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This is a good idea – but impossible. Google and Facebook have tenthousands of developers. And not just any devs, some of the best in the industry. Google and

This is a good idea – but impossible. Google and Facebook have tenthousands of developers. And not just any devs, some of the best in the industry. Google and Facebook have tons of userdata for training ML models. How do you compete with that? The only way your projects would ever be able to outcompete Google and Facebook on technology is if you’d somehow get a ton of engineers willing to work for a good cause. But that doesn’t happen. There’s not enough engineers that would volunteer their time for this. In fact, most engineers either don’t care at all about this stuff, or they drank the kool aid and believe Google and Facebook are doing good. As long as there’s so many developers that want to work at Facebook, as long as Google has more resources than you, you won’t be able to outcompete them on technology.

Pxtl 9y ago
What blows my mind is how much money Facebook gets from ads. I've never clicked a Facebook ad except by accident. And yet they get paid more for my presence than I'd ever be willing to pay for a social network. That's the real rub for me. I mean, we imagine the ideal "decentrialized but user-friendly web". Like, there's an online open architecture of servers where you have a cryptographically-controlled "account" for your family and you can easily buy plug-ins to add features to this account. Like an app store but for webapps all linked to your private migrateable data store. And you can sync that data down to some kind of ubiquitous home box appliance as a local back-up/cache, or move it over to another host because it's an open architecture. Presumably, if you wanted to enroll your family into a social network that's not based on selling you, you'd have to pay for it. So how much is a social network worth? I sure wouldn't pay $50/year for that program for my family.
- DrPhish 9y ago
  That's potentially the loophole that could work: The end user gets paid the ad money, and has direct access to the datastore that the advertisers are using in order to edit out bad or undesirable data.
pmlnr 9y ago
Devs are not the problem, especially not the amount of them. Google has so many devs, sure, maybe that's why we now have 7 messaging app from them... The tools for the open web are present, just check https//indieweb.org Comformist, lazy people, our own friends, are the problem. I'd love to see how to make them care.
- groby_b 9y ago
  I'd start by not calling your own friends "conformist" and "lazy". And instead, try to understand where they come from. We won't solve problems by shouting at each other.
  - pmlnr 9y ago
    I lost contact with many people because none of them respected me constantly asking to keep in touch outside of facebook - email, for example. I don't have lighter words, even if I consider them friends. Moving on from grammar and culture (in my read, I wasn't offensive, merely stated a fact), what actual solutions, proposals, ideas, can you contribute?
    - groby_b 9y ago
      Culture is the issue. The long standing Internet tradition of "I didn't intend to be offensive, so it's fine that I was, and I should continue to be" is at the root of the entire problem. Most people don't care for that kind of environment. And so we splinter, and wall off. We're using technological restrictions as a substitute for cultural norms. And so, my original statement still stands - if you want to change the situations, change what your norms are, and influence global norms that way.
      - pmlnr 9y ago
        So... how and what do you propose to reach people who keep using walled gardens, despite what's known about them, and that they even have people trying to get them to used something else?
    - 9y ago
bitwize 9y ago
A free OS for PCs is a good idea -- but impossible. Microsoft and Apple have tenthousands of developers. And not just any devs, some of the best in the industry. Microsoft and Apple have research labs where they can subject their OS to hundreds of thousands of user-hours of testing for usability, scalability, and robustness. How do you compete with that?
