the tech nerds are here instead of Bluesky anyway.
We have tech nerds. We don’t have celebrities and “hit tweets”/jokes/memes that are getting screenshotted and dispersed to millions. Which is both a positive, but also a negative. Fediverse could do with more silly “hit tweets” (toots? posts.) that encourage people to join. I just want fanartists personally
I feel like the author is being a tad dramatic about Pixelfed. I think the whole “can’t see text posts” issue could be solve with a simple “Let me see text posts” toggle, either for the overall feed or hashtags, or account, whatever. The more customizable the better.
My second point is, expecting to have one account to see EVERYTHING on the Fediverse is insanity. Do you expect a Peertube account to read Mastodon posts? A Funkwhale that can look at Misskey? I think servives like Masto, wafrn, and misskey/sharkey should make efforts to have embeded posts from media based services like Peertube/Funkwhale, but different services have different purposes. Some people on Threadiverse (Lemmy, Piefed, mbin) probably don’t even have Masto accounts. Pixelfed’s main goal is to be similar to Instagram, a place to post pictures/images. Instagram doesn’t do walls of text, but if you really wanted to just write words and screenshot it. But why try to make something that “does it all”? We’re getting mad at Facebook for doing exactly that, they have games, vertical videos (Tiktok), marketplace, live streams, groups, instant messaging, and more bullcrap. Pixelfed deserves to exist just as much as Mastodon does.
My final point is, some people don’t want to do a whole blog in addition to their pic. Tumblr has a healthy blend of image and text capability, and some people just do text while others just do pictures. Some people just want to post a picture and communicate through that. Why does text have to weigh heavier than images? I feel it’s a bit unfair to make it sound like people only see brainrot and sensory overload on Insta/media-focused services. I miss many artists from Instagram and Twitter, I wish they’d migrate to Pixelfed or Masto.
I say this as someone who barely uses either Masto or Pixelfed, because it’s far harder to find content I’m interested in on there compared to Threadiverse. Here, we have neat, ordered communities where you get what it says on the tin. But you have to work to find what you want everywhere else, which would feel rewarding if we had the people and content to back it up.