Because all their friends stay. So to get them to switch, you’d need everyone thay know to switch, which would need everyone they know to switch…

… soon, you need to organize a switch between millions of people, which really isn’t happening.

So the only people on fedi are those ok with keeping multiple profiles, and even then just the ones that value the technical aspects over quantity of content: mostly tech nerds and people with strong feelings about politics.

Have you invited people to the fediverse?

Ease of access and user experience. A single platform beats that, as you don’t have to choose where to signup and everything will be available without effort.

However, Lemmy is getting better with that and hopefully the user base continues growing. It doesn’t need to have a billion users to be an awesome experience.

Even if people know fediverse, if the content they want doesn’t exist here, they won’t stay.

There are Japanese Twitter refugee to fedi (especially Misskey) several times. A lot of big creator doesn’t stay as they want to get the highest number of engagement to keep their (art) business afloat.

Do you know any regular people? Most people I know have never even heard the word fediverse.

Is this a joke question?

People are giving great answers here. One I didn’t notice at a glance is that the Fediverse is feckin small. Most of the world doesn’t know it exists yet, and centralized social medias are probably not gonna be super big about pushing that info through their algorithms

Most people don’t care about things. This is kind of a recurring problem. Imagine if people just cared a little bit more. All sorts of problems, like littering, would just go away.

But people are lazy and don’t care. They don’t care that their behavior today will be a problem for them tomorrow.

The big sites are where the content is, and that’s what they want. Suffering a little bit of hardship (fewer memes) in order to bolster a stronger future? Ridiculous.

Inertia, convenience of what you’re used to, and all of your friends are over there and have never heard of ‘the fediverse’.

Centralized social media is where their friends are.

Same reason why people stick with wells Fargo even if they can move to a credit union. It takes effort, changes to habit, and risk just to gain… what you already have.

Because of network effects.

Building a social network is hard. A typical chicken or egg problem. If you don’t have a user base, nobody is willing to join, and if nobody joins, you don’t have a user base.

It usually requires a bunch of money to build a social network.

The fediverse has a long time to go but I believe it will win sooner or later.

Because most people haven’t gone far enough to even understand this question. The choices come prepackaged, that’s what in front of their eyes, so they assume that’s how it suppose to be, and take the easy ride

I don’t think the average user thinks much about the platform they’re on, and about who controls it. I think they go to wherever most of their family/friends are.

Also, those platforms are firmly in the mainstream, the alternatives aren’t really - you’d have to actively go search for them. People just aren’t likely to do that, I don’t think.

The Fediverse is a confusing concept. I’m a giant nerd and even I don’t really understand how this is supposed to work. Centralized platforms provide a more straightforward user experience. And as others have said, that’s where the content is right now.