- butterfi 9y ago
  Linux?
  - lwhsiao 9y ago
    I believe the parent was intentionally mirroring the grandparent comment to make the argument that Linux is a good counterexample.
    - bitwize 9y ago
      Not only that, but I was almost directly quoting the arguments that were routinely used against Linux back in the 90s.
  - DirtyDan 9y ago
    I believe he was being sarcastic
- kuschku 9y ago
  With tenthousands of corporate developers from RedHat, Google, IBM? Do you seriously think Torvalds, Stallmann and a few dozen enthusiasts could maintain all of the Linux ecosystem?
  - bitwize 9y ago
    Red Hat and Google got into their advantageous positions by building their businesses on top of Linux in the first place, back when people were saying it would never compete with Microsoft or big-iron Unix.
barkingtoad 9y ago
This same argument has been made countless times. "Linux has no chance in the corporate world. HP has thousands of paid devs working on HP-UX." It turned out there were a greater number of devs NOT at HP... and today, there are more devs NOT at Facebook.
- kuschku 9y ago
  But Linux only worked because there's many companies contributing to it. So which company would have the resources and reasons for contributing to an entirely open social network, with no way to monetize it?
  - TuringTest 9y ago
    > But Linux only worked because there's many companies contributing to it. Who says this won't happen as well to an open collaboration platform? Who says companies wouldn't benefit from it, or that they need to monetize it directly? Companies contributed to Linux because they got benefits by participating in the operating system. Open source works like that; adding to a common resource is beneficial for oneself and the community at the same time. Similarly, an open platform like matrix.org can provide huge benefits for internal communication in a company; and making public the tweaks that you create internally is a great way to influence the direction of the software, as well as making it easier to integrate the improvements made by others. This is how Linux grew to what it is today, after all.
    - kuschku 9y ago
      Of course it could happen. But we've had open source alternatives for many of these things for many years, and no company has gone to support any of them. There's no company backing mastodon, and very little support for similar tools. Of course it could happen. But it's not happening.
      - TuringTest 9y ago
        Right, but my point is that the reason for not happening is not a lack of monetization strategies, but one of critical mass. If a free software collaboration platform gains traction in the enterprise, it could be pushed as a safe alternative in the next data scandal, and maybe enough people could switch to it to become a viable public resource like Linux and Apache have been since the turn of the century. It's a plausible scenario, even if it's not guaranteed to happen soon.
sigstoat 9y ago
> Google and Facebook have tenthousands of developers. And not just any devs, some of the best in the industry. Google and Facebook have tons of userdata for training ML models. and many of them are bent towards developing internal garbage, or services that you just don't need if you're not hoping to create huge monoliths. or, as others have pointed out, making the same service over and over. > How do you compete with that? having different goals reduces the extent to which you're competing, and different goals leads to different (possibly easier to satisfy) constraints.
s73v3r_ 9y ago
Most people don't worry about ML models or anything like that. They just want something that works, and works well. And, at least in the case of FB, something that their friends/relatives are also available on. You don't need open source devs working on the technical side; you need open source work done on the interface side. You need things that non-technically inclined people can pick up and use.

