Everything you need to know about the AI-free social media platform for artists.

Key points:

  • Cara’s Rapid Growth: The app gained 600,000 users in a week

  • Artists Leaving Instagram: The controversy around Instagram using images to train AI led many artists to seek an alternative

  • Cara’s Features: The app is designed specifically for artists and offers a ‘Portfolio’ feature. Users can tag fields, mediums, project types, categories, and software used to create their work

  • While Cara has grown quickly, it is still tiny compared to Instagram’s massive user base of two billion.

  • Glaze Integration: Cara is working on integrating Glaze directly in the app to provide users with an easy way to protect their work from be used by any AI

more about: https://blog.cara.app/blog/cara-glaze-about

  • bionicjoey@lemmy.caEnglish
    10313·
    7 months ago

    Artists are mostly not going to figure out the fediverse. There really needs to be some kind of way of accessing it that is more layman friendly if we ever want it to be adopted by non-nerds

    • Zos_Kia@lemmynsfw.comEnglish
      762·
      7 months ago

      Artists are perfectly able to use the fediverse, that is not what is stopping them.

      They don’t come because they need to be where their fans are. That is why Cara will only be a splash: their niche is artists who place more value on the anti-AI slant than on meeting their audience where it lives. By definition that is not conducive to a lot of organic growth.

    • BroBot9000@lemmy.worldEnglish
      353·
      7 months ago

      It’s really not that complicated and with shit like Threads, companies are introducing the concept to the masses while the enshittification of Instagram and the like will force people to look for alternatives.

      We need to welcome people with open arms and not push them away the moment someone has a question about how federation works.

      • lemmyvore@feddit.nlEnglish
        19·
        7 months ago

        Threads is only federated in name. It’s simply Meta’s taking advantage of Twitter’s downfall. It’s as centralized and under Meta’s thumb as they come.

        • BroBot9000@lemmy.worldEnglish
          11·
          7 months ago

          Still introduces the concept and will make people aware of other instances.

          Definitely avoid it but it’s still publicly for federation.

        • helenslunch@feddit.nlEnglish
          8·
          7 months ago

          Yep. I bet good money federation remains unidirectional and opt-in. All to pretend to comply with DMA, just like they are with WhatsApp.

        • dan@upvote.auEnglish
          2·
          7 months ago

          Threads is federated though. You can follow Threads accounts on Mastodon. It’s still a work in progress though, and not everything is implemented yet.

      • bionicjoey@lemmy.caEnglish
        183·
        7 months ago

        Nah. But anything more complicated than a MacBook scares most people away. Most people aren’t down with anything that isn’t a turnkey experience

        • Bahalex@lemmy.worldEnglish
          22·
          7 months ago

          Most of these artists use fairly complicated, or difficult to master, software to create and/or edit their art.

          Signing up for and uploading images to a website isn’t really complicated.

    • Omniraptor@lemm.eeEnglish
      9·
      7 months ago

      Idk I hear misskey (activitypub micro blogging software, compatible but distinct from mastodon) is really big in Japan, used by lots of artists. lots of Japanese users on bluesky as well

    • Flaky@lemmy.zipEnglish
      2·
      7 months ago

      I think the problem is both technical and cultural. I use both Mastodon and Bluesky pretty regularly, and am dipping my toes back into Lemmy after the instance I used has seemingly died. A lot of the technical and cultural problems the fediverse and specifically Mastodon - being the most well-known ActivityPub project - has, that made people flock to Bluesky instead (during a time when invite codes were needed, adding a layer of friction to joining Bluesky at the time), is well-documented on this post by Erin Kissane.

      The tl;dr: fractured federation amongst other problems, and a very scoldy audience turned these people away from Mastodon.

      Hell I consider myself a very techy nerd, but I moved Mastodon instances after being frustrated with the inherent lossiness of federation with ActivityPub on the Masto instance I used to be on, which sucks because the instance I was on had no other problems.