5 ms·

"But I'm..." A specific user from a niche geek website, a rounding error, an anecdote. I'm glad for those fighting against these walled garden overlords, but

by pnt12 5y ago

"But I'm..." A specific user from a niche geek website, a rounding error, an anecdote. I'm glad for those fighting against these walled garden overlords, but let's keep in mind we're talking about a side with thousands of people VS a side with billions of people. Numbers matter, and the fall of these giants is still far away. If anything, the battle is starting from recent anti-competition and privacy concerns in the public sphere, which is a good thing, but the public remains unaware of these niche distributed tools.

jwblackwell 5y ago
At first the internet was only used by weird geeks
- oblio 5y ago
  And now it's used by everyone.
atatatat 5y ago
You are a technology influencer, according to the research of those large companies. We are the ones who give the network effect to those services.
- oblio 5y ago
  And those same companies have entire departments, with huge budgets, to promote their stuff, draw people into them, discourage people from using those other services, buy out influencers, etc It's not a fair fight and it will never be. I wouldn't say it's completely lost, but it's not far.
  - atatatat 5y ago
    Signal was an impossible uphill battle on inception. Nothing in tech is impossible — it's far too new.
    - oblio 5y ago
      Signal hasn't "won" yet. Though it's good that it's close enough to be a viable alternative. On the other hand, isn't Signal backed by literal billionaires?
kixiQu 5y ago
This is really tricky because of course if I point to my non technical friends and family who use my Matrix instance, it's possible to say well that's just because they want to talk to the technical people on there, except that's the entire point of the comment you're replying to: the technical few act as the opinionated minority that can sway the majority once a switching cost is low enough. I think it's possible to believe both that this is a potential mechanism for change and that as you say, any victory is far away.
- cutemonster 5y ago
  Indeed, change might be ongoing, started already, and take 10+ or 20+ years (Took Facebook 8 years to reach 1 billion monthly active users)

by pnt12 5y ago

jwblackwell 5y ago

At first the internet was only used by weird geeks

oblio 5y ago
And now it's used by everyone.

atatatat 5y ago

You are a technology influencer, according to the research of those large companies. We are the ones who give the network effect to those services.

oblio 5y ago
And those same companies have entire departments, with huge budgets, to promote their stuff, draw people into them, discourage people from using those other services, buy out influencers, etc It's not a fair fight and it will never be. I wouldn't say it's completely lost, but it's not far.
- atatatat 5y ago
  Signal was an impossible uphill battle on inception. Nothing in tech is impossible — it's far too new.
  - oblio 5y ago
    Signal hasn't "won" yet. Though it's good that it's close enough to be a viable alternative. On the other hand, isn't Signal backed by literal billionaires?

kixiQu 5y ago

This is really tricky because of course if I point to my non technical friends and family who use my Matrix instance, it's possible to say well that's just because they want to talk to the technical people on there, except that's the entire point of the comment you're replying to: the technical few act as the opinionated minority that can sway the majority once a switching cost is low enough. I think it's possible to believe both that this is a potential mechanism for change and that as you say, any victory is far away.

cutemonster 5y ago
Indeed, change might be ongoing, started already, and take 10+ or 20+ years (Took Facebook 8 years to reach 1 billion monthly active users)