@anildash @noahshachtman this is great! And totally agree — I loved watching how all the protocol driven communities like mastodon and Bluesky evolved over the last year. For me the biggest change was how so many folks started to understand this as legitimate work, and how the platform/VC narratives lost their ability to drown the discourse.

@anildash @noahshachtman Well observed and said, Anil. For those of us who have been around, it sure does feel like a return to the 'net's roots. A shift from forced popularity to word of mouth cool, from faux scale for clicks to individual control for creativity.

@anildash love to see mastodon mentioned in rolling stone, we’ve truly made it

@anildash @noahshachtman my only quibble is calling Musk a “nerd”…doing a disservice to nerds everywhere.

@anildash I’m not sure I love the Xanga/LiveJournal analogy.

It’s more like AOL and CompuServe were to the open web as Twitter and Bluesky are to ActivityPub.

I don’t see Mastodon as “the choice for nerds” any more than the open web had a specific audience.

The promise of Mastodon and ActivityPub is that these different audiences and communities will be able to interact on the same terms.

@anildash That would be a massive improvement. 😁

@anildash thank you for writing this! I wrote a sort of similar thing in 2015, and have since gotten a little jaded that a big meaningful reset of power dynamics is likely to happen, because everything seems so entrenched. But your post reminded me we have to keep building the future we want ❤️

https://jonas.do/writing/2015-09-25-a-rallying-cry-for-the-weird-wild-web/

@anildash @noahshachtman

NAILED IT

@anildash Your keyboard to God's iPhone, Anil! @noahshachtman

@anildash @noahshachtman 🤞🏻

@anildash @noahshachtman

yes yes yes

@anildash I remember the 2000s Internet, when we were full of hope. Let's go round again.

@anildash @noahshachtman Anil, this is fantastic. Congrats! And thank you! 💜

@anildash @noahshachtman k I totally had a geocities page in the 90s😆
Great piece! I support a weird and people driven internet wave 🌊

@anildash It’s worth sharing my feed at the moment I saw your post.

@anildash @noahshachtman Damn, I hope so. I've been sitting here quietly being weird on the Internet for almost 30 years and I'm lonesome.

@anildash @noahshachtman Love it Anil. And I hope so too. I lol'd at "its own set of Dungeons and Dragons rules" Keep on keeping on!

@anildash @noahshachtman has to happen. Next people working out moving from one walled garden to another isn't the solution either.

@anildash @noahshachtman good piece, and I do hope you're right. But I'm not very optimistic -- I see a lot (and I do mean a LOT) of inertia from people stuck on the enshitified corporate experience.

Special appearances by @darius @stefan @netabomani and more!

@anildash I really hope you're right!!

@anildash @noahshachtman Thank you, Anil! A fantastic post – just like your talk at Oh the Humanity! 😊 It’s on all of us to make that happen! ✊✨

@anildash @noahshachtman

rollingstone.social imminent?

@anildash @noahshachtman Webrings 2024!

@anildash beautyful article full of hope 🤟@noahshachtman

@anildash @noahshachtman I hope you’re right so, so much

@anildash nice one dude

@anildash @noahshachtman Amen.

@anildash Loved your piece! I have missed the weird and human internet.

@anildash @noahshachtman @mammoth Congrats! It’s awesome. Hope to see more and ABSOLUTELY hope to see the weird, human internet come back. I like the term “the rewilding of the internet” — has a nice ring to it.

@anildash @noahshachtman SFPC lost me at critical theory. So 20th-century. There is nothing cutting edge, weird, independent, nor creative about critical theory. It’s about conformity of language and thought and the ruthless murder of art. It’s an abyss where artists go to die - not be reborn.

@anildash @noahshachtman One can hope! 🤞

@noahshachtman @mattdm Really excellent and wonderfully written article, @anildash

@anildash @noahshachtman I really enjoyed everything about this article