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How is adopting a niche tech standard being “culturally relevant”? The vast majority of people outside of tech simply do not know about, or care to know anythi

by brap 4y ago

How is adopting a niche tech standard being “culturally relevant”? The vast majority of people outside of tech simply do not know about, or care to know anything about ActivityPub. They only care about the value that these social platforms provide to them. It shouldn’t be surprising that the most valuable platforms (judging by usage) are centralized and proprietary. I can see the parallels between this and crypto. Cool tech, but not what people want. This isn’t being “culturally relevant”, quite the opposite. This is catering to a small niche. If anything, this smells like desperation from Tumblr who was once a juggernaut in the social media space.

jtode 4y ago
Most of the culture is irrelevant, so being culturally relevant is overrated anyways. This is just smart. I think when this all shakes out, most people are still going to be on a Meta-like platform run by a for-profit company, but one which has capitulated to opening up a pipe into and out of the garden so that those with the ability to manage their own data are able to do so. Tumblr apparently believes the same (it's one of the scenarios where they don't turn into Yahoo's directory of internet websites and eventually have to sell their server room to Private Equity frat bros, so of course they do), and they have correctly identified that ActivityPub is the champion of this moment of upheaval. Implementing it with the resources of a full-on platform has always been trivial; it's not already there because they have all been playing the "move into our company town and use all our company services or we don't want you" game, and AP murders that model. If someone points me in the direction of a bookie who will take the bet, I'll bet twenty bucks at any odds that within five years, AP (or something that does exactly the same thing) is either free or available as a premium feature on every social media site that is, as you say, culturally relevant.
- chriswarbo 4y ago
  > I think when this all shakes out, most people are still going to be on a Meta-like platform run by a for-profit company, but one which has capitulated to opening up a pipe into and out of the garden so that those with the ability to manage their own data are able to do so. Reality has gone the exact opposite way: Facebook accounts used to accept email, and their chat used to interoperate with XMPP. Both features helped them grow, and were switched off once they'd reached a dominant position. Twitter followed a similar path, with many third-party clients and other projects built around their API (plus native support for SMS). Once they grew, those APIs were removed or restricted, to funnel users into official clients (which display ads). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace,_extend,_and_extinguish https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace,_extend,_and_extinguis...

by brap 4y ago

jtode 4y ago

Most of the culture is irrelevant, so being culturally relevant is overrated anyways. This is just smart. I think when this all shakes out, most people are still going to be on a Meta-like platform run by a for-profit company, but one which has capitulated to opening up a pipe into and out of the garden so that those with the ability to manage their own data are able to do so. Tumblr apparently believes the same (it's one of the scenarios where they don't turn into Yahoo's directory of internet websites and eventually have to sell their server room to Private Equity frat bros, so of course they do), and they have correctly identified that ActivityPub is the champion of this moment of upheaval. Implementing it with the resources of a full-on platform has always been trivial; it's not already there because they have all been playing the "move into our company town and use all our company services or we don't want you" game, and AP murders that model. If someone points me in the direction of a bookie who will take the bet, I'll bet twenty bucks at any odds that within five years, AP (or something that does exactly the same thing) is either free or available as a premium feature on every social media site that is, as you say, culturally relevant.

chriswarbo 4y ago
> I think when this all shakes out, most people are still going to be on a Meta-like platform run by a for-profit company, but one which has capitulated to opening up a pipe into and out of the garden so that those with the ability to manage their own data are able to do so. Reality has gone the exact opposite way: Facebook accounts used to accept email, and their chat used to interoperate with XMPP. Both features helped them grow, and were switched off once they'd reached a dominant position. Twitter followed a similar path, with many third-party clients and other projects built around their API (plus native support for SMS). Once they grew, those APIs were removed or restricted, to funnel users into official clients (which display ads). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace,_extend,_and_extinguish https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace,_extend,_and_extinguis...