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Have you tried Mastodon? You still pay someone else to run the server (or not, if you prefer), you can just choose who you pay, and which server. Sending toots

Have you tried Mastodon? You still pay someone else to run the server (or not, if you prefer), you can just choose who you pay, and which server. Sending toots does not require that you set up your own infra, re: the email example. > People don't want to moderate themselves, they want a larger power to do it for them. It's why we have representative democracy instead of direct democracy: people don't want to be involved. This is commonly asserted, but I’ve never seen much evidence for it. Was a direct democracy given a good run in the US at some-point? Do I need communications with my friends to be moderated? Does this effect only kick-in when finding strangers, attempting to influence millions at once, or selling ads? Moderation decisions on Facebook and Twitter make headlines at the moment, it doesn’t seem to me that people don’t care, or don’t want to be heard. I agree with you that Mastodon is unlikely to ‘take-over’ Twitter or Facebook anytime soon. But that wouldn’t be my criteria for success.

wdewind 8y ago
> Have you tried Mastodon? Yes. > You still pay someone else to run the server (or not, if you prefer), you can just choose who you pay, and which server. Sending toots does not require that you set up your own infra, re: the email example. Right, you either pay with your time or your money, as opposed to FB for which you pay nothing at all. Specialization of labor reduces costs, federation increases them. > This is commonly asserted, but I’ve never seen much evidence for it. Was a direct democracy given a good run in the US at some-point? It's never been technically feasible, though the main issue has changed from scale to security. > I agree with you that Mastodon is unlikely to ‘take-over’ Twitter or Facebook anytime soon. But that wouldn’t be my criteria for success. I can understand why that wouldn't be your criteria for success, but it is mine.
- 40four 8y ago
  > as opposed to FB for which you pay nothing at all. What makes you think FB is free? Oh you pay for it alright, with your precious, precious data.
  - some_account 8y ago
    I'm stunned that people still today don't realize that there is no, big and centralized free services. How would that work on the company side? Who pays for giant servers and software development and maintenance? People are not too sharp in 2018.
    - wafflesraccoon 8y ago
      |...there is no, big and centralized free services. Wikipedia?
      - some_account 8y ago
        They are practically begging for donations. I wouldn't be surprised if they pay the bills from their own pockets.
    - wdewind 8y ago
      I resent the "not too sharp" comment, and the implication that I hadn't even considered the idea that you're paying with your data coming from all three of you. I'll respond here to all of you that responded generally with "you pay with your data, it's not free." Ok fine, but you don't know what you're paying with on Mastodon, because you have no idea what any one node might do with your data, because there is no centralized privacy policy. Not a problem, I'm sure you read the privacy policy of every website you join right? I'm also not sure why you assume a free, ad-based Mastodon service wouldn't exist as the network scaled. The network has like 100k active users. It's very much in 'virtue untested' territory.
      - 40four 8y ago
        That's fair it was a smart ass-ed comment, didn't mean to offend, but that one was tee'd up there, couldn't resist :) I haven't tried Mastadon yet, but the fact I can run my own server for my family or close friends at a very low cost seems very appealing. To me this seems like the most likely use case, I can't imagine just going around joining random nodes, so I'm not too woried about the "virtue" of the whole network. I'm happy to know that there is a solid, open source option like this out there.
- drb91 8y ago
  Well, facebook does collect your data and show ads to you. Hardly free at all. There’s a reason they refuse to charge.
- yborg 8y ago
  If your criteria for success is a large centralized for-profit monopoly, then of course Mastodon will never be successful, since that is the definition of failure in the context of the federated network. And since we have that now, you of course should be perfectly happy with the status quo.
  - wdewind 8y ago
    No, my criteria for success is a large network that is meaningfully better than FB, which we absolutely do not have and Mastodon will not deliver.

wdewind 8y ago

> Have you tried Mastodon? Yes. > You still pay someone else to run the server (or not, if you prefer), you can just choose who you pay, and which server. Sending toots does not require that you set up your own infra, re: the email example. Right, you either pay with your time or your money, as opposed to FB for which you pay nothing at all. Specialization of labor reduces costs, federation increases them. > This is commonly asserted, but I’ve never seen much evidence for it. Was a direct democracy given a good run in the US at some-point? It's never been technically feasible, though the main issue has changed from scale to security. > I agree with you that Mastodon is unlikely to ‘take-over’ Twitter or Facebook anytime soon. But that wouldn’t be my criteria for success. I can understand why that wouldn't be your criteria for success, but it is mine.

40four 8y ago
> as opposed to FB for which you pay nothing at all. What makes you think FB is free? Oh you pay for it alright, with your precious, precious data.
- some_account 8y ago
  I'm stunned that people still today don't realize that there is no, big and centralized free services. How would that work on the company side? Who pays for giant servers and software development and maintenance? People are not too sharp in 2018.
  - wafflesraccoon 8y ago
    |...there is no, big and centralized free services. Wikipedia?
    - some_account 8y ago
      They are practically begging for donations. I wouldn't be surprised if they pay the bills from their own pockets.
  - wdewind 8y ago
    I resent the "not too sharp" comment, and the implication that I hadn't even considered the idea that you're paying with your data coming from all three of you. I'll respond here to all of you that responded generally with "you pay with your data, it's not free." Ok fine, but you don't know what you're paying with on Mastodon, because you have no idea what any one node might do with your data, because there is no centralized privacy policy. Not a problem, I'm sure you read the privacy policy of every website you join right? I'm also not sure why you assume a free, ad-based Mastodon service wouldn't exist as the network scaled. The network has like 100k active users. It's very much in 'virtue untested' territory.
    - 40four 8y ago
      That's fair it was a smart ass-ed comment, didn't mean to offend, but that one was tee'd up there, couldn't resist :) I haven't tried Mastadon yet, but the fact I can run my own server for my family or close friends at a very low cost seems very appealing. To me this seems like the most likely use case, I can't imagine just going around joining random nodes, so I'm not too woried about the "virtue" of the whole network. I'm happy to know that there is a solid, open source option like this out there.
drb91 8y ago
Well, facebook does collect your data and show ads to you. Hardly free at all. There’s a reason they refuse to charge.
yborg 8y ago
If your criteria for success is a large centralized for-profit monopoly, then of course Mastodon will never be successful, since that is the definition of failure in the context of the federated network. And since we have that now, you of course should be perfectly happy with the status quo.
- wdewind 8y ago
  No, my criteria for success is a large network that is meaningfully better than FB, which we absolutely do not have and Mastodon will not deliver.