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Say Twitter gets acquired and subsequently completely fucked up (not that the latter necessarily follows from the former), and there's now a market void. What'

Say Twitter gets acquired and subsequently completely fucked up (not that the latter necessarily follows from the former), and there's now a market void. What're the odds the "winner" of the ensuing fight is the decentralized FOSS platform — that has very real tangible benefits, but ones that are hard to explain to an average user — over the shiny new VC-funded Twitter clone that can throw hundreds of thousands of dollars at user acquisition?

toomuchtodo 10y ago
I have no idea how to fight the never ending torrent of VC money funding clone after clone after clone.
- zanny 10y ago
  Time. It is only "worth it" for the one VC that wins the winner take all rat race. There can only be so much stupid money in the world before only the smart people are left with any.
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
mxuribe 10y ago
I'm sure a similar question was asked by/of VCs back in the day for ads-supported webmail platforms - a la hotmail, gmail, yahoo mail, etc. I'm sure VCs at the time asked why should these platforms be built if email is an open standard, and if everyone has their own desktop email client. And yet, so many users have prospered by some users using these "free" webmail platforms and others using the conventional desktop email clients. Email is decentralized and for all its warts has allowed collaboration between users of different silos. If/when social platforms begin to use more universal/interchangable/inter-communicational standards, the various silos can still compete - including private/self-hosted, community-hosted, for-profit silos, etc. - though the competition won't be on limiting communication, but rather can this silo/site provide better uptime/availability, or can that silo/site develop better mobile/desktop/web clients, or can a silo/site offer better discoverability, or even (for the for-profit silos) can this silo/site offer more relevant ads, etc.
- lazerwalker 10y ago
  Email's coming from the opposite direction, though — commercial platforms emerging out of an open standard. This is trying to make the jump from a centralized model to a decentralized one. While I definitely believe that would be a fantastic thing for the world if it happened, I'm curious about what the practical path is to get people to actually use decentralized services, when individual platforms don't yet have any incentive to bring down their garden walls.

toomuchtodo 10y ago

I have no idea how to fight the never ending torrent of VC money funding clone after clone after clone.

zanny 10y ago
Time. It is only "worth it" for the one VC that wins the winner take all rat race. There can only be so much stupid money in the world before only the smart people are left with any.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]

mxuribe 10y ago

I'm sure a similar question was asked by/of VCs back in the day for ads-supported webmail platforms - a la hotmail, gmail, yahoo mail, etc. I'm sure VCs at the time asked why should these platforms be built if email is an open standard, and if everyone has their own desktop email client. And yet, so many users have prospered by some users using these "free" webmail platforms and others using the conventional desktop email clients. Email is decentralized and for all its warts has allowed collaboration between users of different silos. If/when social platforms begin to use more universal/interchangable/inter-communicational standards, the various silos can still compete - including private/self-hosted, community-hosted, for-profit silos, etc. - though the competition won't be on limiting communication, but rather can this silo/site provide better uptime/availability, or can that silo/site develop better mobile/desktop/web clients, or can a silo/site offer better discoverability, or even (for the for-profit silos) can this silo/site offer more relevant ads, etc.

lazerwalker 10y ago
Email's coming from the opposite direction, though — commercial platforms emerging out of an open standard. This is trying to make the jump from a centralized model to a decentralized one. While I definitely believe that would be a fantastic thing for the world if it happened, I'm curious about what the practical path is to get people to actually use decentralized services, when individual platforms don't yet have any incentive to bring down their garden walls.