The Fediverse is inefficient but that's a good trade-off • Hacker News Board

Re: The Fediverse is inefficient but that's a good trade-off

#151

Post by UncleOxidant » Sat, Nov 12, 2022, 5:04 PM UTC

Kiro wrote: post #106

uneekname wrote: post #4

What has happened with Mastodon recently feels like a great thing for the fediverse. Many of these platforms are still working out their implementation kinks, but they aren't babies anymore. Just when I thought ActivityPub might never catch on, a significant number of people have decided to give it a chance. Makes me want to implement some ActivityPub features on my own site, so I can get in on the fun!

My takeaway is the opposite. If not even this could make people switch to Mastodon nothing can. Even if Twitter got shut down they would find something else that is not AP.

But a lot of people are switching over to Mastodon. In the last 3 weeks or so it went from "welp, there aren't a lot of people to follow over here" to "wow, lots of interesting people I used to follow on twitter are here now!" It's really starting to hit a tipping point as more people make the jump.

Re: The Fediverse is inefficient but that's a good trade-off

#152

Post by UncleOxidant » Sat, Nov 12, 2022, 5:08 PM UTC

sandyarmstrong wrote: post #132

Kiro wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My takeaway is the opposite. If not even this could make people switch to Mastodon nothing can. Even if Twitter got shut down they would find something else that is not AP.

In my circles I'm seeing mass exodus. It's not just the tinkerers and the anarchists. I'm not surprised about the uptake in the open source community, after all I remember identi.ca being a lovely network for GNOME back in the day. But I'm also seeing authors, actors, journalists, doctors, and scientists I follow make their way over, as well as a few novelty accounts. Sure, many of them are dual-posting. But I still…

I setup a Mastodon account back in May as sort of "just in case Musk messes it up" insurance. And man, did he ever mess it up - worse & faster than my more pessimistic expectations. However, up until about 3 weeks ago there just weren't that many people to follow on mastodon. But that has changed more rapidly than I would have expected. Now I'm following several interesting people I used to follow on twitter.

Re: The Fediverse is inefficient but that's a good trade-off

#153

Post by lifeisstillgood » Sat, Nov 12, 2022, 5:25 PM UTC

turtleyacht wrote: post #101

thrown_22 wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you want a good overview of a bunch of similar ideas: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AvZlXaGEzwg&list=PLsOFk2nGmz... A course that goes over how everything we think is bad today is good in a world stuck in the Malthusian trap. Working harder today to have a better life tomorrow just means your children working harder tomorrow to have the same life you have today. The option he didn't talk about at all was how in…

Thank-you. I see it is part of Professor Gregory Clark's A Farewell to Alms: A Brief Economic History of the World . And that is part of a series of 49 books, The Princeton Economic History of the Western World. Definitely sounds like a reference gold mine.

My (limited) understanding of the book is that basically during the 19C in Britain, poor uneducated (and unproductive) people died off leaving space for the middle class to grow. Which leads to the conclusion that killing the ooor leads to economic growth. As a thesis it may be short of ... something.

I may have misunderstood the tweet of the review of the article based on the book.

Anyway, my general conclusion is that however hard it is to understand history, understanding economic history is twice as opaque

Re: The Fediverse is inefficient but that's a good trade-off

#154

Post by rakoo » Sat, Nov 12, 2022, 5:27 PM UTC

Kiro wrote: post #106

uneekname wrote: post #4

What has happened with Mastodon recently feels like a great thing for the fediverse. Many of these platforms are still working out their implementation kinks, but they aren't babies anymore. Just when I thought ActivityPub might never catch on, a significant number of people have decided to give it a chance. Makes me want to implement some ActivityPub features on my own site, so I can get in on the fun!

My takeaway is the opposite. If not even this could make people switch to Mastodon nothing can. Even if Twitter got shut down they would find something else that is not AP.

The thing is, AP is not just Mastodon. Mastodon is only one software and only one usage. If Mastodon numbers grow, then the AP is more interesting and it is suddenly more interesting for other platforms to consider AP, and for users to use the-equivalent-of-X that is not microblogging. Maybe they'll start to follow people on Pixelfed for instance.

Re: The Fediverse is inefficient but that's a good trade-off

#155

Post by CharlesW » Sat, Nov 12, 2022, 5:29 PM UTC

VonGuard wrote: post #147

Standards can fix this stuff: https://spritely.institute/ Spritely is an effort to fix the problems that remain with ActivityPub.

