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Many of the comments here are picking apart pieces of subreddit drama or are discussing specific Reddit positions, but I think that's missing the forest for the

Many of the comments here are picking apart pieces of subreddit drama or are discussing specific Reddit positions, but I think that's missing the forest for the trees. The VC grow-at-all-costs model seems to be resulting in monopolistic business practices and more negative externalities than positive ones. Msatodon/GNU Social/Qvitter right now is a thriving social network run by instance owners that federate their instances. Or you can run your own instance if you want total control of everything. Secure Scuttlebutt is a growing social network run in a fully distributed (as opposed to federated) model. The cat is out of the bag, and if you're complaining about social media today I see no reason not to embrace modern social networks.

sangnoir 9y ago
> The VC grow-at-all-costs model seems to be resulting in monopolistic business practices and more negative externalities than positive ones. Bingo. The essence of it was captured by: "I think a start-up needs to think about the monetization and how it can work with the users instead of against the users." The VC-mindset monoculture doesn't help ("majority [...] are all the same archetype").
skybrian 9y ago
Some programmers see a problem and say "I know, I'll add federation". Now you have 7 problems. More seriously, I'm not seeing how federation solves any social network problem better than subreddits did? In either case, the quality of the discussion will depend on the moderators, who can be good, bad, or evil.
- Karrot_Kream 9y ago
  Federated social networks give you the ability to change allegiance or fork. Don't like a particular moderator on an instance? Leave to another instance, or start your own. Things can get problematic if other instances refuse to federate your own, but if you maintain even a bit of social capital, most instances will not block an instance with a single user. There's a growing culture (and a set of actions in the ecosystem) of letting people know when you've changed instances, because instances are becoming easier and easier to run and more and more people are trying to run their own. But if you don't want to deal with it, join one of the large already existing instances.
  - skybrian 9y ago
    But the problem with Reddit doesn't seem to be that subreddits don't have enough independence and ability to make their own choices?
    - Karrot_Kream 9y ago
      Federation makes a lot of moderation decisions easier. If an instance chooses to stop federating with another instance, it's not like the entire other instance disappears and those users now do not have a place to discuss their ideas, all that happens is that their ideas cannot spread into the Federated network they were cut off from. Likewise if an individual is banned from one Fediverse, then they can join one more hospitable to their beliefs. Probably the worst case scenario would be if an instance were to go down (or get hacked), in which case the users would have to find another instance to go to, but they could probably sign up at another instance that they were previously federated with.
      - skybrian 9y ago
        That's a good point. But this sounds a lot like user blocking tools? At one time, making sure that users could block other users on the same social network might have seemed like it might enough to prevent abuse and keep social networks out of the moderation business. Users that don't get along can just block each other. Good enough? Maybe not. You say you know the "worst case" but that might not be imaginative enough? There are apparently people nastier than that, and they're creative, and they gang up. I suspect that if federation really got going, there would be plenty of abuse. Not sure what form it would take. Chain mail? Phishing? Something new? Who is going to be in a position to fix it? How much drama will this cause?
        Karrot_Kream 9y ago
        Phishing combined with botnet attacks across multiple instances could probably pose a big problem for the network, but here's where the second facet comes in to play: instance operators are not incentivized to grow their userbase at all costs. Performing actions that might please their core userbase but may make it harder for new users to sign up, or other hurdles are something that instance operators won't shy away from, when Reddit (as evidenced in TFA) would probably tread more lightly in fear of angering users. Even in the above botnet+phishing situation, nothing is stopping instances from cutting federation off completely and then banning suspected users, a move that a growth-oriented network would think many times before instituting.
- rainbowmverse 9y ago
  Switter was back online with a new CDN within a day because it's run from and (previous CDN aside) hosted in places where sex work isn't seen as a crime. They grew to tens of thousands quickly because they could tap into the existing federation, so they didn't need a marketing budget or sales team like Twitter. People can make their own thing under their own geography-bound laws while still connecting with a global network. That's really neat.
grkvlt 9y ago
> Mastodon/GNU Social/Quitter right now is a thriving social network I'm going to have to disagree with this. Compared to Twitter, Facebook, even G+, they are miniscule. Are my friends there? How do I know which of these federated instances to check for my friends in the first place. And what about my company's CEO? Or IBM's blockchain engineering team? Or British Airways customer services? Or the actors in the TV series I like? NONE of them are there! So lets not pretend that these are going to replace social media - they will be the playthings of a handful of starry eyed geeks and FSF libertarians, nothing more.

