https://social.coop/@loshmi/110594900719666868
All this conversation about #Meta on #Fedi feels like the worst parts of geek culture. So technical, without understanding context or what strikes can actually do. My thoughts: Meta will make a great app for Fedi because it has more money to throw at the task. People will start using that because it's better. It will have QTs and an algorithm. People they want to follow will be there. 🧵1/6
I finally arrive at a platform that I believe in, open source, hosted by the people, developed by the people and financed by the people. Barely a day later I learn that even this wretched gaze of Facebook looks over to us with an hungry eye.
Yet, as much as I despise them. I can only feel pity for those who join them. This is our corner of the web, they are our enemy and wish to invade and destroy us to feed their never ending greed. They are an aged paranoid king trying to kill a potential usurper right in the crib.
They do not own the web, and they can only usurp us if we let then. We are a federation, and we hold the keys to our world. We may have to grow slowly, and may even be the smaller portion of the Fediverse.
But you know what? That's okay, we don't have to be the biggest, to have the capacity for the world's masses. Our members are the geeks that founded this place, as well as the refugees that believe that power belongs in a democracy, not in an unaccountable dictatorship.
As they squeeze their audience we may soon find the last missing piece come to us, creators. They have their fears of course, ad revenue hardly exists on these lands, yet many find themselves just as or even more reliant on fan support than what their platform provides. On one hand always worrying about the ever present executioner's axe that will cut month's worth of work if they dare be mature or step out of what's acceptable for a bitter, old, lonesome soul while seeing utter filth fly unscathed to every eyeball imaginable because they are advertisers and paid for the front row seats. Nothing in life comes free, but we can help make the systems that make it easier and better for all of us.
I don't know what the future holds, but I know what I want out of this little corner of the web, and that is to exist as a person, part of a community, not a fucking walking credit card.
Absolutely.
Going deep into the academic rabbit hole (and pushing myself to contribute more) - take a look at Julie Cohen's work if you haven't. She frames a lot of this out - namely the need to actively code the conditions for human flourishing into digital architecture - and It helps her book (Configuring the Networked Self) is freely available online.
Me, a stubborn old gen x'er. : "I will leave every platform, until none are left!" Im very saddened to hear "we" have caught the hungry eye of the beast. "Can't beat em? Join em.... Then beat them..."
That's why I'm not only on kbin.social, I have a Tildes account, a Squabbles account, and other small forum accounts. I also lurk Fark, Metafilter and Hacker News. It feels like playing whack-a-mole but I'm the mole. But I figure spreading myself around will help me not have to scramble, as I did with Reddit (and Twitter, and some other forums I'm on that disappeared overnight or were infiltrated by trolls and are almost impossible to visit now).