61–70 of 264 posts
I wonder if it's possible to take the Wikipedia model (open source, non profit entity) and use that to build a social network.
I'm a participant in a community that explicitly refuses money from outside its membership. If that means we can't grow fast, or have fancy digs, so be it. The reason for that, is to avoid having influence from outside. Even "angel" investment can be problematic, as the "angel" has the ear of the leadership. I have found that even well-meaning outsiders can have highly destructive influence, because they don't unders…
It’s very interesting and telling that most of the technology that connects us does not have us as a customer, or a financial beneficiary. One of the key aspects of technofeudalism is the extractive nature of most of our platforms.
I'm just thankful that mobile phone networks haven't switched to a "free with ads interspersed into your texts" model yet.
(Of course there are still ads in my texts, but at least those are officially spam rather than network endorsed.)
Just a reminder: If you are not paying for the product, you are the product. The internet culture birthed from the early days of the internet "Everything is free", seems to have captured a whole generation who simply have no concept of cost and value. Vid.me is another start-up that comes to mind: Youtube sucks, has too many ads, and sells your data. We won't have ads, won't sell your data, and will host all your con…
(YouTube, Uber, Airbnb, etc…)
I wonder if it's possible to take the Wikipedia model (open source, non profit entity) and use that to build a social network.
I always thought it would be cool if every NPR/PBS station also ran Fediverse nodes of mastodon or whatever the Fediverse version of Facebook is. Would provide a public-funded option with more transparency
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It’s very interesting and telling that most of the technology that connects us does not have us as a customer, or a financial beneficiary. One of the key aspects of technofeudalism is the extractive nature of most of our platforms.
Because given the choice it seems many people prefer free with ads to paid? I'm just thankful that mobile phone networks haven't switched to a "free with ads interspersed into your texts" model yet. (Of course there are still ads in my texts, but at least those are officially spam rather than network endorsed.)
I started building an open source private blogging system[1] when my first kid was born, and it eventually evolved into the skeleton of a social network--but fully decentralized using RSS and self- (or paid-) hosting. I concluded the only way for a network to actually avoid selling out was for there to be nothing to sell. If I give away the software, and don't control the network then there is no need for users to tr…
FYI, clicking the "Try the Demo" button doesn't do anything for me in Chrome or Firefox.
That's a name I haven't thought of for several years. I wonder if Fediverse, Blue Sky, etc will catch, or if it'll end up in the same boat. Threads too (yes it's backed by Meta, but G+ had Google behind it ...)
There would be pain if mastodon.social failed with zero notice. People would lose access to their accounts and would need to find a new server where they'd be starting over. Some may have backed up their contacts, but most wouldn't. If mastodon.social gave a couple months notice, people could migrate to other servers. given that mastodon.social is the largest server, there would be some growing pains as other servers worked to accommodate new users, but it's possible for the Fediverse to continue.
Note, I'm not saying that the Fediverse will be incredibly popular. I'm simply noting that there's an amount of resilience. Once Ello's owners ran out of interest or money, that was the end of Ello. Even if others had a huge interest in seeing it continue, there was nothing they could do. Even if the Fediverse doesn't "catch" by your definition of catching on, it has caught on for enough people who have moved there and will remain there.
That's why I feel happier in the Fediverse. It feels like something the community controls. Sure, I don't run my own server, but I possibly could in the future and there are enough people running servers that I don't feel beholden to any one entity. It just feels like something that can stick around - even if the cool kids aren't interested. Enough of us like it and we'll keep it going even if some of us become disinterested in it.
I'm a participant in a community that explicitly refuses money from outside its membership. If that means we can't grow fast, or have fancy digs, so be it. The reason for that, is to avoid having influence from outside. Even "angel" investment can be problematic, as the "angel" has the ear of the leadership. I have found that even well-meaning outsiders can have highly destructive influence, because they don't unders…
Everyone says they are on board with supporting the little guys, until they hit bugs and start complaining.