this post was submitted on 24 Mar 2024
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I agree with most of your comment so I'll focus on details that I disagree with.
Centralisation is an issue because it enables enshittification. A centralised system is always controlled by someone; and once that someone is at odds with the users, the users need to choose between 1) ditching the system completely, or 2) sucking it up. Decentralisation gives you a third option, to ditch only the parts of the system controlled by that someone.
Decentralisation does introduce additional complexity; I think that's why Mastodon and Lemmy have such slow adoption. However I also believe that this resistance against enshittification should allow the Fediverse as a whole to retain users better.
I fully agree that governments need to regulate the issues around our data and advertisement. But it won't be enough, because corporations (and people, in general) are damn great at finding loopholes at legislation, or newer exploits.
Can I just say that this is such a freaking wonderful way to start a wholesome discussion with a grounded and calm outset for an argumentation style.
Up voted before I read any further into your comment, just because of that.
Love you, dude.
I should do this more often then! (Thank you.)
Heck yeah. I think it should work very well IRL as well. Definitely will try that.
Centralisation is something we see in other facets of our society and it fails there too. Look for instance at the grass roots movement to have a third party in the US government. The numbers aren't there even though people agree the 2 party system is broken. So you're correct that centralisation is an issue, but I think op is also correct that grass roots movements don't have any teeth in the internet space, and an equally large or larger power has to step in and in this case legislate. Not that it seems you were arguing the other point exactly. Just that I think the two points are kind of entwined together.
I agree that relying solely on grassroots is bad; larger groups of people are specially hard to coordinate towards common goals. However, as @higgsboson@dubvee.org mentioned there's more than grassroots backing Solid up. And, even for the Fediverse, it seems that Mastodon caught some positive attention of government entities, like Switzerland.
So, perhaps that's a bit of wishful thinking, but the teeth might eventually grow, even if they aren't there from the start.
Regarding your example: it's tricky for me to talk about USA's government because I'm not from USA. For me the main issue seems to be the use of winner-take-all representation perpetuating the two-parties system; if that's correct you'd need more than just a social movement to have a third party, you'd need structural changes. [Don't trust what I said here, please. From the outside, details are always lost.]
You're correct about the election system. Because we use a winner-take-all first-past-the-post (who came up with that name?) system, any vote for a third party weakens the position of whichever of the two main parties you would've otherwise voted for, and has an impossibly small chance to elect your chosen candidate, so it basically just works against your own interests.