like the early internet the tech gap was a natural filter and i see that as a good thing for the quality of the conversation.

Well that sometimes keeps the conversation clean though. Most computer people seem to be a little more intelligent than the average person.

This used to be what people said about digg and then about reddit

I use Linux because I’m too tech illiterate for Windows, I needed something that just worked out of the box

It totally is. That's why I'm here. Depending on the server, you also get a side of non-authoritarianism and strong privacy beliefs.

About the time they get a list of services to pick for sign up, they lose interest or freeze, exhibiting decision paralysis. That one time they installed ImagineDragns.exe and the computer had to be taken to be cleaned, set them down a path of I don't know what this is, I won't touch it that keep us employed.

or at least navigate a directory through the command line

Why, obviously. I mean who hasn't read through the ls(1) man page at least once?

in a simplified phrase, fediverse is the linux of social media. I'm not saying this is good or bad.

since the front page consists of linux and survillance hate

Tech literacy is following step by step instructions & having an IQ above room temperature? OK.

The comment section here is proof of the echo chamber part…

The store I work at mostly hires immigrants. While I would say that the language barrier is squing things a little, my coworkers generally have never handled technology before, even if they were previously in a role that had a high level of education.

Take one of my coworkers for example. When she asked me what I was reading, my fumbled attempt to explain fanfiction might as well have been pure gibrish. She didn't even have a concept of a book that isn't educational, never mind not knowing the translation of "fiction". After explaining the concept, she said "Oh, like the Bible?"

I think I might have done a mental bluescreen at that one.

Even just this last week, she seemed to be genuenly confuzed when I explained that I was writing a book. She kept asking "oh, are you in school then?" as if the only reason to ever write stuff was for school.

Anyways, my point is; the average everyday person has likely never so much as owned a smartphone, never mind knows how to boot off a usb drive. It's not just an immigrant thing either, my familly is almost utterly unable to have conversations with me because they don't even recognize 3/4ths of the words I need to use to describe the concept I need to explain to explain why I was laughing at a meme.

How has nobody posted the geology XKCD yet?