Post AP4PDlKAoBKPQva0dU by sj_zero@social.fbxl.net
(DIR) More posts by sj_zero@social.fbxl.net
(DIR) Post #AP4PDjBwjnYiopiPXE by lightweight@mastodon.nzoss.nz
2022-10-28T04:28:11Z
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Folks who're fretting about losing their jobs because their employment is somehow tied to Twitter (presumably marketing?!) it's worth taking a moment to consider that any role that is totally dependent on the existence/direction of a 3rd party (especially a capricious and ethically dubious US mega-corporation) is probably a career limiting choice. All the independent MSFT/Oracle/AWS/etc. consultants out there, take note. Wrote a bit about that here: https://davelane.nz/mshostage
(DIR) Post #AP4PDjuy2PZV4SmMi0 by arin_basu@mastodon.nzoss.nz
2022-10-29T19:29:16Z
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@lightweight Appreciations for authoring a _very_ important thought piece. Perhaps a petition is in order. What you write about governments is applicable to universities as well. 'Hostage' is the appropriate word here. What needs to happen to shift this mindset?
(DIR) Post #AP4PDkPSD3xSb12iEC by lightweight@mastodon.nzoss.nz
2022-10-29T19:30:40Z
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@arin_basu thanks! What needs to happen? Gov't needs to acknowledge that there's a problem. That requires informing a lot of people and/or getting influential groups to point out the problem (e.g. the Privacy Foundation of NZ)...
(DIR) Post #AP4PDkq2cDE1vTTwfY by arin_basu@mastodon.nzoss.nz
2022-10-29T19:36:11Z
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@lightweight Exactly. This is the bit I cannot get my head around; Speaking of influential groups, if they are truly champions of openness and fairness and have public interests in mind, what makes them subjugate to a private enterprise that has a profit motive, in the face of wide and easy availability of free and open source alternatives that are as good and even better, product for product?
(DIR) Post #AP4PDlKAoBKPQva0dU by sj_zero@social.fbxl.net
2022-10-29T20:06:42.945866Z
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Most people act as if global digital communications started with the Internet, but it didn't. Prior to the Internet being widely commercially available, there were a number of commercial networks one could sign up for. The biggest were Compuserve, Prodigy, and America Online. They were proprietary, and if the stuff you wanted on one wasn't there, you'd have to just subscribe to another.The Internet ended up growing in popularity, and the world wide web made things more accessible starting in 1991. Now, everything would live on one network.Having a standardized platform that ISPs could compete on price, service quality, and so on caused a revolution such that today most people have numerous Internet connections. It was great for the consumer, and the companies made out OK, but they never had a chance to become massive world monopolies on Information.I feel like this is analogous to where the Internet needs to be going in terms of services now. Instead of having massive monolithic platforms owned and operated by one company, we should have a shared protocol like ActivityPub that allows people to choose whichever service they desire, and then instead of competing by locking away content or users, sites would have to compete on UX, speed, brand, business model, or even moderation(There's no reason why the same AI moderation done to users couldn't block messages coming through the activitypub pathway just the same).Yes, it means that you can't become the world's largest company by monopolizing a section of the population, but as we saw with the Internet, it means a huge explosion in overall investment and innovation since you can't just rest on your laurels just because you're self-sustaining.