 If email was invented now, it'd be something like: WeMail™ by Meta and be totally walled. You're either on it or not and if you're not, no email addy for you! You just have zero email service. IRL, people understand that you can have email provided by Gmail or Microsoft or Apple. Many servers! That doesn't hurt their brains. The fact that so many think Mast is "complicated" is not because they're stupid but because walled-gardens have ruled for the last 15+ years. Time to change that. 39 comments
Yes! And then the *magic* of hashtags is revealed - even if you're on Gmail, you can see convos on Yahoo that are talking about the same thing! I mean, c'mon, that's a killer feature, surely? @vampiress @Jyoti I do exactly the same because people *understand* that kind of federation so expanding it beyond that becomes easy I feel we're sooo close to a real alternative, I haven't felt this excited about the net since #Usenet in '94. I really hope we don't fuck this up. And we're aware of much capitalism actively wants to destroy non-profit organisations. Every click in the Fediverse is one less click for them to monetise / track.  @Jyoti 💯 Absolutely! That's the only way that I've gotten through to them. If you stick 1 more @ in front of an email address it's the EXACT same thing. I'm afraid I have to agree with you. Fair dos if someone isn't tech savvy - that's just people, we're all different. For example, I know fuck-all about sport and care even less. BUT I think sometimes TECHY PEOPLE trot out 'this is too hard' because they are too used to being babied by the existing walled gardens. They won't even give it a go! It's frustrating. @Jyoti 100 yup, if someone's not tech savvy then yes I get it, it's more hoops to jump through than you might be used to (and figuring out "where to be" is a case of decision overload for a lot of people then!). If part of your JOB is making apps, or building server software, working with cloud services, etc etc... This stuff isn't hard, you've probably got the skills to set up your own instance for crying out loud! The techy people - bah! I have little sympathy. But I *do* want to get more non-techy people on here! Would it make a difference if we did a #Marain to it? If we said, "What Mastodon have you got?" or "Which Mastodon are you on?" to highlight that there are different flavours of the same basic thing? Because saying "Get on Mastodon" does not work for non-tech people. It confuses more than it encourages.  @Jyoti I've used the "well how much care did you use in choosing your email server" with pretty good results in talking to people about choosing a mastodon server, because most of the time they don't even remember how they chose it, as it in theory doesn't matter. This is sadly fitting for me as I've been on Gmail since 2005 and now I want to make sure all that history of mine isn't held hostage by Google. @Jyoti Same, and now I'm the proud owner of a proton email account, specifically because of reading about google handing over gchat logs about people's health care to law enforcement. @Jyoti It appears to still be possible to minimize how much info we leak... Haha, tbh, I am quite relaxed about personal stuff since I'm a songwriter and musician: my job is basically revealing my private life to total strangers. That being said, I don't want insurance companies to scan my DNA or anyone to know about my immediate friends or family. @Jyoti Having recently had a stalker problem, I'm definitely on the pretty tense side of this issue, but I grant that for inherently public figures the calculus is bound to be different. BTW I just read a bit, and, I sure like your music. Thank you for making the world a better place. Awhh, thank you! That's very sweet of you to say! If I'd had the maths, I would have been a physicist or a coder or both. But music is my thing. I've known that since I was 12. It's the same thing for me that religion is for the zealot. Very sorry to hear about your stalker. Been through that too and had the counselling which helped, a little. :/ @Jyoti proton.me -- so far they've been okay. (You might want to read up on them a bit, though: I think it's probably a good idea to have the place that handles your email in another country than you're in, but tbh I'm just some dude, not an actual expert in this.) @Jyoti This smacks of culture jamming, and I really like it. (What does happen if you ask AI 1 to criticize AI 2? Is this the modern version of Captain Kirk's logic bomb: defuse the AI threat by getting them all mad at each other?) I'm hoping, post-Singularity, to be the equivalent of a pet cat for some whimsical AI: I shall be an absolute arsehole but also adorable and deserving of head pats and the odd sardine. I already have the 4am zoomies...  @Jyoti @smellsofbikes If there is an AI singularity, the best we can hope for is that the AIs decide to treat us like pet cats.  @Jyoti Well, good luck trying to reliably send emails to recipients who use some email service from Microsoft. Randomly not getting emails delivered, nor being marked/declined as spam and nothing in logs, thats something to be expected with Microsoft's email services.  @Jyoti i regret to inform you that people don't acutally get that. they think gmail is the default and everyone else is weird
 @Jyoti yes, also we need to force people to learn tech and actual #TechLiteracy because they got groomed by the #GAFAMs into being #TechIlliterate Consoomers! And that is bad... @Jyoti and yes, I mean "force" because 20+ years of kiving and learning tech on my own has shown me how purposefully ignorant and lazy TechIlliterates are if given time and space to make up excuses. Sorry, you've lost me on the 'force,' that's not how I believe education, at any age, should work. I also do not share the contempt you seem to feel for people who aren't techy. You sound very angry? Calling average people "ignorant" and "lazy" - what the actual fuck?? All humans have varying degrees of capability in different areas, all humans are worthy. I should not have to state that. Just because someone doesn't know Python doesn't make them a lesser human being.  @Jyoti there was a point where that was true as well. I remember Prodigy, CompuServe, and AOL all having a messaging service that was internal until SMTP mail came to the masses. |
Gregory's Server
@Jyoti I -always- use Email as an example when people act confused about federated social networking.