Jul 3, 2026, 7:16 AMIn my personal and biased opinion, the Fediverse, by its very nature, acts as a normaliser of networked communication. By externalising monetisation, it delivers a baseline that fosters communities over cults, so to say. Which is why I never liked the term „follower“, BTW. It is technically correct, but on a psychological level it sends the wrong message, again, in my personal opinion. Anyway, enough philosophy for today, back to work :)
3/3
I don't like the term follower much either. What term would you suggest?
Jul 3, 2026, 10:00 AM@MichelPatrice It's tough. Peer, compatriot, fellow, which should all be changed to mutual once the connection becomes bidirectional?
I still haven't found a satisfying term.
Jul 3, 2026, 12:02 PM@MichelPatrice @jwildeboer
suggestion: homie
@jwildeboer
Assuming I understand the difficulty, reader or listener may be more accurate than follower.
@MichelPatrice
Jul 3, 2026, 7:24 AM@jwildeboer Let me phrase it differently: People have a right to not be a potential customer, or good for that matter.
Jul 3, 2026, 8:28 AM@jwildeboer How about "associate"😊
Jul 3, 2026, 9:54 AM@jwildeboer
GNU has the expression "free as in freedom, not as in beer".
Maybe we need to adopt something like "follower as in RSS, not as in religious".
@jwildeboer
Hmmm. It should say "Friend" ^-^")! /s
...Or something neutral that still means "member" or "fellow user", but... also represents the "following"!
@jwildeboer i really like it for the place where I don’t want to monetise, but hang out with interesting people and look at interesting things. That’s the USP for me. I monetise elsewhere it I need to.
@jwildeboer I think you’ve just convinced me to get on PeerTube.
Difference between “art” and “content”.
Jul 4, 2026, 6:21 PM@jwildeboer
The term "follower" is the lesser evil: the alternatives are "friend" (parasocial, especially for one-way relationships) and "subscriber" (implies a financial transaction had taken place)...