notacat

Etsy is a shell of what it once was. If there ever was a need for a decentralized coalition, it is here. I want to find and buy handmade creations. Artists want to sell handmade creations. Yet etsy makes me wade through pages and pages of the same mass produced crap that you can find on amazon and ebay, but ten times more expensive because they claim it’s “handmade” “from the U.S.” And report all you want etsy doesn’t do shit because that’s where they get their money.

There’s no summarizer bots here and this article is fascinating but long. Here’s a slightly shorter version:

##Network by Ploum on 2023-06-23

With debates around Twitter and Reddit, the Fediverse started to gain fame and attention.

Capitalists Against Competition

Instagram, WhatsApp to name a few, were bought only because their product attracted users and could cast a shadow on Facebook. But the Fediverse cannot be bought. The Fediverse is an informal group of servers discussing through a protocol . Those servers may even run different software . 

You cannot buy a decentralised network!

That’s exactly what Google did with XMPP.

As MSN was part of Microsoft, Google wanted to compete and offered

Google Talk in 2005, including it in the Gmail interface. Applications had to be installed on the computer and Gmail web interface was groundbreaking. MSN was even at some point bundled with Microsoft Windows and it was really hard to remove it. Google chat with the Gmail web interface was a way to be even closer to the customers than a built-in software in the operating system. 

While Google and Microsoft were fighting for hegemony, free software geeks were trying to build decentralised instant messaging. Which is still how ActivityPub and thus the Fediverse work. In 2006, Google talk became XMPP compatible. Google was seriously considering XMPP. 

So Google was really embracing the federation. It meant that, suddenly, every single Gmail user became an XMPP user. 

In 2013, Google realised that most XMPP interactions were between

Google Talk users anyway. They didn’t care about respecting a protocol they were not 100% in control. As expected, no Google user bated an eye. While XMPP still exist and is a very active community, it never recovered from this blow. 

Too high expectation with Google adoption led to a huge disappointment and a silent fall into oblivion. XMPP became niche. That it would be the default decentralised communication platform. What Google did to XMPP was not new. 

It was not the first: the Microsoft Playbook

« By extending these protocols and developing new protocols, we can deny OSS project’s entry into the market». Microsoft put that theory in practice with the release of Windows 2000 which offered support for the Kerberos security protocol. But that protocol was extended. This anecdote was told Glyn Moody in his book «Rebel Code» and demonstrates that killing open source and decentralised projects are really conscious objectives. 

Microsoft used a similar tactic to ensure dominance in the office market with Microsoft Office using proprietary formats . When alternatives became good enough at opening doc/xls/ppt formats, Microsoft released a new format that they called «open and standardised». The format was, on purpose, very complicated and, most importantly, wrong. Microsoft Office. 

Meta and the Fediverse

Which is exactly what is happening with Meta and the Fediverse. There are rumours that Meta would become «Fediverse compatible». I don’t know if those rumours have a grain of truth, if it is even possible for Meta to consider it. If that happens, this would mean a fragmented, frustrating two-tier fediverse with little appeal for newcomers. 

I know we all dream of having all our friends and family on the Fediverse so we can avoid proprietary networks completely. But the Fediverse is not looking for market dominance or profit. The Fediverse is not looking for growth. Fediverse are those looking for freedom. 

We should be honest and ensure people join the Fediverse because they share some of the values behind it. By competing against Meta in the brainless growth-at-all-cost ideology, we are certain to lose. Fediverse can only win by keeping its ground, by speaking about freedom, morals, ethics, values. 


Based on how well the post was written contrasted with their claimed lack of thought processes I’m going to go out on a limb and say it was half tongue in cheek. But also I agree with not answering just yes or no.

As the official Fediverse Overlord I say yes whatever that’s fine do what you want.

wait people still use lua?

The existence of people who detransition is often brought up in anti-trans circles as a criticism of gender-affirming care. However, the actual number of trans people who even just regret getting medical treatments is like 0.5%. Versus something like 14% for medical surgeries in general. And this is including trans people who regret it for social or economic reasons.

I haven’t had an android for years and all the memories came flooding back.

I’m starting to feel we should delete this whole thread and replace it with how much FMHY sucks and is the worst instance ever the admins are literal trash pandas please don’t come here. I like it small.

Why are all the answers here from FMHY? It was like 20th on the list in terms of popularity when I joined. I chose it because it had fewer restrictions - users can create their own communities and, most importantly, downvote (the chart I looked at said some didn’t have downvotes??). Also I assume pirates know how to run a server.

I’m too lazy to edit the url or type out the community name so I just search in “posts” instead of “communities” for the keyword (in this case “star trek”). This place is still small enough that the community I’m looking for is usually one of the top results.

I am so pleased with ourselves.

And this is why politicians refuse ANY privacy regulations in the U.S. If big tech and their advertisers couldn’t use every means possible to collect every scrap of info to identify and analysis you, just think how upset they’d be.