sangnoir 9y ago

> The VC grow-at-all-costs model seems to be resulting in monopolistic business practices and more negative externalities than positive ones. Bingo. The essence of it was captured by: "I think a start-up needs to think about the monetization and how it can work with the users instead of against the users." The VC-mindset monoculture doesn't help ("majority [...] are all the same archetype").

skybrian 9y ago

Some programmers see a problem and say "I know, I'll add federation". Now you have 7 problems. More seriously, I'm not seeing how federation solves any social network problem better than subreddits did? In either case, the quality of the discussion will depend on the moderators, who can be good, bad, or evil.

Karrot_Kream 9y ago
Federated social networks give you the ability to change allegiance or fork. Don't like a particular moderator on an instance? Leave to another instance, or start your own. Things can get problematic if other instances refuse to federate your own, but if you maintain even a bit of social capital, most instances will not block an instance with a single user. There's a growing culture (and a set of actions in the ecosystem) of letting people know when you've changed instances, because instances are becoming easier and easier to run and more and more people are trying to run their own. But if you don't want to deal with it, join one of the large already existing instances.
- skybrian 9y ago
  But the problem with Reddit doesn't seem to be that subreddits don't have enough independence and ability to make their own choices?
  - Karrot_Kream 9y ago
    Federation makes a lot of moderation decisions easier. If an instance chooses to stop federating with another instance, it's not like the entire other instance disappears and those users now do not have a place to discuss their ideas, all that happens is that their ideas cannot spread into the Federated network they were cut off from. Likewise if an individual is banned from one Fediverse, then they can join one more hospitable to their beliefs. Probably the worst case scenario would be if an instance were to go down (or get hacked), in which case the users would have to find another instance to go to, but they could probably sign up at another instance that they were previously federated with.
    - skybrian 9y ago
      That's a good point. But this sounds a lot like user blocking tools? At one time, making sure that users could block other users on the same social network might have seemed like it might enough to prevent abuse and keep social networks out of the moderation business. Users that don't get along can just block each other. Good enough? Maybe not. You say you know the "worst case" but that might not be imaginative enough? There are apparently people nastier than that, and they're creative, and they gang up. I suspect that if federation really got going, there would be plenty of abuse. Not sure what form it would take. Chain mail? Phishing? Something new? Who is going to be in a position to fix it? How much drama will this cause?
      - Karrot_Kream 9y ago
        Phishing combined with botnet attacks across multiple instances could probably pose a big problem for the network, but here's where the second facet comes in to play: instance operators are not incentivized to grow their userbase at all costs. Performing actions that might please their core userbase but may make it harder for new users to sign up, or other hurdles are something that instance operators won't shy away from, when Reddit (as evidenced in TFA) would probably tread more lightly in fear of angering users. Even in the above botnet+phishing situation, nothing is stopping instances from cutting federation off completely and then banning suspected users, a move that a growth-oriented network would think many times before instituting.
rainbowmverse 9y ago
Switter was back online with a new CDN within a day because it's run from and (previous CDN aside) hosted in places where sex work isn't seen as a crime. They grew to tens of thousands quickly because they could tap into the existing federation, so they didn't need a marketing budget or sales team like Twitter. People can make their own thing under their own geography-bound laws while still connecting with a global network. That's really neat.

grkvlt 9y ago

> Mastodon/GNU Social/Quitter right now is a thriving social network I'm going to have to disagree with this. Compared to Twitter, Facebook, even G+, they are miniscule. Are my friends there? How do I know which of these federated instances to check for my friends in the first place. And what about my company's CEO? Or IBM's blockchain engineering team? Or British Airways customer services? Or the actors in the TV series I like? NONE of them are there! So lets not pretend that these are going to replace social media - they will be the playthings of a handful of starry eyed geeks and FSF libertarians, nothing more.