The Fediverse is an opportunity learned societies can't ignore • Hacker News Board

Re: The Fediverse is an opportunity learned societies can't ignore

#141

Post by Double_a_92 » Mon, Dec 04, 2023, 9:05 AM UTC

p-e-w wrote: post #87

kromem wrote: post #53

After spending a number of months on Lemmy as my primary social media, I actually think the fediverse makes one of the biggest issues of social media much worse. There's a very real and dangerous trend towards extremist positions as a result of social media bubbles. I'm sure most people have noticed how large family gatherings have shifted over the last 15 years, and how some family may no longer even be invited as a…

The supposed "social media bubble" is a silly myth. The exact opposite is the case: On even the most algorithmically filtered social media platform, you cannot avoid encountering opinions and viewpoints that are dramatically different from what you find in your real-life circles. The real bubbles are your family, your workplace, and your friends. Most of them are the same nationality, roughly the same social class, a…

The difference is that with your real-life social bubble you try to not embarrass yourself, so you only discuss your more moderate views with them. While on the internet if you support some extremistic view, you can just shout it out without much consequence.

Re: The Fediverse is an opportunity learned societies can't ignore

#142

Post by hrisng » Mon, Dec 04, 2023, 9:08 AM UTC

jdlyga wrote: post #4

The main issue with Fediverse is the vast majority of people don't know what it is. And I would suspect that most readers of Hacker News only know about Mastodon. The Fediverse needs the same kind of evangelical missionaries that made the free software movement such a big deal.

The Mastodon communities in general have been vehemently against Threads' ActivityPub integration and even go as far as pledging to block Threads preemptively and threaten to alienate instances that won't do so.

I understand their concern (I still, however, think it is extremely overblown), but you can't have your cake and eat it too. Even me, a techie, hesitate to sign up for some random instances ran by people I don't know, and with the risk of it getting shut down at the mercy of said people. Right in this thread, you will also see people that advocate for keeping it niche. That is completely fine too, but the Fediverse not taking off is partly self-inflicted and one could even argue that it is in fact the goal.

Re: The Fediverse is an opportunity learned societies can't ignore

#143

Post by Double_a_92 » Mon, Dec 04, 2023, 9:10 AM UTC

jdlyga wrote: post #4

The main issue with Fediverse is the vast majority of people don't know what it is. And I would suspect that most readers of Hacker News only know about Mastodon. The Fediverse needs the same kind of evangelical missionaries that made the free software movement such a big deal.

I wonder if school kids could be those missionaries. Especially with the difficult signup, it could create like an "elite" social circle of people that made it... Leading to word-of-mouth advertisement because everyone is helping their friends choose a server and signup and dealing with the quirks.

Re: The Fediverse is an opportunity learned societies can't ignore

#144

Post by mananaysiempre » Mon, Dec 04, 2023, 9:11 AM UTC

RandomLensman wrote: post #137

p-e-w wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but the other side of that is that moderate users will be able to move between communities at-will Nope. Banning users for simply being members of certain other communities has been a thing for quite a while now.

Nothing new. That existed before social media and the internet, too. Ban people from certain jobs because the communities they associated with.

(Illegal in many countries post the rise of social democracy, for what it’s worth—the US being a notable exception.)

Re: The Fediverse is an opportunity learned societies can't ignore

#145

Post by mananaysiempre » Mon, Dec 04, 2023, 9:20 AM UTC

bdw5204 wrote: post #20

RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Free software became successful because it rendered things mostly obsolete ie commercial Unix and proprietary compilers. Free software became successful in as much as it reduced the cost for companies selling other things to consumers. Would Google or Facebook be viable if they had to pay Microsoft (or Sun) a license per server. Linux enabled them to have a free operating system to run all their data tracking for a…

> For the most part, the end user actually doesn’t use the free software, rather it is a part of something else they pay for. That's surprisingly true even when the FOSS alternative is a perfectly suitable drop in replacement for a popular proprietary program. How many people pay for Microsoft Office instead of just using LibreOffice? When FOSS became more popular than the proprietary competition, it was only because…

> Linux allows Valve to sell gaming hardware without paying license fees to Microsoft or creating their own operating system.

From reviews of Windows-based gaming handhelds (ROG Ally, etc.), the cost of a Windows license is likely secondary compared to just how badly the stock Windows UI and power management (and incessant forced updates) suit the form factor, and Microsoft don’t look like they can be bothered to accomodate this comparatively small market (at least judging by their public behaviour so far).

That’s not necessarily to say that this was Valve’s original motivation. I think it’s just as likely they were setting up a fallback position for when Microsoft tried to push them out of game distribution using their Xbox platform. But right now it wouldn’t make sense for Valve to switch back even if that problem disappeared overnight.

