The only thing that keeps me tied to any Meta platform is the Facebook marketplace. It is the de facto method of buying and selling used goods in a sustainable fashion.
If there was any alternative, especially a federated one, I’d switch over in a heartbeat.
Props to you for getting a few to migrate over. Beyond the confusion that comes with federated media sign-up, Lemmy is definitely facing the chicken-or-egg problem. To get people to joi, it needs more substantial, diverse content. But to have that content, it needs a larger user base.
Have you seen many family members switch to Threads? Mine are sticking to the tried and true Facebook. I would have a Sisyphean battle to get them to switch to Threads, let alone Mastodon.
Positive: Government and corporate injustices are increasingly hard to sweep under the rug, and awareness of these injustices is more prevalent.
Negative: All this access to injustices going on can easily lead you down a spiral of hopelessness if you let it, especially when it seems like nothing is being done to fix the problem.
I use Linux for largely the same reasons I use Lemmy. While I’m still far from strictly using FOSS software, I respect the decentralization and freedom that comes with Linux. I have such a deep admiration and respect for everyday people that create/maintain platforms, as opposed to large companies that seeking to profit off their userbase.
While I have distro hopped a number of times over the past few years, I keep coming back to Pop!_OS. Everything just works right out of the box for me, but still gives me the freedom to tweak my environment however I choose. I love their tiling desktop feature and am anxiously awaiting the release of their new COSMIC desktop.
Teachers. It is such a widely known trope that teachers are overworked and underpaid. So many that want to pursue teaching now enter the market, understanding that they will likely need a second job at some point. Although internet kudos do little to actually address the problem, my respect goes to the teachers.