Post AT71WNPRKHouSJ0mVE by ben@mastodon.adida.net
(DIR) More posts by ben@mastodon.adida.net
(DIR) Post #AT4tQMwIyMWbJM5YYa by ben@mastodon.adida.net
2023-02-26T16:40:59Z
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Bummed to see some folks outright rejecting and even blocking investment-backed players of the Fediverse. The Fediverse can't just be the artisanal cheese shop of the Internet if it means to serve all humans. Gotta try various things. Plenty of opportunity to block and route around later based on actual bad behavior right? That's the point of federation, i think?
(DIR) Post #AT4tQNsRUD1sDfHzAu by TedUnderwood@sigmoid.social
2023-02-26T17:13:33Z
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@ben I think I agree with you here. Can you link to a story or post about some of the specific actors involved? I'm curious.
(DIR) Post #AT56mKFgwYCckexN56 by timbray@hachyderm.io
2023-02-26T19:09:36Z
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@ben I dunno, I don't much like how the Internet I helped build turned out, so I'm open to investigating the hypothesis that the problem was at least partly in the financial assumptions. Turns out that Fediverse stuff is pretty cheap to run. So why not run it on the cheap with co-ops and suchlike, without key players being in a position where success is 1000X ROI and anything else is failure?
(DIR) Post #AT56mKpUnQqIXhhxtA by penguin42@mastodon.org.uk
2023-02-26T19:43:10Z
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@timbray @ben I think a hard problem is being able to provide federated services to other companies; e.g. getting companies to use open standards rather than things like Slack - it needs companies to provide a service off the shelf. Even a lot of big technical companies don't want to (or haven't got the skills to) run services and have helpdesks for when it breaks.
(DIR) Post #AT580fvrEZCI025NPU by graydon@canada.masto.host
2023-02-26T19:56:55Z
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@penguin42 @timbray @ben Fully open-source bill-for-service companies do exist, and seem to do OK.A we'll-set-that-up-for-you-and-run-it-but-it's-your-name-and-rep doesn't seem incompatible with a general pay-for-value approach.
(DIR) Post #AT58E2tj9x4QzUSsgS by erik@mastodon.infrageeks.social
2023-02-26T19:59:22Z
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@penguin42 @timbray @ben At this stage, I would argue that any company that doesn’t have anyone on staff with the skills to run a mastodon instance needs to take a serious look in the mirror. The don’t want to is equally baffling in different ways. On the technical side it’s frankly trivial. On the management and mediation, they have someone managing their current social media presence so nothing new here. Start with a single corporate account and see if it makes sense for others later
(DIR) Post #AT5QNwJWI9bydqOdkW by ben@mastodon.adida.net
2023-02-26T20:31:37Z
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@timbray i hear you, but IMO, that feels like an overrotation. I don't think operating the fediverse is going to remain all that cheap if it means to serve a significant percentage of the population. We haven't even hit a real security or abuse problem at scale yet.I'd love to see a healthy ecosystem of different types of instances.Plus, if the fediverse is to be resilient, surely it needs to tolerate a few vc-backed runs at it, no? Federation is supposed to provide guardrails, right?
(DIR) Post #AT5QNwpQNX8GEnK7Tk by chucker@norden.social
2023-02-26T20:35:26Z
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@ben @timbray I’m confused why you associate “healthy” and “resilient” with VCs. VCs optimize for fast growth and an exit strategy, not sustainability.
(DIR) Post #AT5QNxZrasHMYp3CrY by luis_in_brief@social.coop
2023-02-26T20:36:33Z
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@chucker @ben @timbray I think he means that if the fediverse isn’t robust enough to handle a few VC-backed projects, that means *the fediverse* is not nearly as healthy or resilient as fediverse fans would like to think it is.
(DIR) Post #AT5QNyEz7zAkcMI2xU by ben@mastodon.adida.net
2023-02-26T20:37:30Z
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@luis_in_brief @chucker @timbray exactly, Luis, that is what I meant.
(DIR) Post #AT5QNyp8xY60QVCvJo by luis_in_brief@social.coop
2023-02-26T20:42:01Z
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@ben @chucker @timbray (to be clear, I’m not 100% sure I agree with that; VC does have particularly corrosive power and the fediverse may be fragile *now* in ways it won’t be later. But if *Mozilla* is raising this sort of immune response that’s… not a look that inspires confidence.)
(DIR) Post #AT5QNzNWthbM99INuq by ben@mastodon.adida.net
2023-02-26T20:46:43Z
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@luis_in_brief @chucker @timbray ugh, mistakenly deleted my response. Trying again:Yeah, I'm not sure how we got to confusing VC and "any investment." As you point out, if even a Mozilla investment is evil, we're in a weird place.
