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Internet Rando

@codinghorror @jwz

This is great news, so do you happen to know the answer to what *does work*? because I think we collectively need to know, and so far all I hear is what doesn't work.

Scolding doesn't work for me either.. Living by example works great for me, but doesn't enable discouraging my mom/dad/kids/pastor/neighbors/workplaceproximityacquiantence/friends/family from making the stupid choices for the big billionairistas...

So what works?

6 February at 21:28 | Wall-to-wall | Open on mastodon.seattlematrix.org
15 comments
Jeff Atwood

@mousey @jwz building alternatives and making them extremely popular with users. Basically the TikTok strategery.

6 February at 22:46 | Open on infosec.exchange
Internet Rando

@codinghorror @jwz

sounds great, except the #fediverse is a wide, sparse, network of community instances.. Hardly the marketing behemoth of a Centralized Corporation™, so "popular with users" is now exceedingly difficult, largely impeded by (basically) our individual Dunbar numbers..

TikTok was already a gargantuan corporation with a limitless marketing campaign when it started.. So... What... We Open Source ad buys for the superbowl pimping ActivityPub?

How do community gardens get famous?

6 February at 22:55 | Open on mastodon.seattlematrix.org
Jeff Atwood

@mousey @jwz I never promised either of you a rose garden

6 February at 22:57 | Open on infosec.exchange
TAL
Internet Rando

@codinghorror @jwz

That's cool man. I appreciate the discourse. My point is just yeah.. I'm gonna keep scolding people til they're shamed into submission, and ditch their corporate overlords for the sweet sweet life of doing all the hard work of being responsible for their own data..

easy peasy! :D

6 February at 23:01 | Open on mastodon.seattlematrix.org
Davey

@codinghorror @mousey @jwz
personally, I think the fact that so many people want to act, and be treated like customers when it comes to this stuff is significant.

There's no point running around after these people cus first, they'll suck up all your time with demands, and second, they'll trot off to the first VC-backed alternative when it comes along. How much oxygen was sucked out of the room in late '22 by people who were angry it wasn't Twitter, and where are they now?

7 February at 0:15 | Open on mastodon.ie
Davey

@codinghorror @mousey @jwz
Ultimately, if people want service, they should go somewhere where they will be served.

If they want to participate in something, they will.

7 February at 0:19 | Open on mastodon.ie
Jeff Atwood

@davey_cakes @mousey @jwz yeah, turns out hard problems are hard. But if you're good at what you do, then you view that as a noble challenge, not as an impossibility.

7 February at 0:34 | Open on infosec.exchange
volkris

@mousey are you asking what works for social media or for health policy?

They are very different problems.

@codinghorror @jwz

6 February at 23:09 | Open on qoto.org
Internet Rando

@volkris @codinghorror @jwz

Oh, i was just wondering what works to spread the use of Technologies-That-Don't-Exploit-Users..

I mean, even health policy.. If it ends in "policy", it doesn't have a marketing department.

Marketing works, but I don't see a lot of Kickstarters/GoFundMes for Advertising/Marketing of Open Source alternatives to corporately marketed data plantations (where you're the cotton).

I've been told scolding doesn't work either. True, but it's cathartic.

So, what works?

6 February at 23:24 | Open on mastodon.seattlematrix.org
volkris

@mousey The reason I ask is because the two contexts have very different elements around them, very different incentives.

Most importantly, a social media platform requires critical mass. If you are the only person on a social media platform then it’s worthless.

But medical decisions are very different. Individuals can benefit from making different choices, so very different approaches to selling it to them.

Yes, you might reply, vaccinations and such do have communal impacts and I recognize that 🙂 but still, it’s easier to sell a person on getting a vaccination when they themselves will derive a benefit directly from having it regardless of the communal dimension of it.

There are other differences as well, but this is just one to illustrate the difference between the two contexts.

@codinghorror @jwz

@mousey The reason I ask is because the two contexts have very different elements around them, very different incentives.

Most importantly, a social media platform requires critical mass. If you are the only person on a social media platform then it’s worthless.

But medical decisions are very different. Individuals can benefit from making different choices, so very different approaches to selling it to them.

6 February at 23:28 | Open on qoto.org
Internet Rando

@volkris @codinghorror @jwz

Makes sense. The OP was asking about a social media site, so that's what I was addressing.

I imagine policy outreach *is* different? It might even work to make "democratizing social media" a political platform? That feeds into my "Software is not economic, software is political" philosophy.

As it stands however, people only think "software" and see "billionaires"... Software is stuck in the "market" and not in "community", so value is orthogonal to function.

6 February at 23:36 | Open on mastodon.seattlematrix.org
volkris

@mousey so yeah, when it comes to social media my emphatic take is that it is entirely irrational, entirely chaotic, and all anybody can do is at most nudge it one direction or another, and most of the time that won’t be successful.

It really comes down to chance. Any platform can roll the dice to see if they manage to get the sustainable ignition, the critical mass at just the right time to keep users engaging with each other and coming back.

You can load the dice, but there’s no way to channel the users the way they need to be channeled into a platform.

My favorite example of this is how Facebook really sucks. It is never been anything approaching cutting edge or even interesting, and everything I’ve ever heard about Facebook management presenting at conferences echoes that they really don’t have anything new to offer.

They were just in the right place at the right time to succeed over other projects that were just as good or better.

So that’s my take on social media development. It’s almost entirely chance. It is chaos by the academic definition of chaos.

@codinghorror @jwz

@mousey so yeah, when it comes to social media my emphatic take is that it is entirely irrational, entirely chaotic, and all anybody can do is at most nudge it one direction or another, and most of the time that won’t be successful.

It really comes down to chance. Any platform can roll the dice to see if they manage to get the sustainable ignition, the critical mass at just the right time to keep users engaging with each other and coming back.

6 February at 23:41 | Open on qoto.org
Internet Rando

@volkris

Hm, assuming you're saying you think there's too much data to be useful, in that chaos, the companies which own these platforms, and the data people feed them, actually DO shape opinion and culture on a mass scale, been automated a while.
npr.org/2024/01/17/1224955473/

OTOH,
If you're saying it's chaos and any individual platform has to sail crazy headwinds, to find unlikely success, fine sure. But you're saying it on a big network of instances with millions of users.

@codinghorror @jwz

@volkris

Hm, assuming you're saying you think there's too much data to be useful, in that chaos, the companies which own these platforms, and the data people feed them, actually DO shape opinion and culture on a mass scale, been automated a while.
npr.org/2024/01/17/1224955473/

6 February at 23:47 | Open on mastodon.seattlematrix.org
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