"The Fediverse is Already Dead": Thoughts on the present and future of Mastodon, ActivityPub, and federated social media in general.
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Open on weirder.earth nora, on the shoreless sea
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nora, on the shoreless sea
"The Fediverse is Already Dead": Thoughts on the present and future of Mastodon, ActivityPub, and federated social media in general.
nora, on the shoreless sea
Currently tooting from a VT420! Thanks, @jordan
nora, on the shoreless sea
Fedi server that, upon attempting to make a public ( ๐ ) post, prompts you with the old USENET text: "This program posts news to thousands of machines throughout the entire populated world. Your message will cost the network hundreds if not thousands of dollars to send everywhere. Please be sure you know what you are doing."
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c-x-b :verified: :verified:
@noracodes that is insane - what usenet clients would actually say that?
Justin du Coeur
@noracodes Brings back fond memories! But there's a non-trivial difference: Usenet posts went *everywhere* -- they were shared to every server, automatically. Fediverse posts only go to servers that contain a user following you. That difference is irrelevant for mastodon.social, but matters a lot for smaller instances. (And of course, the cost-per-bit is an eensy-weensy fraction what it was in the days when Usenet strode dominant across the Earth.) |
@noracodes This is extremely well-put. ๐
@noracodes This was a wonderful read. Thank you. I was aware of most of it, but still there were a couple of eye-openers. Having been "online" since 1996 (and I know this still makes me a young 'un in the eyes of some), it's a bit sad and exasperating to see the same things happen over and over again in different technical guises: first it was the IRC network wars (and channel wars), then the rise of e-mail spam and various blocking mechanisms (and some people's refusal to use them), then web forums, blogs, lately it is one "social network" (and I use that term very widely, with apologies for some of its negative connotations) after another... At first people don't think about the social aspects, then they're taken aback at the first problems, then some leave, some quarrel, others hastily put up filters, then some malicious actor finds a way around the filters, users leave in disgust and exasperation, and years later, an archipelago forms... sometimes much too late.
@noracodes This was a wonderful read. Thank you. I was aware of most of it, but still there were a couple of eye-openers. Having been "online" since 1996 (and I know this still makes me a young 'un in the eyes of some), it's a bit sad and exasperating to see the same things happen over and over again in different technical guises: first it was the IRC network wars (and channel wars), then the rise of e-mail spam and various blocking mechanisms (and some people's refusal to use them), then web forums,...
@noracodes very interesting post, well-articulated.
\m/