141–150 of 241 posts
A part of me really hopes that Musks' seemingly-incompetent handling of Twitter does sort of legitimize Mastodon (and other Fediverse projects) to the public. I set up a mastodon server a few weeks ago out of boredom, and I finally get the appeal of tweeting, and have been using it regularly, and it makes me happy that I get to own all the hardware powering it.
The post includes innecessary resentment against billionaire owned platforms, sadly it does not take the opportunity to promote Mastodon or other technologies with that post success.
>billionaire owned platforms Do not refer to them as 'billionaires' since they're oligarchs. I have expunged the word 'billionaire' from my vocabulary.
The most interesting part of this are the Mastodon posts underneath the initial one that insult this Vaught's integrity for not taking the handle repossession personally.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think it's similar to some users believing they have a right to privacy or a right to "their" data on platforms like Facebook. Use at your own risk because they're not free services; they have a profit motive by nature of what they are.
People gotta quit bitchin' about Twitter and just move to Mastodon, Bluesky, Threads or whatever. Bankruptcy is the one language that Elon Musk will understand and it's absolutely necessary because his behavior is contagious. Donald Trump set a precedent for him and Scott Adams, only their destruction will send a message this behavior is just not cool.
Of course, you can always use Bitcoin / Ethereum and the Ethereum Name Service which is true, legitimate digital ownership. But few on HN like that. There is a lot of cognitive dissonance when arguing that blockchain has literally zero use cases and then being angry when Twitter or Facebook or Google rugs you.
What if Google took your 16 year old email address? Corporate cloud is an absolute trap. A prison. You cannot trust these companies with your important digital belongings. Free, libre, open source software, peer to peer networks, and citizen run communications infrastructure are the only viable way forward if we don't to live in a rental society where none of your belongings belong to you, not even your identity.
What about ARIN and IANA? Eventually there is some central authority associated with the internet, IP address blocks and DNS root servers.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> a good excuse to never build anything ... on closed platforms. Open and censorship-resistant protocols do not have have this risk, Free Software does not have this risk. So, yes, if in 2023 you are still building things on closed platforms despite all the cautionary tales, you deserve all the snark you'll get.
What are some open censorship-resistant protocols? Email?
This is the consequence of lack of self-sovereignty, along with the lack of an agreed universal naming system. That said, I’m not sure that first-come-first-wins is simultaneously fair, in such a universal environment. Nor, really, do I want it to be a “whoever can pay most gets the desirable names”, like DNS works. I don’t have a better solution right now, but acknowledge that there’s a problem with the combination/…
A mandatory random set of numbers at the end of every name is an approach I quite like. Not only does it directly make every name available to 10,000 people, it should reduce the demand for these desirable names in the first place since you have to share them with thousands of other people. Platforms should also consider accommodations for trademark holders. Most have some sort of program, but it seems to be a mess.…