> Spritely is an effort to fix the problems that remain with ActivityPub.

If that's true, then your single sentence does more to communicate what Spritely wants to do than that entire website. Even searching for occurrences of "ActivityPub" on the site with Google¹ returns mostly 404s. It sure does not appear to be a living concern.

¹ https://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Aspritely.institute+%2...

Re: The Fediverse is inefficient but that's a good trade-off

#156

Post by pornel » Sat, Nov 12, 2022, 5:29 PM UTC

Kiro wrote: post #106

uneekname wrote: post #4

What has happened with Mastodon recently feels like a great thing for the fediverse. Many of these platforms are still working out their implementation kinks, but they aren't babies anymore. Just when I thought ActivityPub might never catch on, a significant number of people have decided to give it a chance. Makes me want to implement some ActivityPub features on my own site, so I can get in on the fun!

My takeaway is the opposite. If not even this could make people switch to Mastodon nothing can. Even if Twitter got shut down they would find something else that is not AP.

I don't expect Lady Gaga and her followers to move, but some tech-adjacent communities have bailed out already.

Re: The Fediverse is inefficient but that's a good trade-off

#157

Post by skybrian » Sat, Nov 12, 2022, 5:31 PM UTC

mariusor wrote: post #144

irusensei wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did twitter TOS was ever ok with impersonating accounts? I don’t want to be in a position where I’m defending twitter but need to remind federated instances are run mostly by normal people. Having the cake and eating it and all that.

I think it's not difficult to find instances ran by ethical people or ethical organizations on the fediverse. Throwing the baby with the bath water because you theoretically can stumble upon bad admins, is in the realm of a "ridiculous hypothetical" to me.

How would you find them? There's no website describing fediverse admins and their reputations. Most of the time you don't even know who the admin is. It could be anyone.

This isn't different than other websites. It's true of web forums too. It's fine, just don't post anything you can't afford to lose.

Experience: on my third Mastodon account. The first one disappeared without notice.

Re: The Fediverse is inefficient but that's a good trade-off

#158

Post by CM30 » Sat, Nov 12, 2022, 5:33 PM UTC

irusensei wrote: post #134

mariusor wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some of these hypotheticals are a becoming a little ridiculous. There's very little recourse if twitter bans you, or youtube bans you and you're not capable of raising a stink on HN, or what not. It's hardly any different when you're using a mastodon instance.

Twitter won’t ban you for personal reasons. Can you vouch the same for a server admin?

I'm pretty sure they'll ban you if it's 'inconvenient' not to, like if a company raises potential legal hell, your posts get mass reported, you end up in the midst of a huge internet controversy/witchhunt, etc.

A large company is no more immune to that than a small one, or a community run site would be.

And at least with an individual or small company/group, you have someone to put your case to in that situation. Someone who can probably offer support and potentially lift the ban rather than the 'Get fucked' attitude of Facebook, Google, etc.

Re: The Fediverse is inefficient but that's a good trade-off

#159

Post by pornel » Sat, Nov 12, 2022, 5:34 PM UTC

irusensei wrote: post #35

I really need to remind you folks that you are transferring your trust to these local server administrators. They might mishandle your data. They might be even less prepared to deal with moderation than big social media. They might end up having to close their services due to lack of time or money. It’s all fun but please keep this in mind. Perhaps host your own instance?

Totally, but I have even less trust in Twitter now. Everyone who could say "no, that is unethical" has been fired or left the company. The company is deep in debt, desperate for revenue, and Musk's largest investor is a prince from a country that beheads its enemies. Assume all your Twitter data has already been sold with absolutely no limits.

Re: The Fediverse is inefficient but that's a good trade-off

#160

Post by rakoo » Sat, Nov 12, 2022, 5:35 PM UTC

oneeyedpigeon wrote: post #62

bawolff wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Although i think that's what most people want. One of the reasons centralization won out for email is dealing with spam can be absolutely exhausting, so gmail started to look really attractive for the average user.

This is why I think a big player needs to get involved. As soon as Google hosts a Mastodon instance, that will ease the entry for a lot of people.

How exactly is it hard to enter the fediverse ? Yes, you need to spend time to understand what you're going into, to understand the lingo, the rules, the etiquette. But it's normal, because Mastodon is not Twitter2, the fediverse is not the usual social networks. It's a new world, you have to understand why it's different.

If Google ever speaks AP I won't be surprised to see it defederated from many instances. It will create a schism, and that's perfectly ok because the expectations are different.