 I'm confused when devs claim that you can't experiment with software on the fediverse. I have spent the last 5 years of my life building experimental software on the fediverse, and people have been very supportive! There is a MASSIVE design space for weird ideas that are not just dressed-up surveillance capitalism, but so many devs come here saying "I will try out some dressed-up surveillance capitalism" and then act like their genius design thinking is being stymied when people say "fuck off" 49 comments
Wikipedia would be a great example! No VC wants that, yet it is a great global resource. Let's build a Mastodon like Wikipedia, not a proprietary one like Twitter! Well, your use of Surveillance Capitalism says something. If some folks don't like a new tool or feature, they label it as Surveillance Capitalism and shame the developers rather than engaging in any kind of constructive dialogue. It's one thing to say that a community is welcoming to developers. It's another thing to say that we're welcoming to developers, but only if they restrict themselves to ideas and features approved by a small self appointed group of gate keepers. @stpaultim From what I have seen, people label something surveillance capitalism when some they don't like a new feature because it is collecting data about them with an eye toward some kind of retention or growth or profit. Virtually anything on the internet can be categorized that way, if one chooses. It's a subjective criteria, which some people are very quick to make a judgement on, without necessarily even looking closely at the actual features or intend of the product. Yes, some features are much more problematic than others. @stpaultim When I made a social network server where the only letter you can use is "E", it was not categorized that way. There are many, many ideas that do not exist even remotely close to surveillance. @darius @stpaultim No, that was not amongst its faults; it simply brought out a vocabulary which no right-thinking soul could stand. Such vulgarity! ;-) @stpaultim @darius after seeing your site, i could not get the dolphin song from the movie Bedazzled (Hurley/Fraser version) out of my head. Thank you for not capturing my ecstatic rapture in your app for some sick surveillance capitalism monetization scheme.   I'm glad searchtodon died on its arse. Maybe there should be a little test for Mastodon developers? "Would you like a cup of tea? Explain your answer. How about now? Explain your answer. Now? How about now? You had a cup of tea in the past. Why don't you want one now? What is the above in reference to and how does your design conform to that things principles?" That should weed out 95% and the remaining 5% may have some gold amidst the grift.   @darius what? I have like four fediverse software experiments going at the moment, it is SO MUCH EASIER than working with traditional social networks! (two small ones are on my page, then I've got a couple different shell script powered bots on this instance, and two more projects in early stages)  @darius Man, it’s taking a while to sink in for everyone (me included) that just because a person is uniquely capable and motivated to do something, they ought to be doing that thing.  @darius @lmorchard It so often feels like a lack of understanding about the community here. It’s hard for people to understand how this social network is inherently different than what we have had before.  @darius I was tooting along these lines just yesterday! https://tenforward.social/@eli_oat/109739374258500795 @darius@friend.camp BRO. Theirs is SO MUCH OPPORTUNITY to try and experiment with new shit!  @darius it’s wild how many people thing social software is only the category of “social media” these big extractive orgs have made it into @darius One, I think a lot of devs are still very embedded in the mindset that surveillance capitalism tends to encourage, and it's going to take time to unlearn that (and some probably never will). Two, I think there is also a degree of people not being able to filter out the useful feedback from the useless noise.  @darius yeah, unfortunately for them weird ideas aren't taught in [ new hot tech ] bootcamps. They're innate. For anyone else reading this who went: "Nice -- where is this experimental software @darius has been building?" One big one is Hometown, a wonderful and thoughtful Mastodon fork, but the others are listed here: http://tinysubversions.com/projects/ @JavierKolstad haha thank you. One of my big projects is to revamp my website to be more fediverse-oriented since that is much more indicative of my focus these last few years @piratero starting out developing weird ideas, you mean? Entirely depends on your biographical background, I think  Great post. Example of this would be instructive: ""I will try out some dressed-up surveillance capitalism" @darius Great point. I think the problem is "dressed-up surveillance capitalism" is so much of what the tech industry is doing these days! Folks have a hard time imagining other motivations or ways of building products.  @darius take no issue with your general point, but wondering if there are cohort of developers that have so internalized the mechanics of surveillance capitalism w.r.t what software is for that they can’t really get out of that box. That seems like a real problem for our shared futures. @darius it reminds me of @marick podcast episodes about experimental and theoretical physicists https://podcast.oddly-influenced.dev/episodes/galison-s-image-and-logic-part-1-the-stickiness-of-experimental-tradition and https://podcast.oddly-influenced.dev/episodes/lakatos-on-what-persuades-scientists-to-risk-their-careers One side is making an argument about ideology and the other is probably arguing from within a paradigm.  @darius @randomgeek i mean, there’s a dolphin themed instance where the only letter you can use is “e” [notices who i’m replying to] ah, that was you @darius surveillance capitalism is fairly specific form of commercialism. The question is whether the fediverse can be free of commercial motive of any kind. I believe the answer depends on scale. As a niche project between tech savvy individuals spending hobby time it could be a profit-motive free zone. But as a replacement for mass social I struggle to see how that could be. Even if entirely funded as public good there will be friction around procurements. Life is not simple. @college_physics I do not think we need a replacement for mass social media. We need something weirder and different and definitely, definitely not simple on any conceptual level @darius its never been easier to build weird and interesting stuff with tech, but so far at least nothing has touched large numbers of people. The broader open source movement is still essentially unknown to the multitudes. This keeps lots of things unresolved because the potential issues remain dormant. @darius I wrote a big (for me) and award winning (in the library world) WordPress plugin back a few years ago and our library switched to a new system that's paid for by our consortium, so I'm not developing it at work anymore. I asked and they're fine with me having the code now. It's a room booking and event calendar for libraries (and anyone else) who can't afford the big names. Free as in beer. I need to overhaul it. Wonder if it's worth dusting off for the fediverse... @darius Sounds like as if some devs entered the WordPress ecosystem for the first time and said the same thing. It's really exciting to see all of the new things being cooked up around the fediverse. |
Gregory's Server
Yes, surveillance capitalism gives us some material things that are useful.
There are also about a billion things we have never even tried out because rich people believe there's no money in it! Maybe some of those things will also be useful and we should try those instead. Just sayin!!!!