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Toot.community is shutting down

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Re: Toot.community is shutting down

#61

Post by nickdothutton »

0xDEAFBEAD wrote: post #57
kps wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Today is the 12021th of September 1993.

I'm not old enough to have experienced Usenet. For those who remember Usenet: Do you believe that Eternal September was a failure of cultural transmission? Or was it more of a human capital thing? (Early adopters/academics tend to be better-behaved users?) Another way of thinking about it: Suppose the exact same userbase had joined Usenet, but they trickled in gradually instead of flooding in all at once. How much wo…

I think it was the rate of change. Previous waves were small by comparison and had been absorbed/integrated after a period, with a degree of gradual change. Nothing is forever, but Eternal September was abrupt. To a degree there was an echo of it (not on USENET, but on forums and other places) with the advent of the smartphone in 2007, and another with the mass take-up of Internet services in 2016 on the Indian subcontinent by a huge population.

Re: Toot.community is shutting down

#62

Post by nickdothutton »

devmor wrote: post #24
nickdothutton wrote: post #21

As someone whose first “social media” was USENET of the early 90s, and I suppose FidoNet before then, I don’t really consider the bulk of mainstream Internet users today to be in any way “my people”. The herd is endlessly mindless, shallow, bought with bread, and hungry for the circus.

Well that's kind of understandable, isn't it? In the USENET era, internet users were a subculture. In 2026, almost everyone is an internet user. It's kind of like saying "As someone whose first car was a Model T, I don't really consider the bulk of mainstream drivers today to be in any way 'my people'".

Selective newsgroups vs the firehose/feed/timeline of modern platforms who generally do not want you to tightly discriminate according to your tastes/interest.

Re: Toot.community is shutting down

#63

Post by tekne »

Drakim wrote: post #33
ColinWright wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The posts, when posted live on the host. The user can download their posts. When a host goes away, where do you propose the posts previously hosted there now get hosted? One option is for the poster's new host to have all the old posts uploaded ... how then to previous other posts that point at them, or reply to them, get updated? I'd genuinely be interested to hear your suggestions for how these technical issues cou…

How about this: Duplicates of the old posts are created on a new host using some import/export mechanic, but they also contain a cryptographic signature proving ownership of the old posts (utilizing some secret only the original poster would have access to). When a reference to a post becomes invalid because it's underlying host is gone, the other host holding those references tries to find new duplicate posts with t…

Can we please do content addressing one day?

Re: Toot.community is shutting down

#64

Post by sellmesoap »

apitman wrote: post #37

> More importantly, I don’t enjoy how people interact on social media anymore I'm really just not convinced social media is very useful. The main use I can see is very fast dispersal of information, but anything truly important will be distributed by mainstream media, and less important things will travel between small communities at a slower rate. So what are we left with exactly? I think small communities where peo…

I agree with the reputation part, but the reputation part has been a blocker to using mainstream media for me. I can think of lots of important things MSM misses or won't touch (oh and look who happens to be sponsors of this segment). Plus here we are sharing ideas on social media <3

Re: Toot.community is shutting down

#65

Post by ghusto »

0xDEAFBEAD wrote: post #53
apitman wrote: post #37

> More importantly, I don’t enjoy how people interact on social media anymore I'm really just not convinced social media is very useful. The main use I can see is very fast dispersal of information, but anything truly important will be distributed by mainstream media, and less important things will travel between small communities at a slower rate. So what are we left with exactly? I think small communities where peo…

>I think small communities where people actually have to maintain a reputation are the future, and the past. I believe early on in the internet, there was more discussion of reputation systems like you see for eBay sellers. Seems like this area hasn't advanced very much. You've got karma systems like on HN, and follow-count systems like on X or Instagram, but both of those arguably track "usage intensity" x "suscepti…

Plus, just how exams only test you on how good you are at exams, those systems only show how good you are at getting likes, votes, followers, etc. You can have a billion followers, doesn't mean anything to me other than you're good at getting followers. Which now that I think about it, says enough.

Re: Toot.community is shutting down

#66

Post by severine »

numpad0 wrote: post #32
baron3dl wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

this is why nostr beats mastodon. when the operator pitches a fit and shuts down, your community survives.

Nostr is just Mastodon or IRC with automatic multiposting. Users must selfhost data for decentralized socials to work. One big problem with running a Twitter-like social media, Twitter itself included, is that hosting UGC is just risk without rewards. Users don't pay for the bandwidth, advertisers don't like competing quality UGC(they're possibly even angry about social media that it keeps undermining their "creative…

"So, a Mastodon alternative has to be selfhosted by default, and infinitely easy to set up for selfhost."

You might be interested in Holos: "Holos turns your phone or computer into a full ActivityPub server. No big-tech hosting, no middleman reading your posts. A relay keeps your identity online 24/7 while your device stays in your pocket."

https://holos.social/

Re: Toot.community is shutting down

#67

Post by Cider9986 »

krapp wrote: post #23
nickdothutton wrote: post #21

As someone whose first “social media” was USENET of the early 90s, and I suppose FidoNet before then, I don’t really consider the bulk of mainstream Internet users today to be in any way “my people”. The herd is endlessly mindless, shallow, bought with bread, and hungry for the circus.

[flagged]

My exact experience:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49067097

Re: Toot.community is shutting down

#68

Post by jambalaya8 »

kps wrote: post #31
nickdothutton wrote: post #21

As someone whose first “social media” was USENET of the early 90s, and I suppose FidoNet before then, I don’t really consider the bulk of mainstream Internet users today to be in any way “my people”. The herd is endlessly mindless, shallow, bought with bread, and hungry for the circus.

Today is the 12021th of September 1993.

touché

Re: Toot.community is shutting down

#69

Post by chmorgan_ »

apitman wrote: post #37

> More importantly, I don’t enjoy how people interact on social media anymore I'm really just not convinced social media is very useful. The main use I can see is very fast dispersal of information, but anything truly important will be distributed by mainstream media, and less important things will travel between small communities at a slower rate. So what are we left with exactly? I think small communities where peo…

[dead]

Re: Toot.community is shutting down

#70

Post by [deleted] »

dewey wrote: post #15

> Please note that Mastodon can move your followers, but it can’t transfer your old posts or uploaded media to your new account. If you want to keep a copy, download an archive. Sadly that's still an open issue that from time to time gets new input, but doesn't have a lot of traction. I feel like that's a big blind spot of Mastodon to this day and also basically forces people to stick to the largest instances that ar…

[deleted]
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