(DIR) Post #AT5QNzpBEtifWuET0y by timbray@hachyderm.io
2023-02-26T20:53:29Z
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@benOops I missed something… who's mad at Mozilla?Possibly you (like me) got the impression that Mammoth is a Moz thing… I don't think it is?@luis_in_brief @chucker
(DIR) Post #AT5QO0NDCMwRES9e3k by ben@mastodon.adida.net
2023-02-26T20:59:02Z
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@timbray @luis_in_brief @chucker Mozilla is one of the investors, as far as I understand. Am I misinformed?
(DIR) Post #AT5QO17IR1nxXNiRtI by timbray@hachyderm.io
2023-02-26T21:06:06Z
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@ben OK, thanks, I didn’t know that. Hmm: https://techcrunch.com/2022/11/02/mozilla-launches-35m-venture-capital-fund-for-early-stage-responsible-startups/But yeah, I think the Bay Area VC economic model has become Part Of The Problem. Maybe Mozilla will be a “nicer” VC for some value of “nicer”? I remain among those who would like the #fediverse to shun VC culture.@luis_in_brief @chucker
(DIR) Post #AT5QO1nTuBY5eDS8e0 by bmann@social.coop
2023-02-26T23:04:37Z
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@timbray @ben @luis_in_brief @chucker so Automattic runs WordPress.com and is VC backed. Is that a problem?I think if we want open protocols to thrive then we’re going to have a multiplicity of approaches at various layers. I think one layer looks a lot like basic web hosting (where many different organizations have their own AP server instance)
(DIR) Post #AT5QO2VRGki7qY1FA0 by simon@fedi.simonwillison.net
2023-02-26T23:16:18Z
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@bmann @timbray @ben @luis_in_brief @chucker I for one am very much looking forward to something like Tumblr adopting ActivityPub because there are a huge number of voices I want to hear from who have understandably failed to climb that "pick a server from this list of entities you've never heard of to get started" initial learning curve
(DIR) Post #AT5wDEn8RtxtITBoW0 by jeffsheets@hachyderm.io
2023-02-27T05:17:40Z
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@simon @bmann @timbray @ben @luis_in_brief @chucker yeah tumblr did mention adding support a few months ago too. Agree that this will be cool to see https://techcrunch.com/2022/11/21/tumblr-to-add-support-for-activitypub-the-social-protocol-powering-mastodon-and-other-apps/
(DIR) Post #AT5y1zsVkvC9lcTJzM by publius@mastodon.sdf.org
2023-02-27T05:39:55Z
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@ben Is "serving all humans" really a desirable or worthwhile goal? It seems to me that replicating the metastatic "growth above all else" mindset is something that, at the very least, should be questioned.When I think of "serving all humans" I think of basic infrastructure like water, sewer, electricity, and telecommunications. "The Fediverse" is, at most, an application layer, on top of an application layer, on top of that basic infrastructure. Universalization may be a conceptual error.
(DIR) Post #AT6RAl9ilBgtNp3IRs by penguin42@mastodon.org.uk
2023-02-27T11:06:24Z
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@erik @timbray @ben Companies work in weird ways; some of the very big companies just find it easier to press a button and pay someone else rather than do the work internally.
(DIR) Post #AT6U3oeNfXEg3Zm1wW by ben@mastodon.adida.net
2023-02-27T11:38:46Z
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@publius i think it is worthwhile, but I understand that some do not. Ultimately I think that's what it come down to, and what I meant with my analogy of the artisanal cheese shop. I think many on Mastodon explicitly don't want to serve a large part of the population, even in a federated model.
(DIR) Post #AT6Y0Zkmzu56nsTvFY by rysiek@mstdn.social
2023-02-27T02:44:40Z
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@ben I love how you just assume there is no other option than "artisanal cheese shop" or "investment-backed players". As if human civilization started with the Dutch East India Company.What an absolute load of crock. 🤣 "Gotta try various things", oh please. 🙄The Internet already tried "investment-backed players", it gave us the dot-com bubble, and then the social media monopolies. Both were immense failures on social and human levels.Thanks, but no thanks. We can and will do better.
(DIR) Post #AT6Y0aKEs6RCZp4EVM by ben@mastodon.adida.net
2023-02-27T03:58:32Z
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@rysiek I'm explicitly saying there could be something between the artisanal cheese shop and the fully VC backed world, and that federation is exactly the path to try. It sounds like what you want is only the artisanal cheese shop. IMO, even a federation of them won't serve most users.
(DIR) Post #AT6Y0aqquqWeCyKHL6 by rysiek@mstdn.social
2023-02-27T05:04:44Z
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@ben I will argue that "investment-backed players" like major social media platforms do not actually "serve users"; they serve their stockholders, investors, owners, and to some extent — advertisers.But not the users.What I want are services that are not beholden to the whims of the stockmarket. What I want is "move slow and fix things". What I want is real infrastructure for public discourse online.I have very little faith "investment-backed players" could deliver any of that.
