101–110 of 176 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Probably marketers in this one. Marketers who know how to access politicians adn get invited to WEF. The distinction: marketers know how to trick people, lobbyists bribe them.
That's not lobbyism, that's straight corruption. Lobbyism is, at least in theory, about convincing politicians
The guy who runs W Social, whilst he has a software developer background, has worked most of his time in the financial world. W social is also an LLC. It's a corporation with shares looking to make a profit somehow. No doubt there will be ads on there, and paid features. I don't see how this will ever become a success, not because it's going closed source (people here don't care), or because it might have paid featur…
I think they just choose W, because it's the letter before X (former twitter). Apart from the EU leaders and politicians stroking each other egos, I hardly think anyone would be there and it would die out in few years.
Looking at the people who immediately joined and this being presented at WEF, this looks less like an EU BlueSky or X and more like an EU Truth Social - i.e. the core users seem to be EU politicians who don't want to depend on a platform owned by their political opponents for reach and so want to have their own platform.
It isn't so much about platform owned by political opponents as platforms now being political and/or that we always have to assume they come with a political agenda.
W Social felt extremely shady since their first advertisement on HN. Also, for all their talk about human verification, I have 6 accounts under different names :)
I have a hunch that many - most? - of these European digital sovereignty projects will end up being grifts. Whenever money is being thrown at any crappy, low-effort startup that knows how to speak the right language, you get grifters coming out of the woodwork.
The guy who runs W Social, whilst he has a software developer background, has worked most of his time in the financial world. W social is also an LLC. It's a corporation with shares looking to make a profit somehow. No doubt there will be ads on there, and paid features. I don't see how this will ever become a success, not because it's going closed source (people here don't care), or because it might have paid featur…
I thought this was a good post on the topic: [W Social is TruthSocial with a European accent.][1] [^1]: https://wecanjustdothings.leaflet.pub/3mokohkfb4224
Sovereignty is mostly just a protectionist racket. European firms struggle to compete with dominant US platforms, framing industrial policy as "sovereignty" rather than protectionism just sounds more strategic and security-oriented. I've seen US platforms bend over backwards to meet the requirements and they still choose their preferred winner. Predictably the goalposts keep moving.