 “ActivityPub is an open technology so it’s fine if Facebook uses it” is a nonsensical take. “Houses” are also an open technology but it’s very much not ok how landlords and other capitalists use it. If you believe open standards and open source alone will protect you from the destructive force of capital, then you’re in for a harsh awakening. Or you could listen to all the people who have been harmed by or studied these mechanisms in the past already and learn something before it’s too late. 34 comments
 @esther it's the situation of "give an inch to them and they'll try to take 10".
@esther this analogy doesn’t work though. You can’t move house without tremendous difficulty. You can painlessly move #ActivityPub server instances and restore all your followed accounts, often automatically. #Mastodon even let’s you move your followers. No point fear mongering when no real consequence can be stated. (post deleted by author on the grounds that I learned some stuff and my reply was fairly if not spectacularly unaware.)  @lunch it’s honestly frustrating how much this guy got right so long ago @esther Wait, people are saying that? :blobfoxdisgust: Do they not realize that HTML, CSS, and Javascript are also open standards developed by the same exact consortium? Wtf? It's sad because that same optimism about open standards was there with HTML/CSS/Javascript when they were first introduced, and look what happened to the web since then. :drgn_sigh: @esther well the main criticism to companies like Facebook was, that its a closed system and with vendor lock-in. So its nonsensical to criticize FB when its giving up the enclosement. Also its like you dont want some companies to use streets. @kielkontrovers that isn’t the main criticism against FB at all. Here’s a long thread with examples of what harm FB has done already https://strangeobject.space/@james/110573260816922578 It’s also quite naive to believe that FB is giving up its closed nature. They also integrated RSS early on and instead of being a good citizen in then open ecosystem, they largely contributed to killing it. And yes, I do want many companies to not use streets, because I want those companies to not exist at all. @kielkontrovers @esther streets are a great example actually. Freight companies don't come close to paying for the infrastructure they use. @esther The trouble with seeing the writing on the wall is that those who don't have the pattern recognition skills some of us do tend to think us crazy for seeing these problems coming. My least favorite but most used expression in my life is "If only there was someone who could have warned us this would happen." Strangely, that upsets people, yet no matter how often I'm right, nobody ever heeds my warnings. @esther @allenstenhaus I see, thank you. So the objection is that they become mastodon.social but at a massive scale and this will stop the fediverse being weird and friendly. The issue is not that it kills the dream of a ubiquitous, federated commons. That's helpful, thank you @RobertoArchimboldi @allenstenhaus well, both really. The two are connected.  @esther *nodds in agreement* #FediPact thus is just an act of Self- and #MutualDefense... @esther So to counter this, besides block facebook instances, spread the message around and whatnot, what else can we do to prevent this for happening? @Shredd_Tone ultimately: dismantle capitalism. In the meantime, blocking their instances will have to do 😅 @esther That is an interesting analogy, not only in the context of this Meta/Facebook business. People shouldn't be without housing because of real estate gambling, but providing housing still requires upkeep that in turn requires material goods and time and skills that the average person cannot be expected to provide themself, and sometimes interaction with outside structures (say, the fire department). It's not just "paying rent = capitalist concept = evil". @esther If management of the company I rent from decided to sell out to Vonovia or something, this would surely cause problems for me. Doesn't make the workers I actually interact with (janitors, office people) evil capitalists. @esther It's the same here. If the people in important positions of development and administration decide that they'd rather sell the soul of the fediverse to Facebook, too bad. Yes, individual admins can block, yes, the software development could fork, but that still needs people both able and willing to do this. It's also not just the fediverse. Wikipedia and AO3 are both non-profit, ad-free, and both have internal drama. TV Tropes (which is ad-funded) has drama. That's just the internet. @r000t @tinker oh, what a fun "gotcha" question. Except it's not. Facebook using any of these is also bad, because a company like Facebook shouldn't exist at all. Facebook couldn't have existed without these protocols but once they got to a dominant position they used their capital and political power to do tremendous harm and push out other entities who used the same open protocols. Look into their whole "free basics" program and how that fucked up some countries' political landscape. @esther If you had to write an RFC for when an entity is no longer allowed to participate in the same protocols as the rest of us, how would you draw those lines and set those definitions? This is an RFC, there cannot be any subjectivity. I'm looking for things like user counts and dollar amounts. Things that are quantifiable. @r000t so, you're ok with anything as long as it's legal and "by the rules" then. maybe take a history class to see why this is a shitty philosophy. @esther If a company is causing serious human pain and suffering, if a company is breaking antitrust laws, if a company is is doing a colonialism or whatever, that's got literally nothing to do with open standards. It's like saying Norfolk Southern using the same rail guage as everyone else caused the palastine spill. @esther I work for a tech company who bases a solid 90% of their software on FOSS. They manage to legally repackage and sell the software apple style, by up charging massively for a proprietary OS built on the backs of the open source software. They get away with it because they don’t directly charge for the FOSS components. Corporations will always try to profit off of absolutely everything like the leeches they are. |
Gregory's Server
@esther for real. The pile of evidence that capitalist and corporate thinking fucks up society and jacks up how people relate to one another is a goddamn mountain