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The Fediverse is an opportunity learned societies can't ignore

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

#231

Post by User3456335 »

carlosjobim wrote: post #207
User3456335 wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> veterinarian in Azerbaijan This is not the average vet in Azerbaijan. It's the vet telling a story that fits the values of YOUR bubble. There are probably Azerbaijanis in your own city who you don't know and wouldn't even listen to because they don't live in the same bubble. They might be struggling to put food on the table and they may think that you are a privileged ** and that you think you are morally superior…

Your hatred is steaming out of your ears like if you were a cartoon character. Relax, some random poster on the internet is not to blame for your suffering. And just because they have a different opinion on something meaningless, doesn't mean they're an ass, "privileged", or ignorantly living in a "filter bubble".

It sounds like you're in a bubble where only cartoon characters convey their opinions passionately. And there are people outside of your bubble that have a different opinion on something you do consider meaningful. At least on the topic 'what is meaningful' I think you will find many different opinions being held.

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

#232

Post by anigbrowl »

boudin wrote: post #228
anigbrowl wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're missing the point; it did indeed succeed and is now embedded in our digital infrastructure because it got there first. But it does not follow that launching something else today using the same model will be able to get the same uptake, because there are many competing offerings.

I don't see many competing offering. I can think of XMPP, Matrix, I'm sure there are a few others but it's definitely not many. You're right that the environment changed, but not for the best. Many people would jump on a federated messaging network, not because it's federated but because they won't need to use dozens of app and accounts to communicate. It is more the business incentives that are not there. Email sure…

Yes you do, you just aren't acknowledging them: centralized services like Whatsapp, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and so on. You are thinking of 'competing distributed technologies' but consumers are thinking of 'way to communicate with people' because most consumers do not care how the underlying technology works or what philosophical principles it is based on.

First movers in a market or technology space have an advantage because the costs of switching to something else rise over time, creating economic inelasticity. Go read up on preferential attachment and consider the fact that success is accidental or lucky as much as merit-based.

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

#233

Post by sleepybrett »

coldacid wrote: post #206
threeseed wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People always talk a big game. But by then there should be well in excess of 200-300m people on Threads. Many of them will want to converse with Mastodon users and vice versa and I am sure there will be instances available that will be happy to allow that conversation to happen. Because ultimately it's all about users not instances.

And that's fine, but chances are that any instances which would federate with Threads would probably get defederated by many of the instances which refuse to federate with it. We've already seen this behaviour in fediblock drama, where merely being able to see content from "bad" instances is enough to get your own blocked by an entire union of censorious Mastodon admins.

who cares?

If I'm on instance A and my friend is on instance B and she is talking to someone on Threads (instance C) and instance A blocks instance C .. it just means I won't see posts from instance C. So maybe my friend on instance B gets into a conversation with someone on instance C. In my view I just don't see the C side of the convo. No harm, no foul.

A lot of the fediblock stuff is not 'well they won't defederate from the BADPEOPLE so i'll defederate from them too!'. In fact I'm not sure I've seen an example of that actually happening. You often see grousing and calls for it, but I'm not sure I've ever seen it happen. Most of the block lists i've seen are simply instances of 'free speech warriors' who refuse to moderate calls for violence from their userbase, instances that are straight up 'we are nazis' here, or instances that are extremely sketchy porn.

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

#234

Post by sleepybrett »

mananaysiempre wrote: post #145
bdw5204 wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 acc…

I think MS won't bother but instead build an xbox portable on the same type of platform with a tweaked version of whatever bastardized windows runs on xbox. Then maybe they will license the software stack to your ASUSes and whomever.

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

#235

Post by calamari4065 »

creer wrote: post #62
calamari4065 wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure how much you actually know about this stuff, but this take reads like you fundamentally don't understand the subject. Most of the problems you pose exist with every social media platform, and only get worse as scale goes up. We can all agree that as user count goes up, abuse and moderation scales as well. A centralized platform takes all of that moderation load at once. You need a team of people or some…

So this is one thing that I don't understand: > No matter which node [...] you get roughly the same experience. How do you mean this? Besides HN, I'm on some big guys, a few discords, and some private groups. Some of the big guys delegate moderation to private participants in each sub-forum - of course. NO TWO of these have the same rules. Not even close. Some have fundamentally different basic rules of conduct. Many…

When you move an account between servers, you also move your following list. Your new account follows all the same accounts and your home timeline is identical between accounts.

