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Top-level
I don't mean to sound elitist but... the normies need the internet monoliths and apps to make the internet usable. And that is fine, to an extent. We were using the net in the 90s (and dial up BBS!) and I agree I have never 'got on' with FB/insta/twitter/tiktok What makes me sad is that most users become entrapped by the likes of facebook, and never realise the true power. https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2021/08/facebooks-secret-war-switching-costs 3 comments
Totally agree with everything you say. It didn't need to end up this way and shouldn't have. Unfortunately, huge swathes are now in those walled gardens, and the longer it goes on, the higher and higher the switching costs become. It's likely to become more common to be baked into hardware and OS. I have no idea how it will play out though. I can't imagine the EU or FCC mandating federation or portability.  @jimothy @lisae I’m not convinced it’s too late. It feels like both Twitter and FB/Meta (the two worst offenders IMHO) are starting to crumble, both for different but similar reasons: clueless leadership. It’s happened before, that momentum takes a community away from a dominant player, but never a dominant player with such mass. That just means the motivation to move needs more force behind it. It feels like that’s beginning to happen now. One can hope anyway. |
Gregory's Server
@jimothy @lisae I’m willing to agree that many users want a slick UI and don’t want to pay for it. But that doesn’t have to require a walled garden. Gmail is that slick, free system, but I can still email gmail users from my halibut.com server.
Again, it’s about federation.