Why YSK: If we want to keep the Fediverse in the hands of its users and prevent “enshittification” (search it), it’s good to know how corporations kill grassroots projects like this.
I saw this in another thread on /c/Showerthoughts. I think it’s important for this to be circulated widely so that the broader Fediverse community is aligned. We don’t want admins second-guessing their decisions when users start infighting. We should be united in our thinking and ready to protect our platform.
Great read!
I remember me using software called trillian that supported logins to all chat networks, so I could use ICQ, Google, MSN and AOL all at the same time
Oh man, I remember Trillian, too. That was great. Must have been a nightmare to build, though
It was “just” a bunch of clients in one though, AFAIK it couldn’t connect people from different protocols.
Pidgin still exists; I used it probably 20 years back on Linux.Ahh, I recall using Pidgin, too. I think i ended up favoring it over Trillian. I already had accounts on all the services, so it worked out. I guess thinking about it, if only basic chat was supported, it may not have been terrible supporting everything
I also remember when XMPP wa still the cool kid on the block. Gtalk and other chat networks supported it and allowed federation. I tan my own XMPP server and could talk to users on other servers and even networks. But then Google cut the federation and eventually all external access.
It could have been the next email, but big corporations were already in the chat space and they all walked in their user base.
I’m fairly certain that if email (SMTP) hadn’t been the dominant protocol, we would have walled gardens there as well.
the internet without the existance of email as a de-facto proof of identity and account recovery protocol would certainly be interesting.
almost every single site these days requires you to have an email to sign up. it would be interesting to know what system we would have used instead if email wasn’t an option.
Well that was disheartening to read. Money and greed ruining everything.
Remember that Reddit also started off small, then grew, then got bought, then turned into shit (*). However, I think that Lemmy has a greater chance of surviving as long as people keep everything truly decentralized. We shouldn’t all flock to “lemmy.world” or any other one Lemmy instance. Because if we do, that specific Lemmy instance will also be sold (along with the userbase) and turned into a corporate money-making machine.
(*) Some would argue that Reddit has always been shit, but that’s besides the point…
Okay, but realistically, how can we prevent this from happening in the future?
We’ve already, according to the article, dodged one bullet; but there’s no reason to expect that it’ll be the only one.
Also, due to the nature of the Fediverse being open source, there’s no way to prevent Facebook or other corporate monstrosities from building their own hooks.
I think we need to be prepared to preemptively defederate from the likes of Google, Reddit, Facebook or whatever. Not just this instance, but the greater Fediverse should have a United policy to reject association with those who would consume us and spit us out.
Agreed. We need to treat this like OUR platform. It’s not the admins’ platform. It’s not the devs’ platform. It’s OUR platform. We create (or at least link) the content. I think that if we maintain this mindset, people will reject corporate attempts to inject themselves into our platform.
Edit: Not to say we shouldn’t appreciate devs and admins. See the thread continued