Of course the local and federated feeds are different, but those are local to the server and will always be unique.

What you're describing is drama, which is pretty easy to ignore.

My previous server got wrapped up in some ridiculously inane large-scale drama that I couldn't avoid. So I started my own server and moved everything over. I still see all the same posts from the same people and they still see mine. It's all exactly the same except for the local and federated feeds.

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

#236

Post by calamari4065 »

jmyeet wrote: post #84
calamari4065 wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure how much you actually know about this stuff, but this take reads like you fundamentally don't understand the subject. Most of the problems you pose exist with every social media platform, and only get worse as scale goes up. We can all agree that as user count goes up, abuse and moderation scales as well. A centralized platform takes all of that moderation load at once. You need a team of people or some…

> Most of the problems you pose exist with every social media platform, and only get worse as scale goes up. It's the opposite. We have monolithic services because all of these problems benefit from scale. Is it easier to build one system for site safety and the ability to report illegal content or to build more than one? > Each server caches copies of all incoming posts to serve them directly to their local users. T…

>It's completely unworkable, offers no value proposition to users, is more expensive to implement and is way more complex.

And yet we still have thriving communities with tens or hundreds of thousands of people who are all pretty happy and satisfied with the way things are.

Because you don't understand what the value is doesn't change the fact that a ton of people do find it valuable. Calling mastodon a failed platform is laughable when we have so many people who enjoy it. I mean that literally, it's a running joke and we all laugh at takes like this. We even have memes about it.

The value proposition is actually quite simple: it's small, it's decentralized, theres no algorithm, it's wholly independent of corporate or advertiser influence, and it's full of people who value those things highly. It is the antithesis of centralized corporate social media, built by and for people who find the modern corporate web intolerable.

What you're complaining about is ActivityPub. It's bad, everyone knows it's bad, we talk about it all the time. There's a great deal of discussion and effort being put into improving it. It comes with some frustrations and odd behavior, but it's largely irrelevant to most users.

The fediverse in general has quite a lot of active users, and that count is growing slowly and steadily. Clearly these people find value and utility in these platforms. Claiming it's an unworkable platform with no value is objectively incorrect.

> Famously, POTS has no issue with spam

You should do some research into this claim.

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

#237

Post by naasking »

ParetoOptimal wrote: post #70
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 fediverse makes these bubbles so much worse, with servers of like minded moderation creating a trend towards groupthink as opposed to representing a variety of opinions. You say groupthink bubble, I say place where I don't have to brace as much for racist or sexist views being expressed. > regression towards the normal mean. Yeah, the normal mean is something to strive for... If it already benefits you.

> You say groupthink bubble, I say place where I don't have to brace as much for racist or sexist views being expressed.

Creating a space where you don't have to face the fact that your fellow humans are sexist or racist is the very definition of a bubble.

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

#238

Post by anewhnaccount2 »

LasEspuelas wrote: post #116
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…

In my experience open access still includes a big publisher sucking up tons of money. It is just money paid up front by authors. Do you have an example of open access were that is not the case?

Late but there are many. This is called diamond access. A possibly familiar example is the ACL.

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

#239

Post by creer »

calamari4065 wrote: post #235
creer wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So this is one thing that I don't understand: > No matter which node [...] you get roughly the same experience. How do you mean this? Besides HN, I'm on some big guys, a few discords, and some private groups. Some of the big guys delegate moderation to private participants in each sub-forum - of course. NO TWO of these have the same rules. Not even close. Some have fundamentally different basic rules of conduct. Many…

When you move an account between servers, you also move your following list. Your new account follows all the same accounts and your home timeline is identical between accounts. Of course the local and federated feeds are different, but those are local to the server and will always be unique. What you're describing is drama, which is pretty easy to ignore. My previous server got wrapped up in some ridiculously inane…

As I read you, when you switch server, you still see your favorite people's own independent writings (the kind of thing HN posts link to). And perhaps their own local responses? And you give up the discussion threads or groups that are between the members of this or that server and moderated by the corresponding server people? These discussions are just among one server's members? Isn't that a rather small group?
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