(DIR) Post #AT6Y0bQeljAK014s9A by ben@mastodon.adida.net
2023-02-27T11:42:50Z
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@rysiek i think it's more subtle than that. Even Facebook, which i strongly dislike, did a lot of good, especially in its early days, for everyday people. And more importantly Twitter, as flawed as it was, did a ton for its users. Yes, the demands for profits often get in the way. But it's not as simple as either you serve the user or you don't.Either way, I'm not talking about having only investment-backed players. I'm talking about, in a federation, welcoming all players, including them.
(DIR) Post #AT6Y0cBnwQsaMF8WdU by ilja@ilja.space
2023-02-27T12:21:09.604515Z
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@ben @rysiek It's interesting that you explicitly mention "in it's early days". The thing is, you can actually model and predict this. When we're talking for profit companies with investment money, it's not just about extracting profit any more, it's about profit growth.When a small company want to see their profits grow, the best way to do that is by growing it's market share. And that's typically done by being attractive to new people. This often leads to good products and offerings.But when they are bigger and they have a big market share, they can't grow like that any more, so they need to change tactics. This is the point where companies will typically start to use tactics of lock-in. At this point it's less about getting new people on their platform, but rather about making it harder for people to leave, so they can extract value from those people in other ways without them leaving. And that's often to those people's detriment. (Think higher costs, lowering overall quality, using customers for extra revenue through other means...). This is the point where their toxic nature shows.I don't have a problem against people trying to make a living. We've seen people make money off of fedi before, and there's generally no backlash against that. But if you're talking investment-backed players, then, even when they seem benevolent at first, if they wont go under, they'll either grow to become toxic, or get taken over by a toxic player and become toxic that way.These companies aren't people able to make free choices. This is about a system that has inherent incentives towards exhibiting toxic behaviour. I think it's more than reasonable to try to counter such systems before they are at that point.
(DIR) Post #AT6Z5b7pQQL4SYDUWG by erik@mastodon.infrageeks.social
2023-02-27T12:35:05Z
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@penguin42 @timbray @ben They certainly do work in weird ways. Probably a lot of internal design and approval processes not designed for this kind of app as well.I suspect that the biggest issue is simply ignorance and inertia at the moment.
(DIR) Post #AT6xctXaNMEg1vfsZ6 by publius@mastodon.sdf.org
2023-02-27T17:10:05Z
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@ben I invite, nay, implore you to consider the possibility (which I see as more of a strong likelihood) that the conceptual model of "one thing to rule them all" is itself fundamentally flawed, and unworkable in any way compatible with real human needs.Indeed, the "fediverse" idea itself, with different services for different purposes and a kind of guaranteed minimum level of interoperability, implies just this.
(DIR) Post #AT71WNPRKHouSJ0mVE by ben@mastodon.adida.net
2023-02-27T17:11:44Z
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@publius I'm confused. Are you saying that the fediverse as a whole can or cannot serve most users?
(DIR) Post #AT7868UsqWhcM8zbN2 by publius@mastodon.sdf.org
2023-02-27T19:07:25Z
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@ben I am attempting to suggest that the construction of "the Fediverse" itself in terms of open standards and interoperability represents a recognition that no one platform, application, implementation, et cetera can meet all needs or should attempt to fill all the available space.In turn, "the Fediverse" should not attempt to fill the space, for similar reasons.The objective of today's investor-capitalism, however, is precisely that kind of mon(opol)istic ubiquity and dominance.
(DIR) Post #AT7MSJMgWGfdn6crWS by syntaxseed@phpc.social
2023-02-27T21:10:31Z
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@ben I think there's an element of ptsd in this reaction. You can only pull the rug out from under people so many times before they make "No Rugs" a core policy/stance.
(DIR) Post #AT7jGNpmNJ6z7gW2nQ by atomicpoet@mastodon.social
2023-02-28T01:52:33Z
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@bmann @timbray @ben @luis_in_brief @chucker A few things to keep in mind:1. I don't think most people on the Fediverse know how much Mozilla is involved with Mammoth. That's certainly better than someone like Andreessen Horowitz2. Speaking of Andreessen Horowitz, they're funding Towns:https://mastodon.social/@atomicpoet/109939584460552175And Towns is definitely hostile to the Fediverse, and should definitely trigger an immune response.
(DIR) Post #AT7jGORM7bAZ0E63Mm by rabble@mastodon.social
2023-02-28T02:00:25Z
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@atomicpoet @bmann @timbray @ben @luis_in_brief @chucker Towns.com is also a weird wrapper of matrix adding crypto NFTs to replace membership as recorded in Postgres plus some sort of idea that a DAO would compell town server admins to follow their decisions. That it raised $25million is bonkers. Seriously, it’s matrix with login via wallet connect and mining NFTs to manage access. I don’t think it’s a threat to anybody.