We sure have arrived at panel 2 indeed. If it works better for your mind consider it a completely new meme template that happens to have the same visual outline, because this meme communicates exactly what I want to communicate :)
The neat part is they really can't fuck it up. You can always run your own instance and defederate from a corporation causing problems. Eventually we'll be getting the feature to block entire instances too so you won't have to rely on your admin making that choice either.
So companies fucked up the internet, and people had to make a new internet inside the internet. And when companies fuck that up too, we'll make a new internet inside that one!
maintaining servers is a lot more affordable when your website isn't bloated with tracking and unnecessary features. It's not realistic for a corporation to buy up a significant chunk of the fediverse anyways
It honestly doesn't seem that expensive based on others talking about their hosting costs. The bigger instance will be more expensive but they would also have a lot more people who can easily handle the cost without needing external funds. That said some instance will go that way not for the server cost but for simply money in their pocket at which point you can just switch to another instance.
Corporation cant own fediverse. Corporate interests could take over lemmy.world, or any other instance, but that doesnt give them the fediverse. They can block outside users from coming in, they can block inside users from going out, but they cant block outside users from eachother
What a great warning! This sort of thing is why I think that we should try to have a more distributed userbase instead of everyone piling into one instance. I have nothing against @lemmy.world, but it being as big as it is can become a huge problem if its interests are ever compromised because defederation becomes infeasible when such a large portion of the userbase is in the instance everyone else wants to defederate.
Google was only able to do that because XMPP's userbase was practically nonexistent by the time they pulled the plug. Google Talk had become such a hegemon that the overwhelming majority of XMPP interactions were between Google Talk users. Google had the option to keep tying themselves to a protocol that they don't own to support access to a very small amount of users or develop their own system that they could do whatever they want with. Lemmy and Mastodon do not have that issue. Regardless of what Facebook does with Threads, Mastodon has millions of users and Lemmy reached over 300k. The majority of their users are unlikely to migrate their accounts over just to sell their souls to the Zucc. There is enough activity on Lemmy and Mastodon that many Threads users may make seperate accounts here should Threads eventually defederate, while the users of Lemmy and Mastodon simply go back to an existence without Facebook's meddling. There's not a situation where Threads can destroy Lemmy or Mastodon like there was with XMPP
Yeah, I'm a little confused by the doom-and-gloom regarding all this. Meta/etc. can only ruin the Fediverse if we let them. I really doubt most people currently on lemmy/kbin/mastodon are going to abandon the smaller instances in favor of a Big Corp instance, which IMHO is the big way they can ruin it (consolidate users from smaller instances and then pull the plug). I think there is even an opportunity here to really grow the Fediverse --- smaller instances can (and should!) steal users from Big Corp instances.
Of course this may just be wishful thinking. With their track record, who knows what's possible I guess. (For example, I fully expect non-meta users to be 2nd class citizens on a meta instance...)
Don't be surprised if corporations bought out instances or whole development teams. Good thing new Inatances can be launched and the community can always fork the code and continue work.
I hope not. I remember a time in which you needed to know something in order to enjoy the Internet and I kinda hope this place remains less approachable by normies, but attractive to those who love technology. I feel this is like how IRC was in the 90s.
I think that Lemmy becoming more accessible to normies is a good thing. There's no reason to gatekeep it, as it's not the normies that mess up the site, it's the greedy pricks that follow them and try to make a buck.
I just wouldn't use a corporate server. This here is more like old internet before the likes of google started to buy everything and consolidate the internet. Running a single server is not the same as a server farm in multiple countries.
I hate to say it, but the vibe has gotten a lot more Reddit-y over the last couple months. Lemmy used to be a lot more controversial, and not afraid to show it
I kind of like that tbh. I have identified as an anarchist/communist for over 25 years and even I thought the content at Lemmy was too much of a downer to be around too much.
The point is not the content per se, the point is nobody has any other incentive than to have a good time and share. Instead of the basic human desire to be social constantly being exploited for shiny fucking coins by robots and or psychopaths.
You pick the communities you like. Diversity is key.
I'm not sure if it's brigading or if reddit was just better at hiding them, but I'm seeing a lot of alt-right, fuck-the-libs hate. Any of the current posts about the student loan forgiveness for example. So so many bad faith, tone-deaf arguments of "why should I pay for your loans" or "those lazy deadbeats just don't want to pay". It almost feels organzied.
I don’t think this will be a popular take but I think big companies joining the Fediverse has the potential to be a healthy thing. They’d have the resources to make it more viable to onboard the masses. This would grow the graph and the content pool.
Once onboarded, people can hear the gospel from us Fediverse-freaks and potentially migrate. The concept of finding and joining a federated instance won’t be so scary. The people that won’t migrate probably never were going to.
Will they be perfect citizens? Almost certainly not, but it doesn’t have to be all bad
Ads do suck and the whole industry is a hazard, but if another instance wants to run some and recoup server bills it doesn’t seem like my problem; I’ll find a new instance with a different financial model. If they inject ads into feeds I’d want them defederated; it all becomes a selling point to move to a different instance
These are the masses that literally do not seek anything that is not packaged and maketed and placed directly beneath their noses as the latest zeitgeist, the must have, if you don't join you're out of touch!!!
It's not exactly conducive to critical thought processes, and a large part of valid arguments about social media being harmful.
Can corporations fuck it up if they want to? Couldn't we just migrate to a new instance and not federate? Or not federate with them from the beginning?
I've already seen it happen with a company creating an account to plug their meal plan site, same thing that has been happening on reddit since it started. Just don't trust any account thats trying to sell you something.
I mean, that’s the way it goes sometimes. I know it’s like “duh just be like this!” Type statement but people really shouldn’t ever attach themselves to websites, brands, etc. Always be mentally ready to walk away. That doesn’t mean walk at the first shitty experience, but, you know. Gotta know when to ol’ yeller something and reddit passed that point a long time ago. Discord is my personal ol’ yeller project right now besides reddit. Trying to get people to move off since they’re just becoming greedier and greedier + it’s centralized as fuck and they’re starting to make moves, it seems, towards more censorship there despite that kind of being the opposite of what people came to expect.