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Jeremy Vaught spent 16 years to build @music on Twitter, then X took it away

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171–180 of 241 posts

Re: Jeremy Vaught spent 16 years to build @music on Twitter, then X took it away

#171

I do think this is philosophically unjust, but in no way should anyone have built any brand on Twitter, particularly a generic like “music”, and not expected something like this would happen. Twitter in particular has a long and storied history of this sort of thing. I think the move should have been, if one were going to start on Twitter, to slowly funnel the largest possible portion of their 11M followers to their…

Their account, musicfan, has ~500k the new music is a rename from some twittermusic handle I think

Re: Jeremy Vaught spent 16 years to build @music on Twitter, then X took it away

#172
post #14

This is why I like how Bluesky handles it, you can use your own domain name. So I simply got @gilli.is, no reason for anyone ever to take that away from me.

That's just mildly exploiting the fact that social engineering on DNS infra is not yet popular. Once everyone starts doing that, the black hats just move onto the DNS platform and we will all be worse off.

Re: Jeremy Vaught spent 16 years to build @music on Twitter, then X took it away

#173

There is no such thing as true digital ownership for things built on anyone else’s platform. If you want to truly own something you need to use open protocols - like websites and bespoke software. If you build on someone’s API, or rely on “owning” a Twitter account which you literally have zero right to and is at the whim of the platform’s owner, don’t be shocked when it’s taken from you. Of course, you can always us…

What about domain names? I have a really nice .app site and fear this every time I renew it. (For those who don't know: .app is owned by Google)

https://eth.limo/ is one attempt of several to map ENS domains to web addressable domains. Ideally all the major browsers will support ENS for domain-to-IP mapping and the issue is solved.

Re: Jeremy Vaught spent 16 years to build @music on Twitter, then X took it away

#174
post #141

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.

Twitter was already confusing. Mastodon more so.

I agree; it's honestly easier for me now because my mastodon instance has exactly one user (me). Substantially less cluttered because there's no attempt at a recommendation algorithm.

Re: Jeremy Vaught spent 16 years to build @music on Twitter, then X took it away

#175

On the one hand, it's unsurprising that platforms would do this, users sign up for TOS with terrible policies and realize too late that they're the product. Too, a handle like '@music' was also an opportunistic bet on hub status of one's own. On the other hand, the sense of arrogance and entitlement on display here marks an impressive new nadir in fuck-you capitalism. Contractual arguments are sort of meaningless sin…

Are TOS even real? I can't immediately recall high profile cases that actually had to do with TOS. My impression is that TOS had disconnected from actual internal operations sometimes during past 20 years, and are now just filler texts for posthoc justification for internal code behaviors and manager ramblings.

Re: Jeremy Vaught spent 16 years to build @music on Twitter, then X took it away

#176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about domain names? I have a really nice .app site and fear this every time I renew it. (For those who don't know: .app is owned by Google)

This cannot happen with domains. If you were to drop the domain, they could potentially reserve it for themselves, but as long as you're not breaking laws and pay for renewals, the domain is yours.

I hope you're right!

(I'm quite honored to get your first comment on this site after lurking for around 3 years and a half, lol)

Re: Jeremy Vaught spent 16 years to build @music on Twitter, then X took it away

#177

There is no such thing as true digital ownership for things built on anyone else’s platform. If you want to truly own something you need to use open protocols - like websites and bespoke software. If you build on someone’s API, or rely on “owning” a Twitter account which you literally have zero right to and is at the whim of the platform’s owner, don’t be shocked when it’s taken from you. Of course, you can always us…

> Of course, you can always use Bitcoin / Ethereum and the Ethereum Name Service which is true, legitimate digital ownership.

Why is this legitimate digital ownership vs other forms? Bitcoin and ETH are stolen all the time, and it’s not recoverable, even if you can prove it rightfully belonged to you.

People are wary of crypto because it’s controlled by a cabal of extraordinarily entrenched early adopters, many of whom established themselves on speculation, grift, and fraud. It’s no better than the centralized banking it purports to supplant, and worse in most measurable regards.

Re: Jeremy Vaught spent 16 years to build @music on Twitter, then X took it away

#178

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.

I am assuming they will take my 19 yo email address. So I am moving my logins slowly to my own domain.

“my own domain”

Which is a touch more solid (I use in in that way) but still an ephemeral rented thing, not owned.

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