Re: The Fediverse is an opportunity learned societies can't ignore

#146

Post by bradley13 » Mon, Dec 04, 2023, 9:24 AM UTC

justinpombrio wrote: post #111

zoogeny wrote: post #92

This is a very interesting concept and one I think most comments here are missing. This isn't a question as to why Mastodon (or "Fediverse") has yet to catch on in the wider public. It is more a question as to why scholarly societies are still organized around paid journals. I think the answer to that isn't inertia or greed. I would argue that the tools of federation aren't necessarily suitable to that specific probl…

Don't conflate peer review with paid journals, they're very different things. The money received by paid journals doesn't go to the reviewers. The reviewers are mostly professors who have their own funding. I reviewed a paper recently; I certainly didn't get paid for it! Some disciplines are switching to open access journals, meaning that anyone can read the articles for free, and there's no big publisher sucking up…

You are on point: paid journals bring nothing to the table, except that they have somehow established reputations (of varying levels), where people publish their papers. But the journals themselves do very little. It's largely or entirely volunteers who review papers and select the ones that get publish.

The journals are completely replaceable. You could also just designate a simple website as the publishing destination. The volunteers would do exactly the same work. Obviously, the website requires some funding, but a tiny fraction of what the journals take.

Re: The Fediverse is an opportunity learned societies can't ignore

#147

Post by ploum » Mon, Dec 04, 2023, 9:33 AM UTC

p-e-w wrote: post #87

kromem wrote: post #53

After spending a number of months on Lemmy as my primary social media, I actually think the fediverse makes one of the biggest issues of social media much worse. There's a very real and dangerous trend towards extremist positions as a result of social media bubbles. I'm sure most people have noticed how large family gatherings have shifted over the last 15 years, and how some family may no longer even be invited as a…

The supposed "social media bubble" is a silly myth. The exact opposite is the case: On even the most algorithmically filtered social media platform, you cannot avoid encountering opinions and viewpoints that are dramatically different from what you find in your real-life circles. The real bubbles are your family, your workplace, and your friends. Most of them are the same nationality, roughly the same social class, a…

We all live in bubbles. But, for some reasons, people think that some places are "bubble free".

They see right-wing fascists all the time on the television and think it is normal. They see a few moderate leftists on the fediverse and "the fediverse is a bubble, a niche".

Re: The Fediverse is an opportunity learned societies can't ignore

#148

Post by robertlagrant » Mon, Dec 04, 2023, 9:34 AM UTC

bradley13 wrote: post #146

justinpombrio wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't conflate peer review with paid journals, they're very different things. The money received by paid journals doesn't go to the reviewers. The reviewers are mostly professors who have their own funding. I reviewed a paper recently; I certainly didn't get paid for it! Some disciplines are switching to open access journals, meaning that anyone can read the articles for free, and there's no big publisher sucking up…

You are on point: paid journals bring nothing to the table, except that they have somehow established reputations (of varying levels), where people publish their papers. But the journals themselves do very little. It's largely or entirely volunteers who review papers and select the ones that get publish. The journals are completely replaceable. You could also just designate a simple website as the publishing destinat…

> You could also just designate a simple website as the publishing destination

I had an idea[0] about this last week on here!

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38412554

Re: The Fediverse is an opportunity learned societies can't ignore

#149

Post by gwd » Mon, Dec 04, 2023, 9:43 AM UTC

jazzyjackson wrote: post #90

abdullahkhalids wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Limewire, the filesharing software was installed on one-third of computers worldwide in 2007 [1]. The problem is that software-engineers have lost their way. Limewire was a one-click install. Mastodon requires twenty arcane steps. Once you let average-joe one-click install and host, Mastodon will very rapidly rise. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LimeWire

Limewire gave people for free what they were acclimated to paying for. People already get social media for free. There's no reason for them to switch.

> There's no reason for them to switch.

The reason to switch is that once you get over the initial barriers to entry (having to choose which server to join being a lot bigger barrier than most Fediverse activists seem to realize), the experience is SO MUCH BETTER. You get posts from people you've followed, in the order they were posted, and when you've read them all, you're done. No adverts, no infinite scroll, no wading through 75% "you may be interested in this soft-core porn" posts to see stuff from people you actually followed.

Re: The Fediverse is an opportunity learned societies can't ignore

#150

Post by mananaysiempre » Mon, Dec 04, 2023, 9:48 AM UTC

notahacker wrote: post #136

Jerrrry wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

[flagged]

There’s a difference between thinking an argument is bad and being offended by it. (For what it’s worth, I think GP’s response is also worse than it could’ve been. On the other hand, I’m not seeing any accusation of trolling—i.e. of bad faith—in GGP’s comment.)