Subj : Re: Notice that...
To   : boraxman
From : DustCouncil
Date : Wed Feb 09 2022 00:14:45

 bo> A lot of new "tech" is really just consolidating power and monetizing
 bo> human interaction.  People are sleepwalking into a dystopia by allowing
 bo> a situation to emerge where a certain class of people in Silicon Valley
 bo> get to mediate everything we do and say.  It is the antithesis of what
 bo> the free internet is supposed to be about.

What's depressing about this is you don't even have to think in terms of principle for this to be troubling.  What you have to realize is any of these private companies can either tank financially, taking tons of communities down with them, or shutter a service suddenly if it makes financial sense to do so.

Yahoo Groups ("free" Yahoo-hosted mailing lists) is a perfect example. Took two of my lists with it.  I mean, my fault for hosting them there and all but the "too bad, bye suckers!" ending was depressing.

This is a big issue with Discord beyond their censorship/surveillance policies.  It's like building on unstable ground.
 
I don't actually dislike the Discord client; it works fine as far as it goes.  But it is centralized.  (Matrix is a much preferable alternative; I am surprised how well it works as a more open alternative.)
  
As for Yahoo Groups...

I actually like Internet mailing lists (maybe I'm one of the few ones left), but given the fact that e-mail, too, has become increasingly centralized across a handful of providers, and with it spam filtering lists, the prospect of running my own mail server and mailing list software is daunting.  I used to run a mail server years ago and it was probably the least fun I've ever had.  I was able to get it up and running, but keeping it up and running was another matter.  Updates continually broke the config files (postfix) and it was a lot of work for very little joy.  Some widely-used spam lists refuse to remove my VPS IP address from their lists, because some clown before me used it for abuse.  I've given up.

I agree with the principle of an open Internet.  I've been an EFF member for decades, and there is definitely some emotion involved when it comes to wanting a less centralized Internet.  

But I am surprised so many people risk the long-term health of their communities by trusting a corporation to keep those communities running forever even if they don't care about surveillance/data collection/whatever euphemism you want to use.  Not to mention potential censorship should someone run afoul of public sentiment such that a mob forms against their financial interests.

Google is another example -- they have become infamous for having no faith in their own products.  Why anyone would on-board with a new Google service if they're looking for a long-term solution for, well, anything, is anyone's guess.

I'm not naive about the fact that this has always been about money, exclusively.  I just don't get why other people don't understand that these companies don't care about the communities they host, beyond what financial windfall they provide.  It's all very practical, really.

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A47 2021/12/24 (Linux/64)
 * Origin: Shipwrecks & Shibboleths [San Francisco, CA - USA] (21:1/227)

.