Pxtl 9y ago

What blows my mind is how much money Facebook gets from ads. I've never clicked a Facebook ad except by accident. And yet they get paid more for my presence than I'd ever be willing to pay for a social network. That's the real rub for me. I mean, we imagine the ideal "decentrialized but user-friendly web". Like, there's an online open architecture of servers where you have a cryptographically-controlled "account" for your family and you can easily buy plug-ins to add features to this account. Like an app store but for webapps all linked to your private migrateable data store. And you can sync that data down to some kind of ubiquitous home box appliance as a local back-up/cache, or move it over to another host because it's an open architecture. Presumably, if you wanted to enroll your family into a social network that's not based on selling you, you'd have to pay for it. So how much is a social network worth? I sure wouldn't pay $50/year for that program for my family.

DrPhish 9y ago
That's potentially the loophole that could work: The end user gets paid the ad money, and has direct access to the datastore that the advertisers are using in order to edit out bad or undesirable data.

pmlnr 9y ago

Devs are not the problem, especially not the amount of them. Google has so many devs, sure, maybe that's why we now have 7 messaging app from them... The tools for the open web are present, just check https//indieweb.org Comformist, lazy people, our own friends, are the problem. I'd love to see how to make them care.

groby_b 9y ago
I'd start by not calling your own friends "conformist" and "lazy". And instead, try to understand where they come from. We won't solve problems by shouting at each other.
- pmlnr 9y ago
  I lost contact with many people because none of them respected me constantly asking to keep in touch outside of facebook - email, for example. I don't have lighter words, even if I consider them friends. Moving on from grammar and culture (in my read, I wasn't offensive, merely stated a fact), what actual solutions, proposals, ideas, can you contribute?
  - groby_b 9y ago
    Culture is the issue. The long standing Internet tradition of "I didn't intend to be offensive, so it's fine that I was, and I should continue to be" is at the root of the entire problem. Most people don't care for that kind of environment. And so we splinter, and wall off. We're using technological restrictions as a substitute for cultural norms. And so, my original statement still stands - if you want to change the situations, change what your norms are, and influence global norms that way.
    - pmlnr 9y ago
      So... how and what do you propose to reach people who keep using walled gardens, despite what's known about them, and that they even have people trying to get them to used something else?
  - 9y ago

bitwize 9y ago

A free OS for PCs is a good idea -- but impossible. Microsoft and Apple have tenthousands of developers. And not just any devs, some of the best in the industry. Microsoft and Apple have research labs where they can subject their OS to hundreds of thousands of user-hours of testing for usability, scalability, and robustness. How do you compete with that?

butterfi 9y ago
Linux?
- lwhsiao 9y ago
  I believe the parent was intentionally mirroring the grandparent comment to make the argument that Linux is a good counterexample.
  - bitwize 9y ago
    Not only that, but I was almost directly quoting the arguments that were routinely used against Linux back in the 90s.
- DirtyDan 9y ago
  I believe he was being sarcastic
kuschku 9y ago
With tenthousands of corporate developers from RedHat, Google, IBM? Do you seriously think Torvalds, Stallmann and a few dozen enthusiasts could maintain all of the Linux ecosystem?
- bitwize 9y ago
  Red Hat and Google got into their advantageous positions by building their businesses on top of Linux in the first place, back when people were saying it would never compete with Microsoft or big-iron Unix.

barkingtoad 9y ago

This same argument has been made countless times. "Linux has no chance in the corporate world. HP has thousands of paid devs working on HP-UX." It turned out there were a greater number of devs NOT at HP... and today, there are more devs NOT at Facebook.

kuschku 9y ago
But Linux only worked because there's many companies contributing to it. So which company would have the resources and reasons for contributing to an entirely open social network, with no way to monetize it?
- TuringTest 9y ago
  > But Linux only worked because there's many companies contributing to it. Who says this won't happen as well to an open collaboration platform? Who says companies wouldn't benefit from it, or that they need to monetize it directly? Companies contributed to Linux because they got benefits by participating in the operating system. Open source works like that; adding to a common resource is beneficial for oneself and the community at the same time. Similarly, an open platform like matrix.org can provide huge benefits for internal communication in a company; and making public the tweaks that you create internally is a great way to influence the direction of the software, as well as making it easier to integrate the improvements made by others. This is how Linux grew to what it is today, after all.
  - kuschku 9y ago
    Of course it could happen. But we've had open source alternatives for many of these things for many years, and no company has gone to support any of them. There's no company backing mastodon, and very little support for similar tools. Of course it could happen. But it's not happening.
    - TuringTest 9y ago
      Right, but my point is that the reason for not happening is not a lack of monetization strategies, but one of critical mass. If a free software collaboration platform gains traction in the enterprise, it could be pushed as a safe alternative in the next data scandal, and maybe enough people could switch to it to become a viable public resource like Linux and Apache have been since the turn of the century. It's a plausible scenario, even if it's not guaranteed to happen soon.

sigstoat 9y ago

> Google and Facebook have tenthousands of developers. And not just any devs, some of the best in the industry. Google and Facebook have tons of userdata for training ML models. and many of them are bent towards developing internal garbage, or services that you just don't need if you're not hoping to create huge monoliths. or, as others have pointed out, making the same service over and over. > How do you compete with that? having different goals reduces the extent to which you're competing, and different goals leads to different (possibly easier to satisfy) constraints.

s73v3r_ 9y ago

Most people don't worry about ML models or anything like that. They just want something that works, and works well. And, at least in the case of FB, something that their friends/relatives are also available on. You don't need open source devs working on the technical side; you need open source work done on the interface side. You need things that non-technically inclined people can pick up and use.